Who Do I Serve
- Deacon Dan DeLuca
- Nov 10, 2022
- 5 min read
Who do I serve? Is that a question you have asked yourself? If not, I would recommend that you spend time with this question in prayer. What you may find is that you are serving a what and not a who. Our Lord tells us that we can only serve one master. That master needs to be him. However, soo many things compete for our attention that it is possible that something else has taken his place. As we read this Gospel, let us pray for the wisdom to discern who it is that we serve.
The Parable of the Dishonest Manager (Conclusion)
And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations. “He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they scoffed at him. But he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts; for what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. Luke 16 : 9-15
Scriptural Analysis
The Parable of the Dishonest Manager concludes with Jesus telling the disciples to take care of planning wisely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Earthly wealth will eventually fail. Thus a wise steward who is prudent will paradoxically give away wealth and forgive debts. In doing so, they will be enacting Jesus’s jubilee year of mercy.
Now the focus shifts from only being prudent to being faithful, a quality the dishonest steward was lacking. Jesus explains how God expects wealth to be used so as to receive your true reward in heaven The parallelism expressed in the saying, “If then you have not been faithful” suggests that the true owner of one’s wealth is actually God. When we being to think that we own our wealth, that we are the source of it, the temptation then is to trust in that wealth rather than God.
The word mammon likely derives from a Hebrew word meaning that in which one trusts. However, one can’t serve two masters. Those who trust in wealth are in effect serving mammon as if it were a God. A faithful steward will take care of all that God entrusts to them sharing generously what they have been given with others. They understand that God is the source of the wealth and they are to use it in accordance with his decrees.
The Pharisees, who were close by and loved money, ridiculed Jesus. It is likely they thought that this parable was addressed to them. Jesus addresses them. He tells them that they have placed their trust and thus their heart in the wrong thing. God knows their heart and they will be made low in the end. Jesus uses the strong word abomination to describe the Pharisees likely because their love of money causes them to be dishonest. Abomination is also typically used to refer to the worship of false Gods, “The graven images of their gods you shall burn with fire; you shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, or take it for yourselves, lest you be ensnared by it; for it is an abomination to the Lord your God.” (Deuteronomy 7:25) The Pharisees made money their God.
Daily Application
This parable contains one of the more often quoted lines in scripture, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” Sadly, that familiarity has caused this verse to go unheeded. However, the message of this statement from Jesus is quite clear. You can have only one master at a time. The question that we must all ask ourselves is, who is my master? Who do I serve?
We often see this teaching used to argue that one can’t be wealthy. If one is wealthy then the wealth will prevent them from entering heaven but that is not at all what God is saying here. Wealth in and of itself is neither good nor bad. The challenge with wealth is that it often causes the person who is wealthy to treat it as a God, to serve that wealth. People begin to believe more in their own abilities to control their life, to generate wealth for themselves, and that pushes God out of their life. They put their faith and trust in themselves.
This is certainly the case for modern American society. As a whole, we have become more and more secular the more and more our material prosperiity has grown and our scientific understanding has increased. This has made it possible for more and more things to compete for our attention, to become our priority. For example, consider how many youth sports leagues have taken to playing or practicing on Sunday: some on Sunday mornings when people used to be at Church. What is worse, families with multiple kids are often separated as parents take children to different locations. The commandment to keep Holy the Sabbath has been pushed aside.
One of the more practical steps you can take to asses who you serve is to look at where you are not spending your time. Simply looking at where you spend your time won’t necessarily give you the full picture. Most working people spend a good chunk of their time working each week but that doesn’t mean you are serving money. However, if your time spent working has resulted in you spending very little time praying then perhaps work has become your master. If you regularly miss your children’s events or miss Mass because of work then perhaps you are a servant of work.
Ultimately we can serve only one master. It is not possible to serve two. We will either serve the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords or something else, something far less desirable will take his place. Serving Christ has to be a conscious decision as it is far too easy for something else to take his place. Each and every day we must wake up and decide, who will I serve today.
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