Serving destruction

 This week's verses are Luke 16:13-15:

No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

The Pharisees (who loved money) heard all this and ridiculed him. But Jesus said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in men’s eyes, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly prized among men is utterly detestable in God’s sight.

These verses always make me smile a bit because I work in regulated industries. It is not uncommon for people in my position to have two reporting chains to ensure we are free from being pressured into making unethical decisions. The analogy is true. With two bosses, we can pick and choose who we will obey, and which path is preferable to us: the path of truth or the path of corruption.

This week's verses come after Jesus shares the parable about the corrupt steward who has been embezzling money from his boss' customers. The steward effectively had two bosses: his boss he worked for, and his love for money. He chose to obey the love of money, and his boss he worked for rightfully fired him. 

It works the same way with our relationship with our boss God. If we start serving another boss instead, he's going to make us accountable for it. Do we love God when we ignore him to satisfy our desires or to please some other person? Is he our true boss if we pay more attention to our ideology than we do to what he tells us?

When Jesus said that we can't serve God and money, the Pharisees had contempt for him. They ridiculed him! I can imagine what they must have said: "Really? So this God who gave us all of this money doesn't want us to enjoy it? Really? So you're saying we should give up money then? So you're saying God wants us to be miserable and poor?" They believed, as many of us do today, that the amount of money someone had was evidence of God's favor on their life

It's a reasonable assumption to have. Like the Pharisees, we love money. So someone who has seemingly been given tons of something they love must be doing the right thing, right? It is logical. 

But what if you can't get rid of it because it has an iron grip on you? What if it keeps you awake at night, threatening to leave and take your comforts with it if you don't make certain sacrifices? "Maybe you don't need to share so much with people in need." "Maybe you don't need to spend so much time caring for the people you love, if it means working fewer hours." "Maybe you should fire some people, raise some prices, lie a bit on your taxes, or whatever it takes to avoid having to suffer the shame of moving to a smaller place or of taking the kids out of that prestigious school." In that case, the money is a tyrant and you are its slave!

Amidst the ridicule, Jesus cuts right to the point: "You are the ones who justify yourselves in men's eyes, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly prized among men is utterly detestable in God's sight." What is money, if not the symbolic approval of mankind? When you do things people that people like, you get more of it. When you need a favor, you have to give some up. God didn't make money. Man did, so he wouldn't have to remember who owed a favor to whom.

What is prized for us is utterly detestable in God's sight. We dream of being rich or famous. We dream of illicit sex, of lavish vacations, of the approval of our peers, a little promotion, a few more followers, and so on. But are there prizes in heaven for that? Is God going to say "Well done, good and faithful servant" because you skipped church to "be a team player and finish that important powerpoint presentation for Tuesday's meeting?" To the extent that we love these things and let them rule over us and abuse us, God finds them utterly detestable.

You cannot serve God and money at the same time. Or any of those other things. It's OK to like money, and to have money, and to earn money, and to ask for money for your services. That's all part of living in the society we were born into. Where the danger comes is when the use of money turns into an infatuation with money and then becomes a kind of addiction or dependency that rules over us like a tyrant.

We might be hooked if, when people ask us to be suspicious of our own motives, we dismiss them the way the Pharisees dismissed Jesus. "No, I'm good; I tithe. Why are you so judgmental?" God knows what is in your heart. But do *you* know what is in there?

We have a choice between serving God and serving our own destruction. We don't always choose wisely. Remember, the Pharisees genuinely thought they were the "good" people. Meditate on these verses this week and see if they show you where you are held back from doing what God wants of you by something you cherish more.