Bev Franco Essay - San Francisco Theological Seminary

claimants for a person’s soul; while mammon, once it has its hooks in human flesh, will
drag it where it wills, all the time whispering in to the ear dreams of self-aggrandizement.
The marching orders of God and of mammon are in entirely different directions.” 18
There can be no compromise or sharing of loyalty between God and Mammon as
there can be between two employers. Instead, we will love one and hate the other. In
Jewish thought, “love” and “hate” can have emotional connotations, or they can indicate
choice. In the parallel phrase, Matthew uses νθέξεται, to cling to, and καταφρονήσει,
to despise or scorn. To love and to cling to is to prefer; to hate and despise it to turn
away. God acclaims Jesus, “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness”
(Hebrews 1:9a). Jesus warns the disciples, “Those who love their life lose it, and those
who hate their life in the world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25). Jesus tells the
disciples, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children,
brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). In
these cases, love and hate do not indicate emotion, but choice. Jesus is asking to make a
simple choice: God or materialism. We can only serve one.
Haughey also tells us, “Another symptom of mammon illness is that we become
so taken up with self-provision and invested in the immediate objects of our trust that we
become unaware of others and their needs. One in fact becomes neighbor-numb, not
necessarily because of any intentional callousness but because there is so little time to
attend to anything or anyone else except our own objects of trust and ourselves.” 19
Materialism changes the way we look at the world.
18 Davies, 642.
19 Haughey, 6.
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