Luther Quotation referred to in the sermon:
The First Commandment: "You are to have no other gods."
That is, you are to regard me alone as your God. What does this mean, and how is it to be understood? What does "to have a god" mean, or what is God?
Answer: A "god" is the term for that to which we are to look for all good and in which we are to find refuge in all need. Therefore, to have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. As I have often said, it is the trust and faith of the heart alone that make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust are right, then your God is the true one. Conversely, where your trust is false and wrong, there you do not have the true God. For these two belong together, faith and God. Anything on which your hear relies and depends, I say, that is really your God.
The intention of this commandment, therefore, is to require true faith and confidence in the heart, which fly straight to the one true God and cling to him alone. What this means is: "See to it that you let me alone be your God, and never search for another." In other words: "Whatever good thing you lack, look to me for it and seek it from me, and whenever you suffer misfortune and distress, crawl to me and cling to me. I, I myself, will give you what you need and help you out of every danger. Only do not let your heart cling to or rest in anyone else."
So that it may be understood and remembered, I must explain this a little more plainly by citing come everyday examples of the opposite. There are some who think that they have God and everything they need when they have money and property; they trust in them and boast in them so stubbornly and securely that they care for no one else. They, too, have a god—mammon by name, that is money and property—on which they set their whole heart. This is the most common idol on earth. Those who have money and property feel secure, happy, and fearless, as if they were sitting in the midst of paradise. On the other hand, those who have nothing doubt and despair as if they knew of no god at all. We find very few who are cheerful, who do not fret and complain, if they do not have mammon. This desire for wealth clings and sticks to our nature all the way to the grave.
So, too, those who boast of great learning, wisdom, power, prestige, family, and honor and who trust in them have a god also, but not the one, true God. Notice again, how presumptuous, secure, and proud people are when they have such possessions, and how despondent they are when they lack them or when they are taken away. Therefore, I repeat, the correct interpretation of this commandment is that to have a god is to have something in which the heart trusts completely.
Large Catechism, 1st Commandment
Sermon Manuscript:
If you haven’t read the quotation from Luther that is on the
back of today’s bulletin, I encourage you to do so sometime today. What he
points out about having a god is crucial for correctly interpreting the
situation that all people find themselves in. Everybody has at least one god;
what’s more likely is that a person has many gods. A person has a god or many
gods whether they acknowledge it or not, whether they know it or not. That’s
because having a god is tied up with faith, and everybody believes in
something.
Luther asks in the quotation
I’ve provided: “What does it mean to have a god? Answer: A ‘god’ is the term
for that to which we are to look for all good and in which we are to find
refuge in all need. Therefore, to have a god is nothing else than to trust and
believe in that one with your whole heart.”
So what might a person look to
for all good, for refuge in time of need? Think of what is common among us. Most
of our people look to science and to the applied science that is technology.
This is the most popular religion of our times. If the forces of nature can be
tweaked in this direction or that direction according to the knowledge we have
gained, then we will be blessed.
Although this is the most
popular religion of our times—it has the most followers in our land—we have not
been taught that this is a religion. That would be a strange thought for our
people. This is simply seen as reality. This is not surprising. Whenever a
particular religion has captured the majority of the population, that is what
always gets said. In the past, when our ancestors had stronger faith, Christianity
was not looked upon as a religion. It was simply reality. Back in the days of
Rome people did not think it was a religion to worship the Roman emperor. It
was just what was expected of patriotic Romans. They believed that the success
of the empire depended upon their devotion to the state.
So it is not always easy to
identify the most important gods that people make for themselves, because the
ones that are most firmly believed in are taken for granted as reality. They
are what is necessary for a person to live the good life.
This also is not something new.
It happened right away after the fall into sin. Adam and Eve believed in a new
religion when they would be blessed by eating the forbidden fruit. Afterwards
they believed that they would be blessed by making some clothing for themselves,
finding something to eat, making some kind of shelter, and so on. Meanwhile,
God was set off into the far reaches of their mind, kept at a safe distance,
because of their bad conscience. If only they would embrace this one true God
rather than the dumb and deaf idols that could never give them lasting peace!
But that was impossible for them. Faith in the true God is something that only
God can do by bringing his Word to someone with power. That is what happened in
Genesis chapter three when God found them in the bushes in the cool of the day.
We should not look down on Adam
and Eve as though they were foolish whereas we are wise. What we should see is
that we are cut from the same cloth as they. We are their flesh and blood
descendants. Idolatry has not gone away. We’ve already talked about how the
people of our age believe superstitiously in the power of learning. There is
another idol that captures people’s hearts. Jesus speaks to it in our Gospel
reading. Luther addresses it first and foremost in the quotation on the back of
your bulletin. This powerful idol goes by the name of mammon.
Mammon is one of those words in
the Bible that is not translated into English. It is left in the original
language. Mammona was a Syrian god of wealth. Those who worshipped this god
were promised the blessing of increased riches. When mammon does get translated
into English, it is often with the words “money,” or “wealth.” Thus Jesus’s
words in our Gospel lesson would read: “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 both God and riches.” Or “You
cannot serve both God and money.”
But I think it is a good idea to
leave the word mammon untranslated because often when people hear the word
money they think merely of greenbacks, the balance in the checking account.
Then people think that Jesus is only addressing people who have tons and tons
of money. But Jesus is not concerned with how little or how much money a person
might have. He is concerned about the faith that a person puts in
wealth—whether they have a lot and are proud of it, or whether they have little
money, but believe that they would be blessed if they had more. In and of
itself money is neither here nor there. It is like water or trees or any other
thing—totally indifferent. It is the believing in it that is the
problem—believing that it is the way to be happy and blessed. That is when the
heart is idolatrous and adulterous. Instead of being faithful to our God and
reliant upon him for blessing, we go whoring after this god called mammon.
So how does this spiritual
adultery take place? It has to do with the fear, love, and trust of the heart. Suppose
you should find that all your money has been taken away, how would you feel?
The power of our sinful flesh is such that we all would be flooded with
negative emotions. Fear would be there. We are too weak to dig and too ashamed
to beg. There would be the anguish of anticipating the sad and embarrassing times
ahead. Hatred would crouch at the door. If there is a particular person who is
responsible for the loss of our wealth, then murder might very well be on our
minds. Nothing whips up people’s emotions so much as the loss of their wealth.
Just watch Dateline or 48 Hours.
On the other hand, there are
also positive emotions, such as love, when it comes to money. The person who is
poor pines after and dreams about money like a teenager might spend his time
thinking about his sweetheart. If only they could have some more money, oh how
happy they would be.
I think we can all, rich and
poor, relate to the trust that we find within ourselves when we acquire money.
When some windfall comes we experience something of a high. We feel more secure
than we felt before the money came. A certain kind of peace comes over us
knowing that we have more money now than we had before. Newly acquired riches
make us feel as though nothing can get in our way. Only goodness and mercy lie
in our future because of this god of mammon’s smiling countenance upon us.
Thus you can see how mammon is a
god that seduces our flesh into worship. We are to fear, love, and trust in the
Lord God above everything else, but the fear, love, and trust in riches clings
and sticks to our nature all the way to the grave.
This puts us into a dreadful
position according to Jesus’s words for he says that no servant may serve two
masters. One of the two is always going to be preferred over the other. Our
brain might tell us that we are supposed to fear, love, and trust in the Lord
God, but what does our heart pine after and dream about? Are our hearts filled
with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs or are we always thinking about how
much money we have, or some way to get richer, or how we might spend our money
and anticipate the joy we would have with our purchases?
For a contrast to these kinds of
idolatrous musings within a heart, consider our Old Testament reading. This is
a portion of one of King David’s psalms. Here are some of the words that are
filling David’s heart: Yes, you are my lamp, O Lord. My God turns my darkness to light. For with you I can
charge against a battalion. and with my God I can jump over a wall. This
God—his way is blameless. The speech of the Lord
is pure. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him. For who is God besides
the Lord? And who is the Rock
except our God? This God wraps me with strength and makes my way
blameless. By making my feet like those of a deer he enables me to stand on
high places.
Note the one in whom David fears,
loves, and trusts. Note the one whom David believes to be necessary for him to
be blessed. He is not looking for money or learning or prestige or any other
way that we might suppose is necessary for getting ahead in life. If he has his
Lord God, then that will be enough for him—more than enough. By his God he can
defeat a whole battalion. God is a refuge for all who take refuge in him. He is
a rock. He wraps one with strength. He enables a person to go in strange places
without fear of falling. To use the words of another of David’s Psalms: “Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
For Thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Surely goodness
and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the
house of the Lord forever.”
That we should think such
thoughts and pray such prayers is one of the important reasons for how come the
Scriptures exist. Without the Scriptures your heart would not otherwise know
what it should be filled with. Like Adam and Eve you would naturally think that
your wellbeing consists of clothing, food, shelter, and the increase of wealth.
We wouldn’t know anything different than to conspire and strategize,
manipulating the things of this creation, while ignoring our Creator. Thus it
is necessary that God should come to us and show us the tremendous bounty that
is ours by trusting and meditating upon our God. Instead of finding us in the
Garden in the cool of the day like he did with Adam and Eve, he finds us today
by exposing us to the Scripture.
Why don’t you try filling your
heart with the words of the Psalms. It won’t seem practical at first. It will
seem much more practical to worry and plan. You will probably also encounter
ways of thinking that seem strange to us because we will be learning new ways
of thinking, new ways of living from the Psalms.
But if you won’t enter into this
life of togetherness with God with your prayers, then it is inevitable that you
will stick with your old and familiar idols. You will pray to them and daydream
about them. You will fear, love, and trust in them. You will prefer them, even
though you know that you are supposed to prefer the Lord God. You will go with
what comes naturally to your flesh.
The life of the mind of all
people is spiritual. The stuff that people think about is spiritual—even if
they don’t realize it or acknowledge it. People are devoted and daydream (and
therefore worship) strange things if you think about it. Young people worship
popularity, romantic relationships, video games, ambitions for a bright future.
Men might worship hunting, fishing, cars, sports teams, power and prestige.
Women might worship children, grandchildren, memories, being liked and admired.
It matters what we spend our
time thinking about. When the Lord was leading Moses and the people of Israel
into the promised land he told them that they should write his word on the door
posts of their houses. They should put it where they would see it. They should
talk about it when they get up and when they are going on the way. We are to
love the Lord our God with our whole heart, soul, strength, and mind. It is a
common, but mistaken notion, that somebody is a Christian because they went to
church at some time in the past or they say that they are Christians with their
lips. We might honor God with our lips, but our hearts be far from him. We
might believe that we can serve two masters, but Jesus tells us that we can’t.
Today the Word of God comes to
you and invites you to believe in the one true God. He is a rock and a stony
defense. All those who put their trust in him will not be put to shame. His
desire is that all people should come to a knowledge of the truth and be saved,
and so he bars no one from coming to him with their prayers. He saves the
humble people, but his eyes are on the proud to bring them down. Therefore,
when you come before him as a poor, miserable sinner, you can be sure that your
prayers are heard by him for Jesus’s sake. Who is a God like our God—slow to
anger and abounding in steadfast love? But if you despise him, if you believe
that you will be blessed apart from him, then watch out! “To the crooked he
reveals himself as crafty.”
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