Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§13.4 For Whom Did Jesus Intend His Message?
fare concerns of Jewish society. More to the point: implicit in the story is a warning
against the danger of wealth: that it becomes something to be relied on, something
which facilitates self-indulgence, and presumably, in the light of the social
context recalled above, a means of social influence and economic power over others.
In a word, the danger is that a person's wealth may become that person's god
(Matt. 6.24/Luke 16.13). 156 It should not escape notice that the episode provides a
vivid illustration of two other teachings of Jesus shared by Matthew and Luke.
Matt. 6.21/Luke 12.34: 157 'Where your treasure is there will your heart be
also'. 158 And Matt. 6.24/Luke 16.13 (= Q): 'No one can serve two masters, for either
he will hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the
other; you cannot serve God and Mammon'. 159 Precisely because wealth creates a
false sense of security, a trust which should be placed only in God, 160 it all too
quickly and too often becomes the most serious alternative to God.
This perception presumably explains the starkness of the warnings attached
to the story: 'How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the
kingdom of God' (Mark 10.23); 'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
as a root from which the fuller motif in Matthew and Luke grew or as an indication of a motif
more deeply rooted elsewhere in the Jesus tradition (see further below, n. 161).
156. On Matt. 6.24/Luke 16.13 see further below.
157. Cited above, in §8.5d; Robinson/Hoffmann/Kloppenborg are surprisingly confident
in their reconstruction of Q here {Critical Edition of Q 328-31).
158. It is also surprising that the sequence Matt. 6.19-21 commands so little confidence
among Jesus questers on the ground, presumably, that it contains popular wisdom subsequently
attributed to Jesus (cf. Funk, Five Gospels 150-51; Lüdemann, Jesus 148) or that there is no
room for the concept of reward in Jesus' teaching (Breech, Silence of Jesus 46-49). But both
Thomas and James seem to have known versions of 6.19-20 (GTh763; Jas. 5.2-3), and the episode
with the rich (young) man also attests that Jesus is recalled as speaking of having treasure
in heaven (Mark 10.21 pars.; see also above, n. 155). There is no parallel to 6.21 in any ancient
collection of proverbs (Betz, Sermon on the Mount 435), so where did it come from, if not from
Jesus? And the refusal to recognize any concept of reward in Jesus' teaching is quite arbitrary
(contrast above, §12.4f; see further Davies and Allison, Matthew 1.633-34). On the contrary, as
the citation of Matt. 6.19-21/Luke 12.33-34 in §8.5d shows, it offers a good example of oral tradition
performed differently in the versions known to Matthew and Luke and subsequently developed
differently again (in a Platonizing way) by Justin Martyr (text in Aland, Synopsis 89)
and others (details in Betz, Sermon 435-37, who then makes the implausible suggestion that
6.21 is a de-Platonized version of the saying).
159. In contrast to the preceding passage, there is a substantial measure of confidence on
all sides that Matt. 6.24/Luke 16.13 (cf. GTh 47.2; 2 Clem. 6.1; Ps.-Clem. Rec. 5.9.4) goes back
to Jesus (Funk, Five Gospels 151; Lüdemann, Jesus 148); further details in Davies and Allison,
Matthew 1.643-45; Betz, Sermon on the Mount 454-59.
160. 'Mammon' is usually explained as deriving from 'mn ('to trust'), that is, something
relied on (in contrast to God); 'the word signifies "resources", "money", "property", "possessions'"
(Davies and Allison, Matthew 1.643; see also Meier, Marginal Jew 3.589 nn. 92, 93).
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