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     The Gospel According to Luke is downright suspicious of material wealth.  Jesus' preaching about the dangers of possessions gets a prominent place.  The stories of the Dishonest Steward, the Rich Man and Lazarus, and the Rich Fool highlight the need to use material wealth wisely.  Being rich does not guarantee eternal life.  This preaching was considerably counter-cultural then and it remains so today.  Material wealth was and is often seen as a blessing from God, not an obstacle to faith.  We often hear the term "prosperity gospel" in regard to certain preaching, especially in mega-churches and televangelism.  It is a kind of "trickle-down" theory that believes that the more you have, the more you can help others.  I first encountered this as a college student when I had to read Eric Goldman's RENDEZVOUS WITH DESTINY, a cultural history of the U.S.A. and learned of the famous sermon, "Acres of Diamonds," which promoted that very theory.

     The tension between material wealth and faith is readily apparent in Jesus' statement about serving two masters.  Slaves were "owned" by their masters (not in the same way as the terrible form in  U.S.A. history).  They were expected to show complete loyalty to that one master.   When we hear the expression, "Do we own our stuff, or does our stuff own us," we get a glimpse of what Jesus' is speaking about.  Whom or what do we serve?  A "master" may, indeed, not be a person, but a substance (drugs, alcohol) or an object (home, car,) or activity (career, gambling).  What or who commands our time, talent or treasure?  Jesus challenges us to be the master and not the servant of those things, and to be a wise master at that, using material blessings to help others instead of hoarding them in a futile effort to guarantee our lives.  AMEN