| Mar 2008 | They Met at Calvary |
| Apr 2008 | Keeping the Easter Rumour Alive |
| May 2008 | The Way to Pentecost |
| Jun 2008 | Where our Unity lies |
| Jul 2008 | The Californian Redwood |
| Sep 2008 | "Dwight L. Moody, 1837-99" |
| Oct 2008 | Nine Marks of a Good Church |
| Nov 2008 | Mammon |
| Dec 2008 | Advent and the Evangelists |
| Mar 2009 | A Pattern for Lent |
| Apr 2009 | We have seen His Glory |
| May 2009 | Witnesses To The Resurrection |
| Jun 2009 | The Holy Trinity |
The word ‘Mammon’ in the New Testament comes from the Hebrew word ‘mamon’ and its root ‘mn meaning something in which you put your confidence. In the Aramaic language spoken by Jesus ‘momona’ meant your possessions.
The word ‘mammon’ comes in two famous places in the gospels. The first is in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6.24). Here Jesus warns every living soul that although they can have two employers (no problem with that) no living person can have more than one owner!
To whom do you and I really belong? Do we ultimately belong to God? Or do we ultimately belong to our possessions? Put it another way - which would we find more heart-breaking – to be separated from our possessions or to be separated from God?
A friend of Billy Graham’s once sat next to him at a funeral wake. As the discussion about the wealthy deceased progressed someone in the group asked, ”How much did he leave, then?” To which the great evangelist replied, “Everything!”
Jesus knew how hard it is for any of us to be separated from our possessions.
We think of the man who pulled down his barns in order to build bigger ones – only to discover that he was on his way to the great barn in the sky! If you are a rich banker or a wealthy city merchant or you like what you have around you – home, possessions – Jesus arrives on the scene and says, “How about making an ultimate choice and facing the BIG, BIG QUESTION: God – or everything else?” Maybe we are not as redeemed as we thought we were! Maybe we want to say to Christ, “Do I really have to make a choice?”
In Luke’s Gospel chapter 16, verses 1 to 9, the famous Parable of the Unjust Steward (or The Parable of the Dishonest Manager), there is a punch line – a final piece of advice given by Jesus to his disciples. It is this, ”If you are going to use big money to win friends – do it soon.” When it’s all gone you will need other bases for true friendship.
Have you ever prayed for material things? For God to send you something good? Have you ever prayed over your shares? For your bankers? Prayed for success in your business ventures? Prayed that God would keep your savings intact?
Was all this before you prayed for the poor of God’s world, or after?
The reason that Francis of Assisi’s father was so angry with him was that he took his father’s cloth and gave it away to the poor. How extravagant! How foolish! How memorable! How gospel-like!
“Bring to us the treasures of the church,” the church leaders said to Francis – he brought a group of the poorest and most down-trodden folk he could find! “These,” he said, “are the treasures of the church.”
Norman Wallwork
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