No One Can Be a Slave of Two Owners

 Way back in 2014, my family and I moved back to Southern California from Arkansas. Among our hardships at the time was that we didn't have a car. We had ridden the bus back to California and could only bring what we could carry in our luggage. It was a rough time for a number of reasons, and in Southern California, not having a car put a serious hamper on our mobility. But one of the things I found myself feeling at the time was a kind of relief in a way. No car meant no insurance payment. It meant no needing to fill up the tank with expensive gasoline. It meant no car repairs. No yearly car registration either. We were using bus passes at the time, and the monthly pass was so much cheaper than actually owning a car. I was actually happy for a time about not having a car, and was somewhat stressed about being given one about four or five months later by the church we became members of.

     In 2016 or '17, I became the proud owner of a World of Warcraft account. I was paying $15 a month, give or take, for access to Azeroth. Honestly, paying to rent or "own" the thing felt like it obligated me to play it every day, otherwise I was wasting my money. 

     Owning anything means being responsible for that thing. Ownership's neither good nor bad, and it is a regular part of our society's collective psyche, but it does come with responsibilities if you want to continue to own that thing. Ownership of a thing, in a way, makes you the property or slave of the thing you own. Owning a thing obligates you to use it, or else why own it? Owning a thing obligates you to take care of it whether you want to or not. When you own a thing it takes and holds part of you for ransom until you let that thing go. Owning a thing, in a way, makes it your master because you, out of principle, develop an attachment to it just by virtue of your ownership.

     Jesus taught that, "No one can be a slave of two owners. He will either hate the one and love the other, or he will love the one and despise the other." It is my thought this morning that this one of the reasons why the conditions of discipleship demanded a letting go of "the things you started off with", that is, your possessions, as much as they demanded letting go of any relationships where you were more attached to the other person than to Jesus Himself, and of course letting go of your own "psyche," your own self-identity, your "breath." You cannot serve two masters.

     If you are so attached to something that you cannot just let it go, then it is your master, it is your owner whether you want it to be or not. As I said, in this day and age, ownership of property is nearly unavoidable, but be aware of it, and what you possess that has ownership over you. These are the things which prevent you from really being His disciple. Not because He has strict rules, but because you have lent yourself over to serve other owners, and no one can be a slave of more than one owner or master.