Commentary on the Gospel of

Fr. Roland Chidi, cmf

Matthew 6:24-34            You cannot serve God and mammon – call for Fidelity!

-        No one can serve two masters

-        Do not worry about your life

-        Your heavenly Father knows

Infidelity has always been confronted, indeed challenged, in the salvific history of God’s people. For instance, the prophecy of Hosea basically tells and retells, as well as cautions against infidelity. Prophet Hosea uses the image of a lady nurtured from childhood, but unfortunately, she preferred harlotry: addresses the infidelity of God’s children as they recourse to worship of idols. They paid allegiance to other gods, yet pretended to believe only in one God. Our Lord Jesus Christ frowns at, and condemns this dual allegiance as unfaithfulness – you cannot serve God and mammon!                                              

What leads to serving two masters? Infatuation springs up as a major source of infidelity! Infatuation here refers to ‘a state of being carried away by an unreasoned passion, usually towards another person to whom one has fallen in love.’ This can also be the case with a material object! One gets strongly attached to the object of infatuation – it could be a car, clothing, house, ornament, gold or silver, title, position, etc. Many a time, the person literally appears unable to control oneself; it is as if he or she cannot survive without this particular object. One’s whole heart is consumed by this object. For the person, this particular object constitutes ‘a sacrosanct’, ‘an untouchable’. The object becomes a god!

The foregoing attachment is what our Lord discourages – serving the object in question! Our Lord is instead reminding us that each of us is in a wonderful relationship with God and this relationship cannot be compromised by other inordinate passion and attachment. We entrust ourselves to God in a covenantal relationship when we were baptised. We should not reduce this Father-child-bonding to ‘a second-choice relationship.’

 

We are encouraged to lay before our God the concerns and worries that lead us to unfaithfulness: ‘Seek first the kingdom of God … all else will be yours.’ Ours is a journey of ‘possessing all by losing all!’ We only need to consistently and honestly trust our Father who knows our struggles.  O God, help us to always love you with all our heart, strength and power through Christ our Lord, amen.

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