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 currently reading through the Sermon on the Mount, found in chapters 5 - 7 of Matthew's Gospel.  Yesterday, we read that Jesus preached regarding 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, people cut themselves off from heavenly treasures.   They become, through this attachment, slaves to earthly things rather than free in Christ.  The heart of discipleship is developing detachment, disentangling ourselves from the chains of earthly things and attaching ourselves to God, the true treasure.  This entire section clearly sets out the choice -- one must come first for worship, and this choice determines our outlook and purpose.

"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!"  Jesus illuminates another facet of the nature of this choice for us.  The mind (nous in Greek) is the spiritual eye of the soul, my study bible tells us.  It illuminates the inner person and governs the will, like a lamp gives light to a room, a home, the place in which we dwell.  This sort of lamp was one which could be carried from room to room, thereby lighting the way, and set on a lampstand.  In the Greek, this passage reads, "if your eye is pure," or "simple," meaning single-focused, without adulteration.  To keep one's mind wholesome and pure, my study bible notes, is fundamental to the Christian life.  Jesus is saying that the light we rely on to illuminate all of our lives is crucial therefore to how we will live and experience life.  Our inner eye must choose that light, or else all will be kept in 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."  As slaves serving two masters, my study bible says, people try to maintain an attachment to both earthly and heavenly things.  But this is impossible, because both demand full allegiance.  Jesus calls mammon (meaning "riches") a master not because wealth is evil by nature.  Rather, my study bible notes, this is because of the control it has over people.  One comes first, and determines the value -- how we look at -- everything else.

Really, this is a teaching about relationships.  What Jesus is telling us is that as human beings we have a prime focus.  Depending on what that focus is, it determines our relatedness to everything else.  A kind of material-minded outlook, a focus on mammon, means that we'll view the rest of life in this paradigm, where everything is about what we can get.  We'll fail to understand the gifts of spiritual life, of talent, of beauty, even truth, because everything will seem like another kind of material object.  Envy works through this sort of focus.  The God-given talent of another person, or their natural beauty, or spiritual gift -- whatever it is that sparks the envy -- is viewed as something to take, something which can be added or subtracted, or destroyed if it cannot be in the possession of the one who envies.  But gifts are of an entirely different sort of reality.  If we place our primary focus on God, our relatedness to the world and to other people shifts.  In that perspective, each of us has our own "bank account" with our Creator, and each of us has not only potential and possibility, but our own way to make with Creator, our own journey to make and cross to take up.  It shifts perspective to focus on what we need to do, what's in our own account, and how we can make the best of it.  When Jesus speaks of the lamp of the eye, He's telling us about the need for no spot or stain or occlusion getting in the way of its clarity, no mixed motive to clog up or dim our vision, the way we see things.  The focus here seems to tell us that we're creatures made for worship, and therefore we must be careful about what we put first -- because that is what we will serve in our lives.  Material life, wealth, is not bad of itself.  It is simply not meant to be the object of worship -- as such, it is empty and dark indeed.  St. Paul writes, "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil" (see 1 Timothy 6:9-10).   The emphasis here is on what or whom we choose to love, to put first as our heart's desire; it is to this love that we will be loyal in all things.   Let us put our friendship with Christ first, and allow His love to show us what life is meant for.