POSSESSED

I once heard John Ortberg tell a story of his family’s adventures with furniture.  When John and his wife, Nancy, were first married, they had no money to speak of.  Everything they owned was castoff or garage sale.  In their little living room they had a brown couch.  It was old, worn, faded and tattered.  You could do anything on the brown couch – sit on it, play on it, sleep on it, eat on it.  They didn’t care.  When John got home from work, he would put the kids on the brown couch and bounce them up and down on it, saying, “Yayayayaya!”  It became known as the yaya couch.”  

In time, John and Nancy saved some money, and they went to the store and bought their first piece of nice furniture.  It was a sofa the color of Pepto-Bismol.  (This was the 1980s.)  The salesman called it mauve, however, and the Ortbergs proudly brought it home.

Anybody want to guess what the number one rule was?  That’s right: Don’t sit on the mauve sofa.  And another thing: don’t play on the mauve sofa, don’t eat on the mauve sofa, don’t look at the mauve sofa, don’t think about the mauve sofa.  On every other piece of furniture in the house, thou mayest freely sit.  But upon the mauve sofa, thou shalt not sit.  For on the day thou sittest upon the mauve sofa, thou shalt surely die.  

Then one day there appeared on the mauve sofa a stain, a red stain, a red jelly stain.  Nancy assembled the three children in front of the mauve sofa – they’re ages four, two-and-a-half, and six months.  And Nancy said, “Children, that is a stain, a red stain, a red jelly stain.  And the man at the sofa store says it’s not coming out, not ever, not for all eternity.  Do you know how long eternity is, children?  It’s how long you’re going to sit here until someone tells me who put the red jelly stain on the mauve sofa.”  They just sat there, silent, because they knew something horrible would happen to whoever did it.  

By the time I heard the story, many years had passed since then.  Both the mauve sofa and the yaya couch were long gone from the Ortberg household.  And these were John’s words as he looked back:

“All my good memories are about the yaya couch.  To this day I can close my eyes and see myself coming home from work, throwing those little bodies on the couch, watching them bounce up and down, and listening to all those giggles.  But my only good memory of the mauve sofa is the day I sat on it alone eating a jelly doughnut.”1 

It’s a funny thing, isn’t it?  We call them our possessions, but too often they end up possessing us.  Our stuff and our money tend to assume control over us, commanding our time and energy, our attention and deference.  

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tries to make us aware of the spiritual reality behind the phenomenon of our possessions possessing us.  He makes this pointed statement: “No one can serve two masters … You cannot serve both God and wealth.”  The word translated wealth is actually a peculiar Aramaic word, mammon.  It means money and the things money can buy.  The noun mammon comes from the Aramaic verb “to trust,” connoting that in which one trusts – a very suggestive way to refer to wealth, wouldn’t you agree?  It’s noteworthy that Matthew doesn’t use a Greek synonym for mammon, but simply spells it out phonetically in the Greek alphabet.  By implication:  Pay attention, this is the exact word Jesus used, and it matters!

So let’s stop and think:  Could it be that Jesus is treating money and possessions as more than just things?  After all, he gives them a name – mammon.  And he makes clear that mammon is a master, mammon is a false god seeking to rule our lives.  

There’s a sense in which mammon, as a rival god, isn’t neutral, waiting to be used positively or negatively according to our attitudes and choices.  Mammon, Jesus implies, is an active power seeking to secure our loyalty and commitment, to be the center of our attention.

This spiritual reality comes out plainly in one scene from the movie, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,”  In the movie, Michael Douglas portrays Gordon Gekko, once a big money guy, a corporate raider, who served eight years in prison for his financial misdeeds but now is out and on the rebound.  He meets Jacob Moore, an ambitious young proprietary trader, and they talk on the subway:

Jacob says, “I’m in this game to make money, just like anyone else.”

“So what about money, Jake?” Gordon replies.  “Do you like her?”

Jacob is taken aback:  “I’ve never thought about money as a she.”

Gordon Gekko shakes his head and smiles.  “Oh, she lies there in bed at night with you, looking at you, one eye open. Money never sleeps, and she’s jealous, and if you don’t pay close, close   attention, you wake up in the morning and she might be gone forever.”

Here too we find money depicted, not as something inert, but as demanding our devotion.  

Richard Foster, in his bestselling book, “The Challenge of the Disciplined Life,” writes,

“Money is not just an impersonal medium of exchange.  Mammon is … an active agent; it is a law unto itself; and it is capable of inspiring devotion. … It is the spiritual reality behind money that we want so badly to deny.  For years I felt that Jesus was exaggerating by fixing such a huge gulf between mammon and God.  … But the thing I failed to see, and the thing that Jesus saw so clearly, is the way in which mammon makes a bid for our hearts.”2 

The Sermon on the Mount is a call to action, a summons to dethrone mammon and serve only God.  Yet I have this fear.  I fear that we American Christians hear Jesus say, “You cannot serve both God and mammon,” and we think to ourselves, “I bet we can.  Let’s try.  We’re the exception.”  We’d never actually say that, of course, but our behavior demonstrates that we believe it.  And we end up serving our stuff, often doubly enslaved because we’re in denial about our bondage. 

How then can we break free of the master mammon so that we can serve God?  Here are two practical steps:

First, reprogram your thinking.  Every significant change begins with a new way of thinking.  We’ve already begun rethinking by acknowledging that mammon is a master vying for our commitment.  In addition, we need to recognize that mammon is not a god worthy of our commitment.  Only God is eternal, only God is always faithful, and so only God can be our rock and our fortress.  Mammon doesn’t last, and we’re certainly not taking it with us when we leave this life.  So we need to find ways to keep reminding ourselves that money and possessions are temporary and fleeting.  

I’m reminded of a family that moved from the New York City suburbs to a farm in New Hampshire in an attempt to simplify their lives.  They bought two calves that they planned to raise for beef.  But the parents were afraid that the children, who had only had pets before this, would get attached to the animals and be devastated when it was time to have them slaughtered.  So the parents came up with a way to help the children never forget that the calves would be with them only briefly.  They gave them strategic names.  They named them Freezer #1 and Freezer #2.  

Maybe you should name your car Junkyard or nickname your brand-new clothes Ragbag. That is their destiny!  Whatever method you choose, do something to keep reminding yourself that stuff doesn’t last, we can’t rely on it.         

Beyond this, never forget that even in the short term mammon can’t deliver on the promises it makes to satisfy and fulfill us.  That’s why we constantly need more.  By contrast, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes on him shall not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).  Does mammon really love you, really give you life?  

In the face of the daily tidal wave of messages telling us we need more, let’s find practical ways to stay grounded in reality.  For instance, Chuck Swindoll writes, 

     I recall hearing some pretty good counsel on how to overrule those commercials that attempt to convince us we need this product or that new appliance to be happy.  The guy suggested that every time we begin to feel that tug, we shout back at the tube at the top of our voices: “WHO ARE YOU KIDDING!”

     It really works.  My whole family and I tried it one afternoon during a televised football game.   Not once did I feel dissatisfied with my present lot.  Our dog almost had a canine coronary.  But other than that, the results were great.3           

You may not choose this strategy, but find something that helps you reprogram your thinking.                                                                                                                            

Second, recalibrate your giving.  Generous giving declares our independence of mammon.  Every act of joyful and generous giving breaks a link in the chain keeping us in bondage to that false god.  

This is a primary reason why I believe so strongly in the biblical practice of tithing.  The Bible directs us to tithe – to give 10% of our income to the Lord – for our benefit.  It’s not an ancient fundraising strategy; it’s to protect our spiritual health.  I’ve grown convinced that ten percent is the minimum it takes to break free from mammon.  Ten percent is the baseline for turning from devotion to things to serving the true and living God.  When we give less than that, it’s likely we’re trying to serve two masters.

You have the opportunity to take this liberating step when you make your pledge to God’s work at Palmetto Presbyterian Church for 2024.  Once again, we’re encouraging you not just to look at what you pledged last year and simply decide whether to keep the amount the same or give God a cost-of-living increase.  Rather, total up your income and then divide by ten; that’s a tithe.  If it is honestly impossible for you to give that amount next year, then develop and implement a plan that will get you to that level of giving soon.  A successful plan for many people has been increasing their giving by one percent of their income every year until they reach the point where they are tithing.  

When you consider tithing, you may feel a twinge of fear:  What if I won’t have enough?   One of mammon’s favorite tactics is fear.  But when we tithe, we say no to fear, we assert that we will depend on God, not mammon, to supply our needs.  And make no mistake, God always comes through.  

I had just finished a sermon on tithing at my very first church when an elderly gentleman in the congregation cornered me.  “Young man,” he said, “I need to speak with you.”  When he saw he had my attention, he continued.  “My social security and my little pension do not cover my living expenses.”  He paused, and I wondered how insensitive my sermon had been to situations like his.  Then he repeated himself for emphasis before going on:  “My social security and my little pension do not cover my living expenses.  But when I tithe, they do.”  This was his testimony.  When he put God first, God somehow provided far better than mammon would have.      

“No one can serve to masters,” Jesus said.  “You cannot serve both God and mammon.”   May we reprogram our thinking and recalibrate our giving so that we will no longer be possessed.