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| Evelyn de Morgan "Worship of mammon" |
Jesus said, "You cannot serve God and mammon." The newer English versions of the New Testament translated the word "mammon" as "wealth" or "riches." That's probably more accurate for mammon is an English transliteration of the word for riches in semitic languages. Because of its use in the New Testament, mammon has found its way into other languages too. I'm going to stick with it. Wealth seems just too bland. Wealth can be a very neutral or positive word. Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" was an ultimately hopeful book. His aim was to present a theory of economics that would raise people from poverty to wealth. "The Commonwealth of Nations," with fifty-four member states, is a positive vision of national cooperation and sharing of resources through trade and friendship. (My American friends who might not know what the Commonwealth is might Google it!)
But mammon has no positive derivatives. Mammon has been used universally negatively. In literature mammon is often personified as a godlike or demonic figure opposed to the true God. Worship belongs to one or the other. Which one shall you choose?
In the long centuries of usage mammon has been associated with the material world. Buttressed by versions of Neo-Platonism that view the material world as "bad" and the world of spirit as "good" mammon becomes that from which we ought to flee. Mammon is the insatiable hunger for the material world. To worship God rather than mammon is to deny the world, to practice asceticism, to mistreat the body, to fast, perhaps to take a vow of poverty. Socratic rags adorn those who worship God; Armani finery those who serve mammon.
World-denying asceticism is such a strong element of most religions that I don't want to dismiss it lightly. Those of us who live in comfortable houses, wear nice clothes, enjoy personal transportation, and travel afar, in the way that only the aristocracy of old could, may well be on the broad path that leads to destruction.
A different view to ponder. The God and mammon dichotomy works well with an understanding of God as above, beyond and better than the world. This understanding most often sees the world as mean, below, corrupted, entangling. The spiritual quest is to disentangle from the material world, leave it behind, focus on the unseen rather than the seen.
The God and mammon dichotomy works less well with a panentheistic understanding of God. For God is not separated form nature, from the world, but intimately connected with it. To find nature is to find God. To love God is to love God's world. It is a spirituality of harmony with and not opposition to. It is integralist rather than divisive. To deny the world of nature is to deny God. To shun the material world is to shun God.
But what to do with Jesus' words, "You cannot serve both God and mammon"? What if mammon is not the riches of the material world at all, but an attitude toward it? What if mammon is the acquisitive drive to possess and control, to take and use, to squander and abuse God's good world? What if mammon is the selfish pursuit of wealth at the expense of others?
The implications of this viewpoint are far-reaching. It is neither a denial of the world to find sainthood, nor a pursuit of nature for self-interest. It is the service of God in nature for the Good of all. Now that will take some working out!
+Ab. Andy
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