No One Can Serve Two Masters: A Meditation on Luke 16

No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; 

or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him.

And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts:

 for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.

Jesus' words may ring strangely in our modern ears, as we all seem to serve many masters.  If we are blessed to have a job, or perhaps more than one, we have bosses that define what we will be doing with our time in exchange for our paychecks.  If we drive on the public roads, there are police who are always ready to help us remember how we are obligated to use our time and resources, and take our money or freedom is we don't comply.  We have a government at local, state, and federal levels which write and enforce our laws, collect our money for taxes, and provide general services to the community-- even a military in which some of us served or served, which may govern much of our lives.  Some are blessed with families, with obligations commensurate to their callings in those families (fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, etc).  With all the masters we seem to serve on a daily basis, how can Jesus say, "No one can serve two masters"?

Jesus points to a deeper reality we all know is true, having to do with priorities.  Ultimately we can have only one Master which sets our priorities and establishes the terms by which we relate to everything else.  For far too many, their Master is the love of money, and everything they do in their lives is ordered to that priority, leaving human and divine obligations to wither.  For some, it is the love of their own pride, which causes everything other than their pursuit of power and prestige to be stepped upon to reach those goals.  For others their Master may be their appetites, always in pursuit of pleasure or fleeing from pain, leaving everything else abandoned in their wake.  Some make another person or their own families their Master, sacrificing everything for them, and when that person either betrays or is taken from them, they fall into deepest despair.  Still others might make public service or some organization their Master, giving the years of their vigorous youth to endless social causes or campaigns, finding only later what they have lost in the exchange.  Jesus' words bore deeply into our fallen souls to reveal what we have really made our Master, so that we might understand to whom we are really beholden.  Regardless of what it is, our Master sets our time lines, the boundaries of our relationships, orders our lives, takes its sacrifices, and gives whatever payment it has offered.

And what do our earthly Masters offer us?  Temporary pleasure, power, wealth, prestige, or satisfaction?  When the years of your life are spent, and you look into the horizon of eternity surrounded by the temporary baubles you have pursued all your life, what have your really gained?  What shall you hold up before your eternal Creator, to justify the way you have spent the life He has given you?  And which of these temporary pursuits do you think you shall offer to satisfy the Judge who gave you your breath, your being, and your time?  If we think we shall approach the King of Glory bearing these trifles to impress Him, we are deluding ourselves.  As He has given us our very existence, He has also given us His expectations as our legitimate Master.  As the Author of Life, He tells us clearly what He expects of us by His Law and thereby what the terms are of His gift of eternal life:  we are to love Him fully and completely, and our neighbors as ourselves.  That divine Law of Love finds full expression through the Natural Law written into the cosmos, the Ten Commandments carved into stone by His hand on Mt. Sinai, and written across all of Holy Scripture by His Prophets and Apostles.  The works God demands are eternal, complete, and holy, showing how our lives ought to be entirely ordered toward Him, His Word, His holiness, and His love.

That reality should be terrifying to us all.  There is no life of fallen men which meets this holy and eternal obligation, which means that no man on his own power, choice, or capacity actually has God as his true Master.  Rather, we have chosen other Masters, none of whom can grant us eternal life, and none which can give us rewards which will satisfy our holy Judge.  Of our own fallen nature we seek to be our own Masters, and find that instead we are enslaved to one of the many faces of the evil one, whose only eternal reward for us is death, destruction, pain, and misery.  While it may seem that there are many Masters to whom people are beholden in their lives, there are really only two in the whole universe:  the Master who is Himself Life everlasting, and the rebel Master who himself is destined for eternal fire together with all he wooed to his service.  Of these two, we can serve only one, as our lives can be ordered only toward either Life or Death.  Jesus' words call everyone to look at themselves honestly and see their hopeless state, as our sin and rebellion from God's Word declare us all to be servants of death.

Having brought us all to recognize our condition, Jesus alone took the steps necessary to restore us all.  He alone is God incarnate, living out the perfectly ordered life of service to God our Father, then taking our disorder upon Himself shed His blood upon His Cross to satisfy our just condemnation.  He offered His perfect, holy, and eternal life so that we might not suffer and die in our rebellion.  His gift of sacrifice for us restored our relationship to the Master of Life, so that we might be free from the Master of death.  In Him, as He made His Vicarious Atonement for the sins of the whole world, He earned through His life, death, and resurrection the grace we all need to be forgiven and free from sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil.  In Jesus we see the eternal Law with all its justice satisfied, and the everlasting Gospel of grace proclaimed for all who will repent and believe in Him.

Some will scoff at Jesus and deride Him, choosing to hide instead behind their trifling academic degrees, secular power, pursuit of pleasure, or some other Master they have chosen for themselves.  But how does Jesus' word meet you this day?  Has Jesus shown you the depths of your sin and rebellion, and the only end to your path of death?  Be of good cheer, dear Christian, for in removing your disordered hope and passion for the Master of death and destruction, He has prepared your heart to receive the Gospel of His grace, mercy, and life.  Jesus is the Lord who has taken your death from you, that you might stand and live forever, forgiven and free, covered in His Blood and washed clean of your every failure and stain.  Jesus is the Master of Life who died for you that you might live in and for Him, and through Him live in divine love for His whole creation, as you were always meant to live since before the world began.  Hear the Word of Life which calls to you today, that His Spirit might move you to faith in Him and repentance from the ways of death, and unto eternal life in Jesus your Savior.  Amen.