You Cannot Serve God And Mammon

A while back, I was flipping through the channels on TV early in the morning, and ran across one of the prosperity gospel preachers. The theme with them is that if you are living your life well, God will reward you with wealth on this earth. This preacher was trying to reconcile the fact that Jesus states that we should not store up treasures on earth with the idea that you should be materially wealthy. He states that what Jesus meant was when we are in heaven, we don’t need any treasure, so when we do good works God stores up treasure for us from the good things that we do and then, He will give it to us on earth in the form of a good spouse, nice house, nice car, etc.

My reaction to that, is according to that logic, the Colombian drug lords must have been really good, because they have great treasure on earth, while all of those other people in developing countries must be horrible people, since their lives are a financial struggle. This idea basically states that God is the giant ATM in the sky who gives us money and houses and airplanes because we are good.

Umm … NO.

Jesus follows this up with the statement “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” and “You cannot serve God and mammon.” Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being wealthy, money is only a tool, in so many ways, each of us are wealthy. In fact, most parishes benefit greatly from the wealthy, because they tend to have more disposable income to be able to donate to larger projects. So, yes, money is just like any other tool that we use. Instead of trading objects, we now use currency to be able to store our wealth easier.

Even the idea of being rich is a matter of perspective, depending on who you are, your needs, where you live, and many other factors. The median yearly income for the US is around $43,000 but, the worldly median income is $9,700, and in Liberia it is $781. Could you imagine trying to live on $781 a year? So, in the end, it is really not about wealth, it is about what we do with it.

I am always concerned when someone states that you can tell how morally good or bad someone is by how wealthy they are, because that is not the point of faith. The point is to bring us to the glory of heaven, where there is no need of anything else. God gives us many different tools in our lives to store up treasures in heaven. He gives us wealth and abilities so that we can share them with others. He also gives us other gifts so that we use those as well to show the kingdom of God to all we meet.

Fr. Ken