May 3, 2009
“The Single Eye”
Matthew 6:22 -24
Jesus was a master teacher. Twenty centuries have rolled by, and we still remember what he said.
I’ll bet we’ve heard, “You are the salt of the earth,” “Love your enemies,” “Blessed are the peacemakers…” “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do so to them….” We can think of others, too, “Judge not, that you not be judged,” and “Ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find.” All these are sayings of Jesus written in Matthew, collected into the Sermon of the Mount. We remember the teachings not only because they are catchy. They teach us truth. When we follow Jesus’ way, we live the truth. It may not be easy, but it pleasing to God. And, to a follower of Jesus, there is nothing higher than pleasing Jesus.
We find another one of Jesus’ truths in Matthew 6:22, “The eye is the lamp of the body.” Let’s think a bit about what the “eye is the lamp” means. We don’t use lamps much anymore, except on camping trips when we are trying to find our way in the dark. Lamps originally were nothing more than a lit candle covered by a glass case so the wind wouldn’t blow it out. Lamps act as flashlights to guide us. In this sense, then, when Jesus says, “the eye is the lamp of the body,” we think first of the eye as guiding the body. Through the eyes, we can looks out and see what’s around us. The eye shows the rest of the body where to go.
Ah, but notice that Jesus reverses the direction of the eye. He says that “if your eye is good, the whole body will be full of light.” Now, the eye is bringing into the body what it sees from outside. If what it sees outside is good and sound, then it will bring good, sound light into the body. One way to think of this is to think of the eye as a door on a double hinge that can swing both ways, in and out, like the old saloon doors of the Wild West. The eye can look out and let the body know what it observes; it can also bring into the body what it sees. Jesus is speaking here of what the eye brings into the body. The eye, in this sense, is the portal into our mind and into our memory.
What does our eye bring into our mind? Our vision carries a constant stream of information to our brain. Just consider all the eye sees as we’re riding in the car: tree after tree, houses, shops, Rita’s Water Ice. So much is seen that our mind can not process it all. What our mind does is choose and select what to remember. When Jesus says, “The eye is the lamp of the body,” he is speaking about our mental process of filtering out the casual things and holding on to what the mind considers worthy of keeping. It’s like the brown paper bag sale at Ace Hardware Store; 1/2 off what we can fit in the bag. We can’t fit the whole store in the bag. We have to choose what to put in and what to let go.
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We can restate Jesus’ teaching on the eye by saying we choose what to bring to our mind and keep. If we bring in what is good and sound, it influences our mind for the good. Jesus says that like flooding the body with good, bring light. Ah, and if we chose differently to bring the bad that we see into our mind, then, it’s like darkness in the body and mind. As Jesus says, “How great is the darkness!” (verse 23)
It becomes a matter of what we choose to bring in; what we choose to focus upon. I was visiting a high school friend in another city at a time when she had two small children. As I pulled up into the driveway, I noticed her 4 year old son at the door watching me. I walked to the door, was welcomed in, we greeted each other. She introduced me to her son, whom I had never met, and then my friend said to me, “What car are you driving?” Cars are not my thing. I told her everything I knew about the car I was driving. I said, “Ah, it’s a rental car?” She turned to her son and said, “What kind of car is Mr. Jones driving?” He said, “It’s a 1995 Ford Taurus.” The mom said, “How do you know it’s a 1995?’ He says, “Because that’s the year the grill was widened.” He knew every year, make and model of every car, foreign and domestic. Four years old. He trained his eye to focus on cars. We choose our focus, and when we do, it powerfully affects our mind and our emotions.
A relatively young pastor was attending a conference in Ft. Wroth, Texas. He checked into a hotel several blocks away from the convention center, where the hotel rates were less expensive. On his way to the first evening session of the convention, he ran into a group of mature pastors from his denomination in the hotel lobby. They invited him to join them and they walked the several blocks to the center. No one realized that their walk would take them past the seedier parts of downtown. The young pastor did his best to look straight ahead, passing explicit posters and several strip bars with loud, thumping music. Some of them had their door-ways intentionally wide open for a revealing look at what was going on inside. He found himself peering in as he walked along. Then, he thought, “I can’t be seen looking in these places walking with these other pastors.” Guiltily, he glanced to the one side to see if anyone had noticed what he had been doing. There wasn’t anyone there. He looked around. No pastors. Where had all those mature pastors gone? The thought entered his mind that maybe they had ducked inside one of the bars; then he saw them. They had crossed over to the other side of the street, without needing even to discuss it, walking on the side of the road where the run-down hotels and shops were located, choosing to get as far away as possible from what he had chosen to see. We choose our focus.
It doesn’t make any difference what we choose to bring into our bodies through our eye. If we focus upon it, that will affect our mind and our soul. Some people focus upon a subject in school. Students focus on their studies just before finals. It’s called “cramming” for a reason! Others focus on baseball and can tell you every relevant statistic of the Phillies. Some focus on the lives of movie stars and know who is married and divorced from whom and who was seen recently with whom. Some know economics.
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Some focus on fantasy life through video games, movies, books. It doesn’t seem to make a difference what the subject is, when we choose to focus, we bring that into our bodies and it affects our mind and our soul Maybe that’s why another saying has become popularized, “You become what you think.”
What truth there is to Jesus’ teaching. That’s why it has lasted all this time. It is true in general. It is also true in a more specific sense. Jesus narrows down the general truth to a one specific, named area. If you would, notice with me what comes just before this teaching of Jesus. Right before speaking about the eye as the body’s lamp, Jesus says, “Do not treasure up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where robbers rob.” He’s warning us not to place too high a value on things: money, possessions, savings, purchases. The things of this world don’t last, and, even more importantly, Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, that is where your heart lies.” In other words, be careful what you choose to treasure. Jesus has been speaking of financials: money, possessions, savings, purchases. He moves immediately, without changing the subject, to the eye is the lamp of the body. Jesus is not giving us just a general truth, he is applying it to a specific truth about money. Be careful about choosing to focus upon money. Focus on money and its companions, and it will affect our mind and our soul.
We’re living in scary times. We’ve probably noticed that last summer when the stock market and our bank accounts had lost enough value that people were really concerned, that the “experts” were saying we probably were entering a recession, but not to worry because it wouldn’t be anything like the Great Depression. The fall came and the “experts” told us we were in a recession, but we shouldn’t be comparing it with the Great Depression. This spring, have you noticed? The experts are silent in their predictions! At the same time, the rate of unemployment steadily grows. First, the current unemployment rate broke the high numbers of unemployment in 2001-2002. More people lost their jobs and the unemployment rate climbed higher, surpassing the rate in the late 1980’s. The current rate kept climbing, past the number of unemployed 1980. We’re getting close to having only one other time in the last 100 years when so many people were out of work. Guess when that was; the Great Depression. So, shall we name the darkness together? It is fear; fear of having enough money, fear of not paying our bills, fear of losing our job, fear of losing our homes. We hope the downward economic spiral will soon end, but we are powerless to stop it. As I mentioned last week, “Among people learning less than $50,000 a year – roughly half of U.S. households – 31% have been out of work at some point, and 13% have been hungry. 40% of people at all income levels say they feel anxious, 32% have trouble sleeping and 20% are depressed” – all because of fear. (Time, April 26, 2009)
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The advice we receive is not easy. Jesus goes on to say, “You can not serve two masters. Either you will love the hate the one and love the other, or will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” (verse 24) It’s different with friends. One friend calls us up and asks us to go to the movies. Then, another friend calls up to go to dinner. We can say to the second friend, “I’m sorry. I already have plans. How about next week?” We can rearrange to do both. Not so with masters. Masters refuse to be rearranged and fit into our schedules. Masters insist we fit into their schedules. To have a master is to be obedient to the master’s wishes when the master asks. If we are serving a master, we are asked for the highest obedience. We can’t serve two highest authorities. It’s either one or the other.
Jesus concludes, “You can’t serve both God and money.”
These words ask us to consider whom we are serving, God or money. We would probably not think that being afraid and worry are ways of serving money. We want to serve God; it’s just that we’re in difficulty financially. Yet, as we think about our money worries, as we focus on them, as we choose to allow our money worries to come through our mind’s eye and dwell on them, it affects our mind and our soul. We begin the impossible, serving two masters.
So, what to do? Try out this short saying: Hang tightly to Jesus; hold loosely to money. Hang tightly to Jesus; hold loosely to money.
We can’t escape worry in difficult times, but we can choose to lessen it. Instead of allowing free floating anxiety to clog up our minds, we can give those concerns to Jesus. We can tell him our worries and our concerns directly, truthfully, honestly, and then give up the results to our Master. It truly is in his hands.
Those who live in Southeast Asia have developed a clever trap to capture tree monkeys. They construct a heavy wooden box and cut a hole in it large enough for a monkey’s paw to slide in and out. Then, they put a few delicious nuts in the box and set it out in the jungle. Soon enough, monkeys are attracted to the sight, curious. They smell the nuts and a monkey puts its paw easily into the hole and latches onto the nuts. Then, it draws its hand out. But, while the hole is large enough for its paw, it is not large enough for the monkey’s closed fist, holding the nuts, to pass through. As long as the monkey holds onto the nuts, its fist remains closed and it can not escape the trap. They saw the monkey holds on to the nuts, even when humans approach to throw a net over it and capture it.
What will we choose to hold tightly onto during these difficult times? Hang on tightly to Jesus; hold money fears loosely.
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