"You cannot serve God and mammon." Our summer church school planners chose our gospel passage months ago. This week as I read and meditated on the scripture, alongside me were the local newspaper, the New York Times and the current Fortune Magazine. The Fortune cover story is entitled, "The Greedy Bunch: You Bought. They Sold." Maybe you saw it. The writers investigated the big companies whose stock dropped 75% or more from their peak and calculated the stocks sales taken by their officers and directors since January 1999. The leaders of the top twenty-five companies pocketed $23 billion! $23 Billion! That's about $49 million per person on average while investors were losing 70%, 90%, or even all of their holdings, while thousands of families were losing jobs and retirement funds, responsibilities and reputations. The devastation is still unfolding. For most of us, it is hard to imagine an individual or a household believing they are entitled to $49 million or in some cases ten times that figure. Then on Thursday, the secrecy around the Enron investigation began to crack with Michael Kopper breaking his fifth amendment silence and entering a guilty plea to money laundering. As a result, the Fastow family was forced to halt their bank account shuffle. Associated Press reported: "Latest Enron revelation: Greed — Executives appear to have been out for themselves." Not really a surprise to us, was it?

There has been plenty of mammon around to worship or serve if you were in the right place, knew the right people and were willing to deal. "Infectious greed," Alan Greenspan called it. Mammon. It's an Aramaic word, a dialect of Hebrew spoken during the time of Jesus. Though the Gospels were written in Greek, they include a few Aramaic words so well known they didn't need to be explained or translated. Mammon is one and Abba, an endearing term for father is another. The meaning of mammon in English is not only our usual understanding of money but also wealth in general, property or profit. It comes from a root word that means, "that in which you put your trust." Jesus' statement to his disciples does not condemn the use of money or possessions but only the condition of being controlled by them, being a slave to them. The things we trust have a certain amount of control over us. We have expectations about them. Having multiple objects of trust doesn't work because sooner or later they will come in conflict with each other and we are forced to choose between them. Almighty God asks for undivided devotion from us, our complete and ultimate loyalty not one shared with mammon. Not one shared with the almighty dollar. It is not easy.

Compared to the rest of the world, everyone in this room is financially wealthy. Jesus said it is easier for us to get through the eye of a needle than to get into God's kingdom where every thought and action is guided by God's love. Whatever the size of our bank account, whatever the amount of our stock options, it is a rare person who has not at sometime found himself guided by the anticipation of personal wealth or possessions rather than the furthering of God's kingdom here on earth. It's a rare person who hasn't at sometime depended upon money or possessions rather than God to provide him with the love, self-worth and respect that we each feel we need.

For most of us this split loyalty between God and mammon with which we struggle does not play out in "infectious greed." For most of us, we could be completely satisfied with much less than the $1.57 billion that the Director of Qwest Communications received from stock sales or the $735 million received by the Chairman of Global Crossing. However, as those sales and others occurred simultaneously with our own loss of investment and retirement income in the same sinking corporations, we began to feel anxious. As those sales and others occurred simultaneously with thousands of people losing their employment in these companies or other companies that depended upon them, trusted them, you and I became aware of the squeeze and we began to feel anxious — not greedy, but anxious. As the bubble burst in the Dot Com world, we began to feel anxious.

How has your own life been affected by the recent changes in the economy and the corporate scandals? Jesus said, "Do not be anxious about your life," yet, how realistic is that? This congregation has lost families who have been forced to move in order to find employment. Others have stayed but endured periods of job searching, some retraining and changing careers in the process. Vacation trips and home remodels have been postponed. The expense of private school tuition has been questioned. The need to live off savings that was meant for college educations or retirement or to borrow just to stay afloat is anxiety producing. These changes take their toll on our self-esteem, our personal identity, and our relationships. Who are we as we adjust through life's transitions? How many more changes will we have to make before we feel stable and secure again, if ever? When we aren't able to earn the income we think we should, that our family depends upon, we worry about it twenty-four hours a day. There is no getting around it. The conventional wisdom in this century is not much different from Biblical times. In the sixth chapter of Proverbs we read, "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want, like an armed warrior." The fear of a bad outcome can be crippling.

Yet, Jesus upsets the conventional wisdom. "Do not be anxious about your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink, or about your body, what you shall put on." Anxiety splits our attention. It distracts and divides us. It can pull all the energy out of us. Jesus calls us to let go of the need to control, to know the outcome, to assume we must have everything we think we need. God knows what we need. Lilies such as the pink stargazer and the blue agapanthus on our chancel shelf are more beautiful than King Solomon in all his glory though they didn't earn their beauty or their care by toiling or spinning. Do you remember the story of the Hebrew people wandering in the wilderness, growing hungry and crying out to God for something to eat? God rained down manna to sustain them but only one day's worth at a time. If they tried to store it up, to horde it, it would quickly spoil. When you prayed the Lord's Prayer earlier in the service, what did you mean when you said, "Give us this day our daily bread"? How hard it is for us living here in Marin County to honestly trust God to provide for us the things we need each day. Unfortunately, we fear that God's definition of "need" might be a little skimpy compared to our own. Jesus didn't mean in this passage for us to be lazy or not use the skills and intelligence that we are so lucky to have, but asks us only not to panic. When we trust God to care for us we are invited to let go of our expectations. When God cares for us it might not be with a life style that we are used to or that we want or expect for the future. God asks us only to trust that God truly knows all that we need.

There are events that shake us out of our expectations and that awaken us to an awareness of our true needs. Certainly the tragedy of September 11 was one of these. We found ourselves thanking God for the lives and health of our loved ones, for our safety, our homes, our communities, and our freedom. It made our worries for material things that were so important on September 10th seem petty and insignificant the next day. In January, as I shared dinner in the home of a family in a colonia east of Tijuana, I was also reminded to examine my own assumption of needs. In a three-room house with cardboard ceilings and no indoor plumbing, fourteen-year-old Edith questioned us through a translator as her mother put the final touches on the meal. "Do you have indigenous people in the United States? I never hear about them. How do they live and how are they treated?" This young, very thoughtful girl was thinking about justice issues and ways other people are cared for rather than any needs we might have thought that she had as we mentally compared her home to our own.

Jesus called for his hearers to put their worries and their anxieties on the back burner and instead said, "Strive first for the kingdom of God and God's saving justice and all these things shall be yours as well." If we considered the needs of all, not just our own families or just Tiburon or the Bay Area, but the needs of people throughout our country and even our world; if we shared what we have rather than assuming a certain entitlement that slips into greed, there would be enough for all women, men, and children to have what they need. It is hard to do but it would be healthy for each of us to review at least annually what we have and what we truly need. How would the lists compare? As we shop, do we consider how each of our purchases affect other people, who benefits from them and who is harmed? How does our use of natural resources affect the lives of our children and grandchildren? What do we truly need and what is really most important in our lives?

Jesus' final sentence in this passage feels as if it were written just for us today. It is surely more meaningful to us adults with all our anxieties than to our young children who are learning about it in Findlay Hall this morning. As we worry about corporate greed and about our own personal life situations, let us hear the words of Jesus. "Do not be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day. Live in the present."

Closing prayer from Paul's letter to the church in Philippi:

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:4-7