The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity – Sunday 17 September A✠D 2023
✠ Psalmody: Psalm 86:1a, 2b, 3;86:4, 6, 15a, 16;118:8-9;57:7
✠ Lection: 1 Kings 17:8–16;Galatians 5:25—6:10;Matt. 6:24–34
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.” The Lord Jesus makes it explicitly clear what two masters we sinners commonly try to have and serve simultaneously: God and mammon, that is, money. What does it mean to serve mammon? None other than to look to it for your good and happiness; in other words, to make it your god. To serve the Lord and make Him Master is to worship Him and Him alone as the true and only source for all that you need and all that your Christian heart could even want, for you cannot serve both God and mammon. Indeed, the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows, but even if one is not enslaved to greed, money, or the love of it, there is still a dangerous temptation about which all are to be aware.
The worship of money, and all the goodies we come to love that can be gained by having it, has regular downstream effects that are also no good: worry. Worry comes about when the things that we’re used to getting by money become threatened. But that is not all, for no matter if we’re rich or poor, or have no real concern over things money-related at all because we’ve grown up or come to respect it as a useful, but deadly tool, worry itself still poses a problem for us. Worry, regardless of its cause, is sin, because the same issue underlies both the love of money and worry, and that issue is not trusting God. The First Commandment teaches that you shall have no other Gods, meaning we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things, even the things that we think we should worry about. It includes the known and the unknown; the past, present, and especially the future. The First Petition of the Lord’s Prayer says Our Father Who art in heaven, meaning that with these words God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father and that we are His true children, so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear Father; that we may ask Him for every need, every concern, every anxious thought, that we may trust Him to tend to everything as only He can. To trust in mammon means that your full trust isn’t in God to provide. If you trust and feel secure because of what is in your bank account, either built up or regularly deposited there, or if you think that you would and could feel more secure if you only had lots of money in your bank account since it’s not bulging to your wished-for level, then you are trusting and serving mammon and not God. He chooses to bless or to withhold and His children delight in all His choices for He is all-wise and all-loving, especially to those who love and trust in Him. We are wise to pray the words of Proverbs 30: Two things I request of You (Deprive me not before I die): Remove falsehood and lies far from me; Give me neither poverty nor riches— Feed me with the food allotted to me; Lest I be full and deny You, And say, “Who is the LORD?” Or lest I be poor and steal, And profane the name of my God. Likewise, if you worry about what will happen in any regard, money-related or not, it also means that your full trust isn’t in God to provide and both scenarios, worry over money and worry over situation, are denials of Who He is and Who He desires to be to you and for you in all scenarios, in all places, at all times. The problem is the same for each type of worry, which is why Jesus teaches us that if we are going to look to tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, then we mustn’t do it with worry about what might or might not happen, not only because most of the time we are wrong in our worry about what may happen, but because we’re instead to look ahead into the unknown with trust in He Whom we do know, Who has secured our futures with good in them.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. This means that Jesus calls you to live in the present, because the present is the only reality about which you can actually do anything. We’re to make wise preparations for tomorrow and the days beyond, for it is by the sweat of our brow that we shall eat in this fallen world. This we know, but as for all that we do not know, we trust God, we rest better, and we sleep well. We trust the words of Psalm 8: I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; For You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety. Jesus warns you about what you will rob yourself of if you spend your time worrying. None of us knows the future. But He knows and He directs it in His mighty power always for your good. None of us can prepare entirely for what tomorrow will bring, but regardless of what joy or trial He allows to come, we can do all things through Christ Who strengthens us. He is the One Who goes with us into every present moment as He gives them to us to experience. He knows all that will come and He knows what we will need in each of those moments. Your Father in heaven is faithful to provide and does not abandon those for whom His only-begotten Son died. He died not for the salvation of the birds of the air or the lilies of the field, yet look how they go about their days without worry while receiving exactly what they need from the Creator while neither sowing nor reaping nor storing up in fridge or cupboard. Are you not of more value than they? The answer is a resounding and expected YES, you are!
To be of little faith is to cling to a worldly master to any degree, be it money, government, fear itself, the media, worry, the list can be extensive of the idols that constantly pound away at you, beckoning you to bow down and serve them, trying to bring you to worry about what you might not have tomorrow and thus not trust God. Do not forget He from Whom all that you have, do, and ever have comes. Look not to what you do or don’t have, but seriously consider how those things contribute or cause you not to trust in God above all things. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” That’s what God Himself promises you, that if you seek the kingdom of God, if you seek Jesus and all that He has for you, forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, then all these things will be added to you. God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving so that we grow more and more to see for ourselves that He is trustworthy. For He gives not only the needs of the body when we are prone to worry about what we shall eat, or what we shall drink, or what we shall wear. God provides for us in soul, too, in giving us the peace which surpasses all understanding; peace that counters this world; peace that counters the lure of mammon; peace that calms the worrisome heart. The Kingdom of God gives eternal provision as we eat immortality in the Body of Christ, when we drink forgiveness of sins in the Blood of Christ, and when we put on the righteousness of Christ in our Holy Baptism. These true and everlasting gifts that benefit us into the future unto all eternity are what give us such splendid present rewards. By them we live in sure hope. By them we live in sure trust in the One Who provides them to us. He has provided forevermore all things that we need. He has shown Himself trustworthy in the past.
He is here now in our midst doing the same and since time immortal belongs to Him, we know that He will provide in the future. We need no other gods, especially not the false ones of mammon and worry. Do not be enticed by their temptation in your flesh to trust in them for happiness, for joy, or for security. They will utterly fail you. God and His righteousness never will. Sow in confidence accordingly, for whatever you sow, that you will also reap. Sow not to the flesh, but to the Spirit and reap the things that you even yet know not that you need. The Lord will provide.
The Lord give us wisdom and conviction to see where we seek to serve God and mammon or give worry a foothold in our minds. The Lord grant us repentance to seek first Him and His righteousness, glorious gifts beyond all measure and worth. The Lord stir up delight in us by His Holy Spirit for to entrust our days and burdens to Him is to be set free from bondage to mammon and worry.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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