“WHAT YOU DRINK AND WHAT YOU EAT”
Saint Matthew 6: 24-34
15th Sunday after Trinity: 9 September Anno Domini 2018
Father Jay Watson SSP
The Lord is not giving you proverbial aphorisms. This is not helpful “Dr. Phil” fortune-cookie tips for more successful living. Your life is In Christ. You will die and The Lord wants you to die IN HIM even as you were already buried with Him in your Holy + Washing.
“No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other…ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
The Christ is not talking about your vocation, avocation, profession, or even God-created family position. You can work multiple jobs and be loyal and valuable to both the Insurance agency and McDonalds; to both the Law Firm and the college; to both your spouse and your children. And though “mammon” refers to earthly goods and services, we correctly tend to think of it as money, possessions, and the covetous lure of wealth, ease, or at least the comfort of earthly security. It’s what you trust in.
What does this mean? Well, Jesus is not mentioning Satan outright, is He? The Lord is not saying “You have to choose between serving God or serving the devil.” How many of His followers, how many of you, would stop and ponder that alternative…hmm? Jesus has given you, and His entire Church, The Word of The Lord—His Word. You have the Law. You do not do the Law. You try to forget that fact, change the topic, quibble over meanings and definitions, compare yourselves to others, make excuses (that’s called self-justification), and just move quickly on to cheap grace and choruses of “Jesus loves me this I know.”
And there is the key. The blinding light of the Crucifix causes you at times to avert your eyes and instead look to the comforting fog of your own inner breast. The “mammon” that Jesus is referring to is your own heart, your own inner self. The two masters are the same two masters that Adam had to choose between: God, and himself. That’s the only choice you have. And it only NOW applies to you as a converted New Creation. You didn’t have a choice when Christ loved you—loved you before He even created you, or, created the universe. You didn’t have a choice when Jesus picked up your dead little filth-encrusted corpse and carried you to His heart, His + cool-water, still water, Font. There you had no choice or cooperation, in Him cleaning you off, breathing life into your frame, clothing you with His own spotless raiment, and giving you to eat and drink of His precious Word, and His very Body and Blood. But now you have a choice like the Israelites had a choice after they had been saved from Pharaoh: follow God or return to slavery.
The Lord knows you’re scared. He understands that your sinful flesh not only fails, but can’t but fail. But He still loves you and give you Himself. He wants you to fight, to struggle to stay on the narrow way, to keep on running the race even when it feels like your feet are swollen and bloody, and your lungs are burning with fiery pain. He knows that feeling. You know He knows. He also is cognizant that you fear not having enough food, shelter, clothing, and “mammonly” resources to provide for yourself and your loved ones. He is totally aware, Godly aware, of what you need and of how you deal daily with fear and anxiety.
The only choice you have is whether to drown your sinful nature every day with the aid, assistance, and power of The Holy Ghost. You are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses that pray for you and delight in you when you are constrained to “be what you are,” Christ’s precious brothers and sisters. You are surrounded by Jesus in His Word and Sacraments. Eat, Drink, read, meditate, inwardly digest, The Messiah where He is “for you.”
As important as Solomon was, there is the Greater Solomon, the True Peace which passes all understanding, in your very midst this morning. Solomon was dressed as a King, but you, as royal family members, are dressed by The King, fed and ornamented with The King. The Lilies of the valley, of Sharon, are beautiful, but oh so temporary. You, incensed with the Easter Lillie of Christ’s Resurrected Flesh have your own flesh made immortal.
And when you fail, when you “seek not, the Kingdom of God,” when you take thought of yourself and not God and your neighbor; when you have little faith; take heart. The King who gave His Body for you on Calvary, the King that let His own Body be cast into the oven of suffering and death, the King that allowed His own stature to be cut and pierced, comes for you. Jesus takes you to Himself. All righteousness is given you.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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