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

 "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

Yesterday we read that Jesus taught (in the Sermon on the Mount):  "And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do.  For they think that they will be heard by 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 comments that by attaching themselves to treasures on earth, people cut themselves off from heavenly treasures.  People becomes slaves, in effect, to earthly things, rather than free in Christ.  The heart of discipleship, a note reads, is to disentangle ourselves from the chains of earthly things and to attach 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!"   My study bible calls the mind (in Greek, nous/νοῦς) the spiritual eye of the soul.   This capacity for understanding illuminates the inner person and governs the will.  To keep the mind wholesome and pure, it says, is fundamental to the Christian life.

"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 who serve two masters, my study bible notes, people will attempt to maintain attachments both to earthly and heavenly things.  But this is, in fact, impossible -- both demand full allegiance.  Jesus calls mammon ("riches") a master not as wealth is evil by its nature, but rather because of the control that it has over people.

I find it interesting to read Jesus speaking about treasures to which we cling in the light of our reading from yesterday.  Yesterday, we read the prayer Jesus gives us, called the Lord's Prayer, or the Our Father, in which we're taught to pray:  "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."  These debts in the prayer are spiritual, or even debts of the soul.  But Jesus also implies this forgiveness -- or literally "letting go" -- in today's reading regarding material treasure as well.  Taken as a whole it conveys an attitude toward life which Christ calls us to cultivate and maintain.  In today's reading, we're taught to "let go" of our clinging to material treasure as our main goal or central reliance, and turn instead to treasures in heaven.  That is, those things which we acquire when we practice discipleship, especially in the practices of prayer, almsgiving, and fasting which Jesus has just addressed in the Sermon on the Mount (see reading from Monday and yesterday's reading, above).  In the parable Christ gives of Judgment (25:31-46), Jesus emphasizes practices of compassion as those which lend us "credit" in heaven.  Taken all together, our readings give us an emphasis in letting go of our immediate concerns, be they hurts or temptations or passions of any kind -- but doing so in order to give them to God for proper balance and prioritization in life.  Jesus immediately speaks of the eye as the lamp of the body, and therefore emphasizes how we see.  That is how we look at life around us and our immediate concerns and desires.  He encourages us to have a healthy state of perception so that the whole of ourselves may be led in the right direction for life, and so that we live a healthy life in all ways:  spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically.  Once again, it is an emphasis on a healthy integration and balance of body, soul, and spirit.  It reminds us of His earlier words, "If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell" (5:29).  It is again a warning that "little things" if left uncared for and properly maintained can lead the whole of us into darkness, where we don't want to go.  It will darken our entire worldview.  So, just as in today's reading, Jesus tells us that we can be unwitting slaves to mammon and so must choose what we will serve, so forgiveness of spiritual debts (as in the Lord's Prayer) keeps us from being slaves to old hurts and harmful experience.  So stark is this choice, apparently, that Jesus speaks in terms of slavery and service, and that each master demands full obedience.  This applies on so many levels.  If we are slaves to a worldly perspective, we may spend a lifetime nurturing a grudge and with an inner slavish demand for vengeance or getting our own back.  If our number one priority in life is accumulating possessions above all other considerations in life -- that is, not a healthy understanding of saving and choosing wisely how to use our goods, but rather a love of money (emphasis mine) -- then we are slaves to mammon.  We will not be capable of truly serving God.  I have quite literally experienced this to be true, with the "bottom line" outweighing all considerations of love and even family ties.  In each sense of the material or spiritual, it is Jesus' truth that can set us free of slavishness to something that will not love us back nor guide us in the proper direction for full health and well-being.  As Psalm states, it is far better to be "a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness" (Psalm 84:10).  For in the house of our Father we are loved and cared for, nurtured and given the best medicine and teachings for growth.  Jesus presents us with stark choices, which we perhaps only in rare moments see with such clarity in our normal waking lives.  Let us take His word seriously, for we know of His love for us.  And who wants to be a slave to that which cannot love?