Few tools exist that are as cutting as the dichotomy. It weilds two completely distinct subsets. A room’s light switch for example can only ever be found in one of two states. The absence of anything other than two possibilities give dichotomies the property of joint exhaustiveness. The opposing aspects “off” and “on”, in the case of a light switch, satisfy the subset’s need for mutual exclusivity, there can be no middle ground. For this reason dichotomies can be difficult to uncover, as reality in its complexity often produces an overlapping middle ground, or or else some previously inconspicuous third possibility emerges preventing the dualing subset’s need for joint exhaustiveness. Even something as seemingly sure as a coin toss is not truly dichotomous by virtue of the possibility, albeit slim, of the coin coming to rest on its edge.
If one can ensure joint exhaustiveness between a mutually exclusive pair of subsets then one has an effective means of information gathering. If a light switch is turned off then one might find it handy to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it cannot also be on. Depending on the dichotomie’s set, analysis can range from dull to piercing. Enter Christ.
““No one can be a slave of two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot be slaves of God and of money.
Matthew 6:24 – Holmann Christian Standard Bible
The Holmann Christian Standard is one of very few translations that do justice to the original greek word dulos, here correctly translated “slave/s” and often treacherously translated “servant”. Servants do not have “masters”, for they are not owned. They exist as voluntary hired hands, trading their services with one or many employers for payment. Slaves are owned by a definite master. Ownership itself is indeed dichotomous. A slave owned by one master may find it handy to know that he cannot be enslaved to another. Christ asserts this immediately, but with catastrophic power calls into question the state of our loyalty.
It is not logically the case that a slave must have mutually exclusive attitudes towards the master that owns him and a master that perhaps could but does not. Yet Christ the master craftsman makes this claim, as if to pique the curiosity of the listener, before revealing the height of its truth. By identifying the masters as God and Money Christ does not merely speak metaphorically, but supermetaphorically. Revealing a form of slavery so inescapable that earthly masters appear pathetic by comparison.
Christ pits Money and God against each other as dichotomous slavemasters. The attitude of the slaves are described using a dichotomous key. If they do not ‘love’ one and ‘hate’ the other they will be ‘devoted’ to one and ‘despise’ the other. Christ has given us the tools required to build a road that leads to the Kingdom of God itself.
First let’s see to and dismiss the popular notion which asserts that Money is but one example of many potential masters that can conflict with a believer’s commitment to God. This kind of notion reliably accompanies those that use the words “servant” and “serve” instead of “slave” (perhaps for no other reason than following the words they read in their own Bibles) weakening “master” by implication and destroying all logical cohesion and metaphorical power of Christ’s maxim in the process. Further, the dichotomous key, asserting mutually exclusive attitudes towards dualing masters is silently dismissed as mere poetic or strong language to make room for a cliched reminder to “check one’s priorities”. Certainly not in such a way that money is delisted from them altogether, but rather to ensure that it is ranked appropriately along with all other potential “masters”. If one is prepared to be guided by logic in this analysis, despite its unpopularity in this instance with religious leaders, then one might marvel at their lack of adherence to the text. But is that not to be expected? Is religious interpretation and guidance not the means by which such professionals source an income? Who are they to bite the hand that feeds them? If Christ’s words apply to all of us then our pastors and theologians are too enslaved to a master, their twisting and dismissal of Christ’s words tragically affirm them.
Christ’s dichotomous slavemaster supermetaphor is designed to awaken the mind and consider its relationship to the world it finds itself in. Consider money against the principle characteristics of a slave and master relationship. Are they not more than analogous? A slavemaster assumes total control and ownership over the life of an acquired slave. The slave is forced to comply with the demands of his master or otherwise face consequences that may threaten his life. Compliance with the slavemaster is the only way for the slave to ensure his livelihood. The most powerful masters render all attempts to escape futile. They do not merely restrict freedom but subjegate their slave’s mind to believe that they are freedom. Have the parallels emerged? Is this not the precise relationship with money we are thrown into from childhood?
Does money not demand that we work for it? Does it not threaten our livelihoods if we don’t? Do we not equate it with freedom? Does it not make us fear life without it? Are we not envious or else jealous of those with more? Or if satisfied with little do we not scramble if it threatens to leave us entirely? Does it not keep us awake at night? Does it not make its presence known at all hours of the day? Does it not underly our biggest decisions? Our hopes? Does it not fill our dreams? Does it not implore us to defer them while we “sort out our finances”? Has it not taken us hostage? Has it not eroded away our relationships? Does it not lie so deeply in our hearts that is has become our way of charity? Or is it not how we show kindness? By letting go of it do we not display our devotion? Is it not the beginning and end of our disputes? Has it not disguised itself as a tool? Are we blind to the prison it confines us in? Do we not love it abounding and cling to it in scarcity? What else can compare to the power that Money exerts over us as entities existing? Is money not only a master but a master of masters?
And yet, as true as it may be, what is the value of this realisation? We recognised money as a tyrannical master to those that raised us and disregarded and despised it for being so. But then our understanding of the world changed and our intentionality along with it. We don’t say that money enslaves us, we say, Christian and non-Christian alike, that that is “how the world works”. And isn’t it? What alternative is there other than death? The power of Christ’s dichotomy now comes in to light. It states, plainly, that love of Money is hatred of God. That we cannot cling to it without scornfully disregarding our Creator. How can this be? How can merely doing what is required to exist, “earning a living” as we put it, be somehow inescapably tied to a disregard of God? Does God not want us to survive? Further, if one was to love God, doesn’t Christ’s dichotomy require that that same person’s attitude towards money is one of hatred? That if one was devoted to God then money would be met with a scornful snarl? It does, plainly. Yet it also states that such a person would be free of money’s chains. How could this be? What would such a person do? How would such a person provide for themselves? Listen to the Christ that you may purport to believe in.
“This is why I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they?Can any of you add a single •cubit to his heightak by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes? Learn how the wildflowers of the field grow: they don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these! If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t He do much more for you — you of little faith? So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat? ’ or ‘What will we drink? ’ or ‘What will we wear? ’ For the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:25-34 Holman Christian Standard Bible
There is no time limit on this dichotomy. It still stands today. God calls you to a life that you are yet to discover. This is the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
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