"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."
- Matthew 6:24
To understand it, though, we have to recognize that being in service to a master doesn't look like a job we might have today where we can resign and leave the job, or leave work early if we aren't feeling good, or take 2 weeks paid vacation. The service that Jesus is referring to is that of a slave that has lost all control over his life. In a position of slavery, it is impossible to have more than one master because at some point, the two masters' orders are going to conflict. At that point, the slave would have to choose which to obey and which to disobey. "He will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other." There is no other way around it.
When it's viewed from the perspective of slavery, it is a very easy, indeed, to understand, when Jesus makes the transition to, "You cannot serve God and wealth."
But, thankfully, we don't live in a slave society any more. The masters we choose in the form of bosses are just that...the masters we choose. We demand certain rights in the work place, paid vacation, benefits, and flexible hours, or else we begin the search for a new master/ job opening. Maybe the blessing of our lack of first hand knowledge about slavery is also a curse when it comes to our Christianity because without that understanding of slavery, we seem to be able to gloss over this insight by Jesus and pretend that we can in fact serve not just two, but several masters, the greatest of which, of course, is God.
We serve the master of a good education.
We serve the masters called coaches.
We serve the master of financial peace of mind subtly called insurance and retirement plans.
We serve the master of selfishness and sloth in front of a T.V. thinly disguised as "me-time."
We serve the master of mammon (the KJV translation of "wealth" above) that is really just possessions, as we build bigger and bigger storage buildings and closets to hold all of our stuff that later gets sold in a yard sale or given to Goodwill.
We serve the master of popularity as we say what we think people want to hear.
We serve so many different masters every day.
But of course. We also serve our Master and Savior, God.
And we serve Him more than the others...or at least we try to.
That's what we tell ourselves. But Jesus knew a long time ago what that type of splintered devotion would do. It would force people claiming to be slaves to righteousness to choose at different times between God and whatever other master happens to be beckoning. Jesus knew that it is impossible to serve two masters. We have to choose.
Unfortunately, today we don't understand slavery. We pretend like we are not slaves to those things that are dividing our loyalties to God. But think back for a minute about the times you have said "no" to a prompting inside you to do something good because you feared for your physical, financial, or emotional safety. Think back in your life about the times you have said "no" to good works or to edifying the body of Christ because you had work or homework, or even your favorite show to watch. Think about the times you have given in to the temptation to gossip. Think about how much stuff you have in your closet that was used once if ever. If those things were not our masters, then we would have absolutely no problem saying no to them when their urgings differed from the urgings of the Spirit. The very fact that we were tempted by them, much less have given in to them so often, betrays the fact that our loyalties are still divided between "God and mammon."
People talk all of the time about why Christianity in America is on the decline. I think this issue is the reason. We (myself included) have too many masters when Jesus said there could only be one. It's not that those things listed above are bad things or even that they are not necessary things to think about. It's that they have become our masters. Because we have let them become our masters, we have not shown those outside the faith what it means to truly be a follower of Christ, and in many cases, we, ourselves have not learned to be followers of Christ. The result of this is a lack-luster faith that focuses on self instead of others, safety instead of faithful risky obedience, comfort instead of justice, and preference instead of deference. We have watered down the gospel call from "deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me" to "be a better person than the person next to you, punch your attendance card, and talk about going to heaven." And the call has been watered down so much that people don't like the taste of it any more. We have lost our saltiness.
I pray that I'm wrong...but I fear that I'm right as I look around the nation and as I inspect my own life. I pray that God will work a miracle and restore the saltiness to us even after we have lost our flavor because we are so watered down.
I've told you some of my masters. What are yours? If we are going to be followers of Christ, then we must all pick one and forsake all others. Will you?
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