God or Mammon (v. 24)
Mammon is a Jewish word that means money, wealth, capital. Jesus uses it as a name for God’s enemy, the idol which usually gets control over people when God is not allowed to rule. It is not possible to serve both God and Mammon. Jesus refers to every day experience. A slave could be owned by two masters, but everybody knew that this was a hopeless situation. The slave had to do everything his master told him to, and in the end it proved to be impossible to fulfill the demands of two masters. Thus, the slave tried to get away from one by devoting himself to the other. There may, of course, have been exceptions to the rule. Jesus is only saying that, as impossible as it usually was for a slave to have two masters, as impossible it is for a man to serve two masters that are so completely different as God and Mammon. One has to choose.
To Trust In God (v. 25-34)
To have God as one’s Father means that one may leave all unnecessary concerns to him. To “be anxious about life” does not mean to care and take responsibility for that which we are to do according to God’s order. It is to be anxious in a way that shows that one does not count on God and trust in him. That is to be anxious for one’s body and ‘life’. Jesus here uses the word ‘soul’, as the Jews did, because for them ‘soul’ is not a name for an immaterial part in us, but a name for us as living human beings with bodies and souls. Therefore, the soul needs food and drink. In Swedish one may use the word ‘life’, or possibly ‘person’ to express the same meaning. Thus, what Jesus is saying is that we are living human beings, persons, to whom God has given life and existence. This is a fundamental fact and something that gives us intrinsic value, so much that there is no need for us to be anxious about food and clothes. God has given us life and he will provide for his children. Jesus asks us to look at the birds and the lilies. God provides also for them. It is not romanticism and naivety, when Jesus says this. He talks about how the birds falls to the ground, how they are bunched together and sold for peanuts on the market, how the greenery of the fields will wither and end up in the oven (the small clay baking oven, which was heated with whatever trash one was able to find). Jesus here points to God’s sovereign power as Creator. He upholds his creation, and we can trust that we are worth more than the birds and the lilies. He has a special purpose for us and he does not forget his children.
Thus, here the issue is trust in God. Trust belongs to the new righteousness. It is not about a prohibition to work or own something. There were wealthy people among the disciples. The apostles stressed, in the name of Jesus, our duty to work (2 Thess 3:6ff). But the issue is about putting all trust in God, not in the sense that one relies on his help to succeed in collecting earthly treasures, but that he becomes the highest and first, the one we serve and keep to, with all that we have and know. He has the right to give and to take, and whatever he does, one can be completely safe and secure. God knows what his children need. It is a privilege, a joy and a happiness to not have think about money and build one’s future on that. Yes, there are worries. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. But we do not have to think about trouble in advance and gather it in piles during restless days and sleepless nights. We take each new day from God’s hand, also its troubles.
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