Which Master Do You Serve?

I wish that I could say that I am amazed at how selfish people can be, but I am not amazed at all. Selfish people feel no concern for other people. They feel no obligation to look out for anyone but themselves. They feel no sense of responsibility for the safety, health, and wellbeing of other people. Their primary motivation is their own self-interest, what benefits them and not what may benefit the group.

If humanity had been as selfish as these individuals are, humankind would have not survived to this date. Human survival depends on a balance of the interests of the individual and the interests of the group. At some point in the distant past our ancestors stopped running for the trees and the illusion of safety and started to defend their little group against a marauding predator. They stopped hunkering down in the tall grass in hopes that the predator would not spot them and rose up and drove off what threatened the group. They learned that humans on their own were easy prey for hyenas and other flesh eaters.

Americans have been influenced by a longstanding belief in rugged individualism, a belief nourished by the myth of the lone mountain man fending for himself in the American wilderness. He survived and did it on his own! It is a myth that has caught the imagination of the modern-day survivalist. It is a myth on which astute entrepreneurs are capitalizing, selling survival manuals; conducting survival training courses; selling guns, ammunition, survival equipment, and freeze-dry foods.

What is not told is that for every man who survived in the wilderness and returned to tell his tale, several men did not survive. What remains of their bones lie scattered in the wilderness. They broke a leg. They ran out of gunpowder and starved to death. A bear or wolves killed them. They encountered unfriendly Indians. They did not store enough fuel for the winter and froze in their make-shift cabin. They lost their footing and fell from a height. Their stories go untold.

Human beings are social beings. They flourish when they are looking out for each other and not just for themselves. The pioneer farmer was able to thrive because he had neighbors upon whom he could call when he needed help and who, when asked, would lend him a hand. His success was not tied solely to his own efforts. He was a part of a community. His neighbors may have lived at a distance from his homestead, but they were neighbors to him.

What did Jesus teach when he walked the earth? He taught neighborliness—being well-disposed toward our neighbors and being friendly and helpful to them. He also taught that our neighbors were not just our family, our kin, or our tribe. Our neighbors were everybody! Treating other people exactly as we would to be treated by them—in a spirit of kindness, Jesus taught, was the essence of all true religion.

Among the reasons that Jesus was critical of the Pharisees and the Law was that they looked out solely for themselves. This, he drew to their attention, was not how God wanted humanity to live. God desired that we should be merciful toward each other as God was merciful toward us—forgiving, compassionate, generous, showing divine grace, forbearing, kindhearted in our words and actions, considerate of other people’s feelings, willing to do good, and not harm.

In today’s “me first” culture Jesus would be dismissed as out of step with the times because he taught that we should look out for each other. He taught that we are responsible for other people’s safety, health, and wellbeing as well as our own. He would be pilloried for teaching that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. This is one of the reasons that we are seeing in a number of local churches, members and attendees who maintain that they are followers of Jesus but do not emulate his life and his teaching. Jesus’ way of thinking, what he taught and practiced, does not fit with their other beliefs. They are elevating their other beliefs over his teaching and example. They have become disciples of those beliefs.

As Jesus pointed to his disciples’ attention, we cannot serve two masters. We will hate one and love the other. This means that we cannot be disciples of a set of beliefs that conflict with what Jesus taught and practiced and be the disciples of Jesus. We must choose which master we will serve—the beliefs of the “me first” culture or Jesus.