September 23, 2007

by The Rev. Constance Jones

“ . . . the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. No slave can serve two masters. . . You cannot serve God and wealth [Mammon].” Luke 16:1-13

Yes, I know, the New Revised Standard translation that we read in church
says you can’t serve both wealth and God,
but when I heard this passage read in my childhood
they used the old Hebrew word “Mammon.”
I imagined a pagan idol like Molech,
something breathing fire and eating little children,
or one of the terrifying beasts from the book of Revelation,
a creature that might appear in a bad dream.

This parable is complicated,
but the temptation to make an idol of wealth and worldly things isn’t hard to grasp.
We are to serve God, not the things of this world.

But there’s a catch, isn’t there?
It’s that we are in this world, made of its stuff,
given its material to use for good or evil,
and unable to live without it.
Not even saints and monks are exempt.
Fast for a while, but you can’t live without food.
Live frugally and responsibly, but the light bill and the taxes have to be paid.
Be humble and gentle,
but don’t imagine that you hold no power in your hands – every hour of the day. Consider yourself a spirit that happens to have a body,
but try telling that to your to your leg when you’ve fallen and broken it,
and you can’t reach the telephone.

It is worth remembering that God made the physical world and called it good,
and that God loved the world so much
that he sent his Son to take on a human and physical existence
in order to redeem the world.

This morning at Grace Church we will receive two beautiful and beloved children
into the church family, the body of Christ.
They will be baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
and with a handful of water.
They will be marked as Christ’s own forever
with the sign of the cross on their foreheads.
We will say a prayer for them that God will give them inquiring and discerning hearts, the courage to will and to persevere,
and the spirit to know and love and serve God.
They will be claimed by God forever.

Yet they will live in this world all their lives.
They’ll join all of us in occupying that in-between time:
between when we have been claimed as Christ’s own –
and when the whole world will be reconciled to God.
In this meantime we are called to negotiate our way
among the things of this world.
By prayer and discipleship, by participating in Christ’s body, the church,
by the nourishment we receive at this Table,
and by the grace of God, we discern our way
as what Jesus calls “children of light”

These two newest Christians, are spirits claimed by God forever.
But their selves and souls and bodies will hold
so many worldly things that can be used for the light or for the dark.
Technologies of science and information.
Building materials and words.
Mutual funds and paychecks.
Cell phones and petroleum products.
The US Constitution. The Bible.
Their intelligence and their education and their reputation.
Sexuality, intelligence, and the right to vote.
The institutional church.
And the days and hours of their lives.

In all this it’s no use saying, I will keep myself from all worldly things.
There’s no exemption even for monks.
Why do you think Jesus spent so much time talking about money,
and harvests, and commanders of armies,
and who eats with whom at which end of the table?
The children of light must live and act in this very real world.
And if it’s a little extreme for personify temptation away from God
as a monster called Mammon,
the image works for me.
We who’ve been around the block a few times know that
resisting temptations to follow other gods than God is a perpetual struggle.

Since Carleton’s return from his sabbatical
he’s thrown down something of a challenge to us.
He says, If we begin with “Grace Heals,” then what comes next?
What does God’s healing look like, and what is its product?

There are a hundred possible answers I am sure,
as we continue this conversation.

But on a fall Sunday when we have a Gospel lesson
about the use of money and the things of this world,
and when we celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism, I offer this one thought.

The grace and healing of God are made visible in Baptism,
as we are consecrated for holiness in this world, as children of light.
We go on to use the real things that are in our hands,
in the real situations of our lives,
as people transformed by grace.

We won’t live perfectly, but we will live differently.
Hold the things of this world more lightly, perhaps.
Be more grateful for them, but give them away more readily.
Do our tasks more humbly, remembering we aren’t God,
and giving the outcomes into God’s hands.

I recall a great scene in that classic old movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Jimmy Stewart’s character George Bailey
has just been rescued from a freezing river on a snowy night
by his guardian angel Clarence.
George is despairing because his bungling brother has just lost $8,000,
and the family savings & loan is almost forfeit to the meanest man in town, Mr. Potter --
who’s a good enough image of Mammon if you ask me.
In his desperation, George said a prayer asking for God’s help,
and here is Clarence the angel.

In the scene I am remembering
George and Clarence are drying their clothes by a wood-stove.
George is surprised to be alive and skeptical about Clarence.
“If you’re an angel, you wouldn’t happen to have $8000, would you?”

Clarence bumbles and chuckles self-deprecatingly. No, he says, sorry.
“We don’t use money You Know Where.”

“Well,” George says, glowering at Clarence,
“it comes in pretty handy down here, Bub!”

It’s more than just handy, isn’t it, even in the church?
It’s necessary.
In any case, money is in our hands whether we like it or not.
Along with influence, and all the other powerful materials of this world.
We can even use a Savings & Loan for the good of the community
or for the sake of evil, like Mr Potter did.

And it will be a struggle.
Temptation will bid us to run away, or choose the wrong path,
or even on occasion to jump off a snowy bridge.
It will take shrewdness and the willingness to use the tools at our disposal.
We will even use our checkbooks credit cards as an instrument of our Baptism.
We’ll have to make decisions where neither option seems wholly good.
We’ll walk into places so dark and painful
it’s hard to believe that God is present.
Well use instruments we feel it is audacious to ask God to bless,
and we’ll ask for God’s protection when we feel Mammon’s temptation
breathing down our neck.

But we will walk as children of light,
for we have been marked as Christ’s own in baptism,
redeemed, forgiven, and called.

I wonder.
Where will the mark of Baptism on your forehead take me and you?

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