You Can’t Serve Both

God and Mammon

You can’t sere both God and Mammon. Why not? And more importantly what is Mammon? Or is mammon a who? And most importantly, if Jesus is saying we should not worry about economic insecurity, and have faith in the Hand of Providence, how can faith ease the pain of an empty belly? How can God who is real, but immaterial, provide for our material needs?

The word Mammon comes from Latin mammona, which itself comes from Greek mamon, which itself was actually borrowed from Aramaic, specifically a Syrian dialect, we think. It’s meaning is an emphatic form of the word for wealth or profit. Some linguistic scholars hold that the word may have still older origins in Early Rabbinic Hebrew, the same language of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and may have meant, “riches, wealth,” or “that in which one trusts.” How interesting. I wonder whether this word was ever etched into the currency of First Century Judea. Imagine the phrase “In Mammon We Trust” with Caesar’s head on it.

It would be important not to confuse our English word mammon and the Spanish slang word mamón, which is often used as an insult. Let’s just say if you choose to Google it later, wait until after your kids go to bed. Well, okay, since it’s only us here, I’ll give you a etymological hint. In Spanish, mamón is related to the word mamá, which actually has two meanings: “mother,” as well as “one who nurses.” So when someone hurls an insult in Spanish and pejoratively calls someone else a “sucker,” it implies that person, well, sucks. Okay, enough of that.

In the Middle Ages, many writers personified mammon into a demon ruling over wealth and greed. One of the best-known versions of this could be from Paradise Lost where Milton describes Mammon (with a Capital M) as “a fallen angel who values earthly treasure over all other things.” Mammon is often depicted as a wolf or wolf-human hybrid. Thomas Aquinas metaphorically described the sin of Avarice as "Mammon being carried up from Hell by a wolf, coming to inflame the human heart with Greed.”

So why does Jesus say to his disciples, "No one can serve two masters/They will either hate one and love the other/or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”?

The most straightforward interpretation would be not to idolize money. Some scholars use a literal translation of the Greek word douleuein, which in our translation was “to serve” two masters, but the literal meaning is more like “be a slave to.” And that makes more sense, because a servant who is a hired employee, has options, right? Someone with free will could choose to work for one employer part time and a different employer at other times. But a slave would not have this option. Slaves are dependent on the master, and can only change masters if sold in a transaction to a new master.

So Jesus is inviting us to consider, to metaphorically step into the shoes of a slave, so to speak. Jesus asks us to imagine being completely dependent on a higher power. Of course this is incredibly difficult to do. We are human beings who have material needs. We have hungry bellies that ache. We have bodies that get cold at night. We are needy. So how can we depend on God?

Can God fill up our bellies? Can God keep us warm when it’s cold outside? Well, no, I guess. Not directly anyway. But, as Jesus points out, neither does worrying. Worrying doesn’t lengthen our lives. And then Jesus says, “Learn from the way the wild flowers grow/They do not work or spin/But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor/was clothed like one of them.” Even if we had gourmet food to fill us up, and a heated mattress to sleep on at night, we would still be dependent on God.

Life does not get any easier for the wealthy. Imagine someone who got all the wealth and power he ever dreamed of. Is his life worry-free? It may be “Yuge! Such a great life! Nobody ever had a bigger life, believe me.” But what good is such a life if it is God-less?

 “Seek first the kingdom of God and all righteousness, and all these things will be given unto you. Alleluia.” Instead “Rest alone in God” our souls.

But how? How can God who is real, but immaterial, provide for our material needs? The answer is… I don’t know. And neither do you. And neither does anyone else except for God. But even if I cannot say “how.” How is a mystery. But I can say something even better than how. I can say why.

In the second reading today, Jesus says we should think of ourselves as “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” What a beautiful and awesome responsibility. As servants, we should be worthy of trust. Notice the word here for servants is diakonia, It is a word with many meanings, but one meaning signifies what one might do at a table. To feed another. This implies a relationship based on trust, does it not? So let us, each of us, each one of us, “serve” Christ by feeding one another. By striving to do for one another as Christ demonstrated in the gift of Eucharist.

Just as it takes faith in God to manage our anxieties about getting our physical needs like food, drink, and clothing met. We must keep in mind all we do in service to Christ and to one another is ultimately a process that will be judged by God alone, not any human tribunal. If we work at serving and caring for the needs of one another we will made worthy of God.

And guess what. We already are. I’ll conclude with today’s first reading which reminds us that God loves us, each and every one of us, even more than the love a mother has for a child. And for any of us who ever had a less than perfect mother, God says, “even is she forgets you, I will not forget you.”