Who’s in Charge Here? - Matthew 6:24-34 (CEV)

I wonder about this passage. Being the child of a materialistic culture, the wealthiest the world has ever produced, I have always been taught that the accumulation of things was a sign of the good life. And more, that the more things you own, the better proof of your goodness as a person.

The poor you have with you always - Jesus told Judas. They are the godless ones; or so we assume. Say “welfare” and immediately, images come forth of worthless women having babies in order to collect money from the state - surely an evil practice and one worthy of our scorn.

We are Calvinist and we believe we are saved by faith, not by good works. The Calvinist pushed the logic of that belief a step further and declared that God alone knows who will be saved because God alone chooses the “elect”. Work for salvation all you want, your efforts are pointless.

But — since God is a just God, stern in judgment and always fair, he surely would not allow a bad person to be prosperous. That defies logic. We cannot prosper without the implied blessing of God.

Well, what a convenient logic! If one prospers, one automatically must be good - it makes sense. Add to this logic the theory of evolution - what we call social Darwinism - and you can be happy in the knowledge that only the fittest survive. Those who survive and prosper must be the elite, the creme de la creme.

Which all adds up to one thing - material goods do matter. They are a barometric reading of our spiritual condition. We live in a prosperous country. We are prosperous ourselves. Therefore, we must be good.
Only Calvin didn’t say this, and neither did Jesus. Calvin said such worldly prosperity was no guarantee of holiness, it was a blind chance, nothing more. He knew wealthy men and he knew that wealth - what Paul called the love of money - is the root of all evil. Read a history of the builders of the transcontinental railroad, for instance, and you will discover these men were rascals to the core. They not only showed no mercy for their neighbors, they saw no point in such mercy. Selfishness and greed was their rule and they lived by it.

Jesus also knew how corrupting material goods can be. The King James Version of the Bible uses the word “mammon” and that translates into a love of things. It is a god, a demanding god, a god with a voracious appetite. What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine too, if I can figure a way to get my hands on it. Serve mammon, and you push God out of your life.

We are confronted with a choice here - and it is not simply a choice between having things and not having things. (God forgive me, but I cling to my toys like any other man. My computer, my DVD’s, my books, my fine dining - all indulgences of the flesh and the spirit that make life worth living - I can scarce contemplate life without them.

As I said, the choice is not just about things. The choice is as it always was - what will be my God? What will dominate my life? What will motivate me to action? What comes first? Some of you remember Jack Benny, the comic with a reputation for being a miser. One of his famous moments was when he was confronted by a thief who was pointing his gun at the comedian. “Your money or your life” the thief demands. There is a long pause, “Well?” the thief prompts him. “I’m thinking, I’m thinking!” protests Benny.

I see at least two things going on here: one is pride. As I pointed out earlier, our wealth stands as a measuring stick for our success, our worthiness. I remember the first season of “The Apprentice” when Donald Trump invited one of the winning teams up to his penthouse to show off its glittering walls of gold. Everything was gold. How can one doubt the worth of such a man who has so much to show for his wealth?

The other is fear - and this Jesus points to with unswerving insistence. In his eyes, the accumulation of wealth has to do with fear about tomorrow. It has to do with anxiety that there won’t be enough food to eat, clothes to wear. Existence itself is threatened by the lack of worldly goods.

The fearful man is the loner, eking out a meager existence and in constant dread of the next day. Soren Kierkegaard asked “What is anxiety? Anxiety is the next day.” It is that mythical tomorrow we expect to come, the one for which we must always be prepared, the one that can bring blessing or disaster - we never know which one. So we must be ready.

We must be. Only that isn’t a “we” it’s a “me”. Me, me alone, only me.

Here Jesus parts company with conventional wisdom. He points to another possibility. No, this is more than a possibility - he points to another reality, a certainty, an unshakable faith. We are not alone.

You see, we are not in charge, God is. Somehow our anxiety has clouded our vision. Our lives become misdirected in our search for safety. We become driven by our need to secure ourselves and perpetuate our own immortality.

At the moment, the world watches as men of power are growing old and weak. Their insatiable appetite for wealth and power has consumed so many they can no longer hold on to their wealth and position. And they don’t know it. They have lived their privileged lives so long they can’t imagine any other way of living. They are desperately alone.

Recall the eccentric Howard Hughes who died a pitiful death, with no more dignity, no more stature, no more self-worth than the most common beggar. His wealth proved nothing. Mubarek may have escaped Egypt with untold riches at his command, but who is he in the eyes of the world now? Ghadaffi faces exile, declaring he’d rather die. Hussein’s statue was toppled and he himself died cursing his enemies and defying them to the end.

All alone. All thought they were successful. All thought they had limitless power. All worshiped themselves and relied on their own powers, their own brains, their own indomitable will. And they all were alone in the end.

Jesus would also die. But even in the darkness of Golgotha, and in spite of that terrible moment when he cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”, he would cling to one more word of faith. “Father, into your hands I place my spirit.”

The prophet Isaiah said God will never forget you. “I’ve got your names tattooed on the back of my hands!”

That unshakable confidence is at the core of the Christian life. Now please understand, Jesus does not say everything will turn out all right. There is no promise here that we will be happy, healthy, and successful in the manner of a Donald Trump who can gild every inch of his penthouse with 24 karat gold. The presence of God is an assurance that whatever we face, whatever we are called upon to experience and endure, is faced with the presence of God.

I think you might say, God is there with the reassuring words, “I’ve got your back”.

That’s what Jesus is talking about here. Whatever comes, God is a part of the story, we are not - and we never will be alone.

We like to think we’re in charge. Well, we aren’t. History has proved that again and again. We’d be willing to trust God if we could be sure he’s in charge. Jesus seemed to think that’s so. But remember, history can be tricky. Things don’t always go the way we wish. Events occur that seem quite out of the realm of the control of God. Jesus would suffer and die.

The good news is - God brings victory out of even the most disastrous defeats.

Don’t worry folks - when you do, you’ve taken back control. You are laboring under the delusion that you’re in charge again - and you’re not. Trust God, he’s got your back! Amen