Saturday, September 30, 2017

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also


 "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

"The lamp of the body is the eye.  If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon."

- Matthew 6:19-24

 We are reading through the Sermon on the Mount, which began with the Beatitudes, the blessings of the Kingdom.   In yesterday's reading, Jesus taught about prayer:  "And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do.  For they think that they will be heard for their many words.  Therefore do not be like them.  For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.  In this manner, therefore, pray:  Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.  Your kingdom come.  Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.  And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.  For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.  Amen.  For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

 "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."   My study bible says that by attaching oneself to treasures on earth, we cut ourselves off from heavenly treasures.  We may become slaves to earthly things rather than free in Christ.  Jesus zeroes in on a focus here:  what is it that is our treasure?  The heart of discipleship, my study bible says, lies in disentangling ourselves from the chains of earthly things, and attaching ourselves to God, the true treasure.

"The lamp of the body is the eye.  If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!"   Here again, the emphasis is on focus.  The mind (nous in Greek) is the spiritual eye of the soul, my study bible says.  It illuminates the inner person and governs the will.  To keep the mind wholesome and pure, it says, is fundamental to the Christian life.  Jesus seems to be saying that, as with our treasure above, whatever it is we focus on becomes the guiding principle for what we become.

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon."  When we try to serve two masters, we attempt to maintain an attachment to both earthly and heavenly things.  We must recognize our need to make a choice.  Both demand full allegiance.  Mammon is an Aramaic term denoting riches; it is about what we put our trust in as the measure of things.   This is once again about our focus.  Wealth is not evil by nature, but because of the control it has over people, my study bible tells us. 

 Jesus seems to be telling us that we have to make a choice; that human beings by nature are worshipful beings.  Furthermore, our choice in life is between two masters.  We will be in a relationship of servitude to one or the other.  In the context of the ancient world, perhaps this was easier to see.  Hierarchies were more clearly a part of every day life than we may think about today; rulers were kings and emperors.  Our hierarchies and ranks are a little more subtle, but nevertheless remain.  If one is employed in one place, then loyalties become important.  The same is true of loyalty to a country, or a mission to which one has signed on.  We still form alliances and allegiance.  The distinction here between God and mammon is important to understand.  If material things -- our bodies, the beauties of the world, the creatures in the world -- are created by God, then matter itself is not bad or evil.  To use the word mammon is to give us a sense of the material as isolated from God and God's purposes and meanings.  This is material as something we worship, a form of idolatry.  Christ is asking us what we put first, and He's telling us that what we put first -- what we treasure -- is going to determine who we are.  It will be the very heart of us.  It will claim identity in us.  The whole of this created world, including the intelligence with which we're blessed to make of our world what we will, is all a gift from God.  Material life, our bodies, the things that constitute matter -- all of these things are intrinsically good.  But they are good within the purposes God wants and teaches for them.   In the Gospels, the Greek word for "the world" is kosmos.  One of its root meanings is "adornment."   That teaches us something about a relationship to the material world.  A purely materialist outlook becomes slavery merely to the material, and ignores the true and full nature of the inner life.  Jesus puts it very clearly:  where our treasure is, there our hearts will be also.   Do we treasure the heavenly treasures, like the things that add up within this Kingdom in which we participate:  charity, prayer, love, nurturing, the good things of God, a true love of beauty, and sharing the love God teaches us in all forms of charity?  Do we follow the self-mastery God teaches us in making good decisions about our impulses?  A purely material focus is one that degenerates into selfishness as motivation, that only knows demands, and in which we slavishly follow those demands.  We lack the mediation that a deeper relationship with God confers, a life in Christ will teach us, a richer spiritual understanding can give us for the true "enrichment" of our lives.  Here is the very center of our choice:  the heart.  In the ancient world, and in Scriptural writing, the heart is the center of a person.  It is the place where the soul and spirit and all that we are meet.  It is where our intelligence and character reside.  This is an awfully important thing to hand over to trust in a false god, and in idolatry.  It is essentially precious, the very thing that makes up who we are.  We entrust our identity to the best, the fullest, the absolute of goodness, truth, and beauty -- because we want to be children of that Father.  Where and in Whom do you entrust yourself?  In what do you trust to give your full loyalty?  This is a serious and important question and it all depends on our perspective, the one we choose.  Jesus puts it in stark terms, and gives us the spiritual truth of our understanding.  We can choose that light, or the darkness of ignorance about it.  He's given us the tools and the way to participate in the Light; let us be a part of it for all that it will share with us and make of us.






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