God or Mammon?

I recently had the privilege of writing a set of Bible reading notes for Scripture Union's Encounter publication based on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. It was an enormous privilege to be asked to reflect on the whole of that wonderful text and I found myself both deeply moved and profoundly challenged by the words of Jesus. Weeks after submitting my work to the editor, one statement lingered on and would not let me go: the well known saying, so familiar, yet so overlooked in actual practice: 'You cannot serve God and Mammon'.

I have reached the conclusion that the challenge to Christianity today is nowhere more clearly expressed than in these words. I have been reflecting on the meaning of 'Mammon' and the fact that Jesus clearly indicates that the word described a system of idolatry that is so utterly demanding and all-embracing that it rivals the allegiance which God himself demands. Like so much else in the Sermon on the Mount, especially the teaching on possessions, on worrying about food and clothing, and about those who 'run after' all these things, this text reflects the actual situation which Christ and his followers had to face in the first century. If I have one great regret looking back on a long ministry, it is that for far too long I did not take the context of Jesus' life and work, nor his teaching in relation to that situation, seriously enough. This was, among other things, a world in thrall to Mammon, the idolising of possessions, of wealth and status, and the consequent opening up of an ever-widening gulf between rich and poor. Only in the past few years have I come to see the importance of the imperial reality which shaped the world dominated by Roman power, including the Galilee which was the scene of Jesus' ministry. Once that becomes clear it is obvious that 'Mammon' cannot refer, as has so often been assumed, simply to money! It is rather a system of which money is a sign and symbol, but Mammon constitutes a whole worldview and a complete way of life.

The more I have reflected on this the clearer it has become to me that perhaps no word of Christ is more powerfully relevant to Christians in the twenty first century than this one. If Mammon was pervasive in the Mediterranean world of the first century, today it has become a universal system without boundaries or limits. In the era of world Christianity the entire catholic church across the globe is summoned to hear this word of Jesus afresh and recognise what it demands in terms of Christian praxis in a globalised age.

So strong has been the impression made on me by this text that I have begun writing about it. I don't know if this will come to anything - I only know that I cannot resist the urge to put on paper the thoughts that keep tumbling into my mind and heart. I have always been impressed by the famous work of Max Weber on Protestantism and the rise of capitalism. Weber viewed the modern world with alarm, describing the condition in which we now found ourselves as being like 'an iron cage' from which there was simply no escape. We were doomed to a life of acquisition and the endless search for possessions. And yet he wondered whether it might be possible that a new generation of prophets might yet arise able to point us toward an alternative vision of what human life might be like. My aim is to reflect on this remarkable statement of Weber's and to try to suggest what such prophecy might be like. The provisional title I am working with is: God or Mammon: The Choice of the Century. Watch this space!