Sermons
July 12, 2026 (Proper 10)
Service
Matthew 6:19-24
One of the first things we learn when we begin to study the Psalms is how, in Hebrew poetry, what rhymes is ideas, not necessarily words. So you have parallelisms, generally synonymous or antithetical.
A synonymous parallel has one line pretty much restate the one before it, like at the beginning of Psalm 38:
“O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger,
or discipline me in your wrath.”
In an antithetical parallel, two lines say the opposite of one another, like at the end of the first Psalm:
“for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.”
There’s a lot of that kind of parallelism in Proverbs, too.
We don’t find a lot of that in the New Testament, but we do in today’s reading. We have three sets of antithetical parallelisms in this short passage.
The first one is the longest.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal;
but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
Then we have,
“…if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light;
but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness”;
and,
“…a slave will either hate the one and love the other,
or be devoted to the one and despise the other.”[1]
The second of these three, the part about the eye being the lamp of the body (which is based on the scientific understanding of two millennia ago) doesn’t really fit here; it’s sort of an interruption of a discussion on the relationship Jesus wants his followers to have with their money and possessions.
And that discussion brings to mind a song by Bob Dylan that comes up often when preachers work with this text. We’re going to serve someone (or something), so whom (or what) will it be?
There are, of course, all kinds of service.
Many of us here have served in the military. Some of us have worked in restaurants as servers, which is (I hope) becoming the gender-neutral alternative to “waiters” and “waitresses.” If you are a caregiver for a family member, or work in a health-care setting, you are serving people in that way. We speak of our elected representatives as serving in the House or Senate, or as a governor, mayor, or president. (That should tell us something about what we elect these folks to do, and might inform our decisions when we go to the polls; but that’s outside the scope of this sermon.)
But Jesus is speaking of a different kind of service.
What we are doing here today is oftentimes called a service—which does actually tie into the subject for this morning. When we are here on Sunday morning, what or whom are we serving?
There is a reason why the people who sit in the pews in any given church are called a congregation, not an audience. Audience would imply that I, the elders, and the musicians are putting on a show for the rest of you. That is not the case.
There is an audience for what we do here, but all of us are part of the service, which we perform not for ourselves, but for God. God is our audience, and our worship serves God. And then in the middle of the worship service, we receive an offering.
The offering has at one time or another generated some disagreement among pastors and other church leaders.
I remember a conversation among colleagues years ago in which the question of whether it’s acceptable to put the offering on the Communion table after it’s received. Some of the folks in the discussion were from churches that call it not a table but an altar, which in their minds means it’s an especially holy piece of furniture; but many folks in the conversation, even if they didn’t call it an altar, seemed to have that mindset. So the question was whether something they considered to be unholy should be put on that table.
Some even expressed their preference that we not receive an offering at all, but keep money out of the sanctuary altogether. They said that having to receive a monetary offering injected something unholy, even dirty, into the service.
I was among those who disagreed.
When this text comes up, a lot of preachers will make reference to the song by Bob Dylan I brought up a moment ago, “Gotta Serve Somebody.”[2] The connection is, of course, pretty clear: the chorus says,
“Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord,
but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”
However, our text doesn’t say anything about the devil, and wealth isn’t necessarily evil. It’s a tool.
It’s therefore not deserving of our worship or our service. Who bows down to a hammer, or worships a vacuum cleaner, or gives an offering to a KitchenAid mixer? To do so is the very definition of idolatry.
My colleagues who don’t want there to be an offering, in my opinion, elevate money to the level of an idol rather than a tool. It’s only a false god if we make it so—if we obsess about it, devote our lives to making or keeping or spending it, if it becomes the first and foremost concern of our lives.
That’s what it would mean to serve wealth. And it’s no less ridiculous than praying to your electric drill.
The right relationship with our money and possessions is to view it as something we use to serve God. Therefore, it’s totally appropriate to give an offering during worship, and to bring it to the table for dedication—whether we call that table a table or an altar.
And therefore the questions we have to ask are, first, whether we are serving God or our wealth; and second, what it means to each of us not to serve our wealth, but to serve God with our wealth.
[1] 6:19-20, 22-23, 24; italics are added.
[2] Lyrics are at Bob Dylan’s official website: https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/gotta-serve-somebody/. You can listen to it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC10VWDTzmU.