No one 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 God and mammon.
Matthew 6:24
What is your priority? Think on this question carefully. Notice the question isn’t “what are your priorities?” but “what is your priority?” What gets the top spot in your life?
Most people think of priorities in the plural. They think of some combination of faith, family, friends, job, hobbies. But when we look at these five (or so) priorities that people have, what gets the top spot? I suppose that of these “top five” hobbies would be number five. Hobbies generally fit around the other things in life, and if your hobby is outdoors, like yardwork or golf, there are days that it simply can’t happen because of the weather.
Friends might come ahead of job on the list, especially if one does not like his or her job, or if one is young and hasn’t really started a job or career yet. However, for those of us who are working, the job takes over at least forty hours of our week, which is a lot more than we would spend with friends. From a time-consuming perspective, the job probably eats up the most time of the week. I definitely spend more hours at my job than anything else I do, including sleeping. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.
Lots of people have a “Family first” attitude, and that is not a bad thing. Should there be an “emergency” with a family member, i.e. a family member has been rushed to the hospital, one would more than likely leave a job to go and look after someone. Lots of parents think “my kids come first,” (which sometimes causes marriages to collapse, but that is not a debate for today’s reflection) and they never miss a game or practice or a school performance. They are attentive to their children when it comes to their health, homework and so many other things involved in raising a child. Others will put their marriage first, that’s a noble idea, because eventually when the kids grow up and leave, one wants to have a partner who is still their best friend, so they can enjoy their later years together.
Where does faith fit in all of this? Where does God fit in all of this? Where does worship fit in all of this? For many people, it fits into a compartment. It is A priority, on the list of other priorities. But it doesn’t have the top spot on the list. It makes “top five” but in reality, it is not THE priority. The problem with this goes right to today’s Bible verse: No one 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 God and mammon. (Matthew 6:24) Let’s not focus on “love” and “hate” because one can love lots of things. Let’s focus on the word “devoted”. I am devoted to lawncare, as you all know, I write about my yard often. But I am not more devoted to my yard than my family or my job. When there is a week filled with morning services and evening programs, many days might go by without me mowing the lawn.
I am thankful to be a priest for many reasons, and one of them is that I have to worship each Sunday and many other days. It is not an option. I am devoted to worship; it takes the top spot over anything and everything else each Sunday and feast day. Does worship take the top spot for you?
Then comes a more serious and sobering question: Am I more devoted to my phone or my prayer life? Yes, the phone is used for communicating, much of which is necessary and some of which is probably not. The phone is used for “researching” things. But what about the endless scrolling that most of us are becoming addicted to? If we are honest, the phone might actually occupy a top five spot on our priority list. Is the phone in your top five? Top three? Does it get the top spot?
To have God and faith as THE priority, not A priority, means that when there is a conflict in devotion, what we are devoted to, that God goes ahead of the other things. Like when there is a conflict between job and family, i.e. a child is sick, we leave the job to attend to our sick child, that is the priority. The problem is that we are so busy in life, that God gets squeezed out. We skip a day of prayer and tell ourselves we will pray tomorrow. We skip weeks of reading the Scripture and tell ourselves we will get to it eventually. We skip worship and tell ourselves we will go next week, or after baseball season. We aren’t generous in contributing to the life of the church and tell ourselves we’ll give more or we’ll get more involved when the children grow up. It’s not that we love everything and hate God, or even that we despise God, it’s that we are devoted to other things more than God. And then years pass, maybe even our whole life, and the kids are gone, we’ve retired from work, and we face our mortality with fear, because our whole lifetime went by and we were never devoted to God. Or we don’t ever bring our children to church, and in old age, when we decide to become devoted, they are not part of the church, and we are saddened and wonder how did this happen?
Making God the priority does not necessitate squeezing out family, job, friends and hobbies, or even the phone. Making God the priority means giving Him the first fruits, not the leftovers, and not all the fruits. Making God the priority means fitting our lives around God, not fitting God around our lives. Making God the priority means that He is foundational in our families, on our calendars, in our interactions with others, in how we do our jobs. We re-establish our foundation with Him daily through prayer and weekly through worship, and whatever we build of the day or of the week is built on top of Him.
Is this easy? No, it is not. I actually think it is getting harder. The world has a lot more possibilities and distractions than it had even ten years ago. The Sermon on the Mount was not just a “take this in and put it through your filter” kind of message. It was a “turn the world and your life upside down and rethink everything, put everything under the umbrella of the Kingdom of God, not as something in the distant future, but something we live in right now, today.” And this is why Jesus is so intentional in speaking about not being able to serve two masters or have two priorities. As for the word “mammon” we will discuss this in the next reflection.
The Lord knows the days of the blameless, and their heritage will abide forever; they are not put to shame in evil times, in the days of famine they have abundance. But the wicked perish; the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures, they vanish—like smoke they vanish away. The wicked borrows, and cannot pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives; for those blessed by the Lord shall possess the land, but those cursed by Him shall be cut off. The steps of a man are from the Lord, and He establishes him in whose way He delights; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord is the stay of his hand. I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging bread. He is ever giving liberally and lending, and his children become a blessing. Psalm 37: 18-26
Point to ponder: What is your number one priority? Where is God on your list of priorities?
