And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw Him, they begged Him to depart from their region

 

 When He had come to the other side, to the country of the Gergesenes, there met Him two demon-possessed men, coming out fo the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass that way.  And suddenly they cried out, saying, "What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God?  Have you come here to torment us before the time?"  Now a good way off from them there was a herd of many swine feeding.  So the demons begged Him, saying, "If You cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine."  And He said to them, "Go."  So when they had come out, they went into the herd of swine.  And suddenly the whole herd of swine ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and perished in the water.  Then those who kept them fled; and they went away into the city and told everything, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men.  And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus.  And when they saw Him, they begged Him to depart from their region.

 

- Matthew 8:28-34 

 

Yesterday we read that when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side.  Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, "Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go."  And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."  Then another of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father."  But Jesus said to him, "Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead."   Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him.  And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves.  But He was asleep.  Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, "Lord, save us!  We are perishing!"  But He said to them, "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?"  Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.  So the men marveled, saying, "Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?"   

 When He had come to the other side, to the country of the Gergesenes, there met Him two demon-possessed men, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass that way.  And suddenly they cried out, saying, "What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God?  Have you come here to torment us before the time?"  Now a good way off from them there was a herd of many swine feeding.  So the demons begged Him, saying, "If You cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine."  And He said to them, "Go."  So when they had come out, they went into the herd of swine.  And suddenly the whole herd of swine ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and perished in the water.  Then those who kept them fled; and they went away into the city and told everything, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men.  And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus.  And when they saw Him, they begged Him to depart from their region.  My study Bible comments on this remarkable story that the demons, as they recognize Jesus as the Son of God, are surprised that their power is being terminated before the time of the last judgment.  Although the malice of the demons is great, they can do nothing against the will of God, which means they could only enter the swine at Christ's command.  The immediate destruction of the herd shows that the formerly possessed men had been under God's protection and care -- they would otherwise have perished under this demonic influence.  Moreover, it reinforces that swineherding was not lawful for the Jews, and shows the incomparable value of human beings, whose salvation is worth every sacrifice.  

It's frequently assumed about this story (and others which appear in Mark and Luke) that the swineherders are Gentiles.  But in the context of the stories it is more likely that they are Jews who do not abide by the Mosaic Law, as they live in a region of mixed populations, and so raise swine for the Gentile market.  Their materialist orientation shows in their complete failure to value the healing of the two men, and in that the loss of their swine is all that matters to them.  So much so, that they beg for Jesus to depart from their region.  They don't think about what healings Christ could do for others among them; they prefer things as they were, with these men demon-possessed and living among the tombs.  There's a not-so-subtle message here about what we tolerate and what we do not, and more than a hint that when we accept to deviate from what we know God would want from us, we're participating in demonic life.  Whether we realize it or not, God is present to us in spirit, just as these demonic beings are also spirits.  Of course they have no power against God, but we can make choices about what kind of life we participate in.  We separate the world into different realities of spiritual and material, but in the Church this is not really a truthful picture.  St. Paul writes that we are all temples of God:  "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" as he admonishes the Corinthians, "If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are" (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).  Our choices become significant and powerful because our bodies are not simply material but also spiritual, and included in those "energies," if you will is all the rest of us, including our minds, heart, soul, etc.  Therefore our choices do, indeed, have an impact on everything we are, because we are not really separated and compartmentalized even if we manage to believe we are.  Modern medicine has clearly established a link between self-destructive habitual patterns of thinking and the physical effect that can have on us, for example.  But let us consider the spiritual component of life as if it were always present to us.  If this were vividly the understanding with which we lived, how would we conduct ourselves differently in our interactions with others?  Suppose the throwaway insult handed to someone who was hurt was really hurting us spiritually?  (See Matthew 5:21-22 for Jesus' take on this behavior.)  If we thought about what exactly we were allying with when we took an action or made a choice, it gives us a deeper and richer sense of what life is all about, adding meaning and depth.  There are those who want to believe that what is unseen doesn't exist, but this doesn't hold water in any conventional or scientific sense either.  We can read in the Gospels -- and especially in today's reading -- of the destructiveness and malice of the demonic.  Without taking a deep dive into the theology of evil, let us simply observe and spot the patterns in life that echo what they do in the Gospels, even to the point where these men are forced to live among the tombs, are in total disorder, and cannot function in community.  Let us observe the materialist preference of the people of this region who beg Jesus to leave them.  They make a clear choice to reject Jesus, and they show a marked preference for the life which included the affliction of the demonic on the now-healed men.  Let us think then about the choices we make -- and the things with which we ally ourselves -- when we make choices, including the spiritual component to life that is present to us and within us at all times. 

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 

 

We are currently reading through the Sermon on the Mount, chapters 5 - 7 of Matthew's Gospel.  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 comments that by attaching themselves to treasures on earth, people cut themselves off from earthly. treasures.  They become slaves to earthly things rather than free in Christ.  It says that the heart of discipleship lies in first disentangling ourselves from the chains of earthly things, and then 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!"  The mind, my study Bible says, (Greek nous), is the spiritual eye of the soul; it illuminates the inner human being and governs the will.  To keep the mind wholesome and pure 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."  My study Bible writes that as slaves serving two masters, people attempt to maintain an attachment to both earthly and heavenly things.  But this is impossible, since both demand full allegiance.  Jesus calls mammon ("riches") a master not because wealth is evil by nature, but because of the control it has over people.

In today's reading, Jesus is really trying to get us to take a look at our relationships to the things that are around us.  He asks us to examine our own attachments, and set them in proper order.  The material life has such a strong hold over us if we allow it to be first in our priorities that it becomes a truly demanding master, making slaves of us.  It is hard to realize when one is in this sort of slavery, because we are clearly dependent upon material things and live a material life.  However, the Incarnation itself is a model for us regarding our lives.  Just as we are not to be slaves to our passions, we cannot put the material first.  As my study Bible comments, it is a demanding master.  If we do not put God first, to remember our capacity for worship and put it in the proper place, we will find ourselves worshiping mammon, the material life.  Everything will be measured in terms of material value, when our true dependence is first on God, and then with this priority firmly in place will we be able to come to terms with a proper use of and relationship to material goods.  It is easy to be deluded about the material life, especially within a prosperous world that puts so much emphasis only on this aspect of life.  It's easy to be "out of order" in terms of what our real needs and relationships are.  But worship only belongs in one place, and that is to God.  The mind, or nous in Greek, to which my study Bible refers, is the part of ourselves capable of real perception, and it is this that Jesus refers to as the "eye."  As the lamp of the body, it gives us light, meaning light by which we can truly see what is what in life.  So we must take good care that this eye is pure and without impediment or obstacle in it.  But if we're not capable of this clear perception, if we can't perceive the things of God, our whole world is going to be darkness.  We're never going to see the right path through life.  Jesus is not saying we don't have material goods; He's telling us how easy it is for material goods to have us!  That is, for us to be slaves to material life, rather than putting ourselves in proper order  by our love and loyalty to God first, Who then places things in proper order and priority for us.  This is where we understand that we have treasure in heaven, and the true light by which we need to be guided in life.  It will give us the values we need and the priorities to live by.  We also need to read today's passage in light of yesterday's, in which we were taught the Lord's prayer, and Jesus' words reminded us twice about the power to forgive.  If we take this in context, we understand Jesus' use of the word "debts" to indicate ways in which we've been hurt or sinned against, and it is clear that an attachment to a materialist perspective will lead us to store up those kind of "debts" as well in a disordered way.  This materialist viewpoint will lend itself to a perspective on the hurts and scores we need to settle that renders us unable to see the priorities God would teach us for our true inner health and well-being, the right way of relatedness and righteousness in the world.  Therefore, Jesus is teaching us about the slavery of mammon, how if we don't "see" properly, this materialist viewpoint will pervade all of our lives and leave us in darkness on a number of levels, creating improper order in our lives.  Our focus instead needs to be rooted in God and the things of God, and only then will we have a truly righteous understanding of how we are to live the rest of our lives, what values we assign to things.  His verdict is categorical, and serves as a great warning:  "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."  There is nothing in this world that it is proper to put first, to worship, to make an idol out of, whether that be a political party or leader, a slogan, a drive for material things, an image we seek before others, another human being, friends or family, even an image we have of ourselves and what "success" means on material terms, and this would certain include the drive for material power and position.  There is only one person deserving of worship who has walked in the world, and that is Jesus Christ, both God and man.  What is your true currency in life?  What is your bottom line?  By what light do you see?  What do you put first before everything?  These are the questions we ask ourselves, if we want to avoid real slavery.  We've got to make a choice.

 

 

 

 

But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you

Then one from the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But He said to him, “Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” And He said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” Then He spoke a parable to them, saying, “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

Then He said to His disciples, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith? And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.”

- Luke 12:13-31

In yesterday’s reading, Jesus spoke about the realities that are within us, and that are not hidden from God’s understanding. We must take care of what is inside of us, the values we hold – because to fear those who can kill the body alone is not what we must keep in mind. The one who may take our soul knows all there is to know about us – even the hairs on our head are numbered, even the sparrows are accounted for and known, and we who form this flock are more valuable than the sparrows. We must also be aware of the work of the Holy Spirit, that which is known to us and which is also at work in our lives. It is this we must pay the most attention to, particularly in times of stress or persecution for the confession of faith in Christ. See Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Then one from the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But He said to him, “Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” And He said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” A note in my study bible reads, “It was a tradition for respected rabbis to arbitrate personal disputes over property or money. But Jesus refuses to play the role of judge (v. 14) regarding material things, and instead issues a stern warning about greed (v. 15).” It’s quite interesting to note that Jesus is not necessarily criticizing the (presumably) injured man’s feelings, but directing him instead to a better source of worth or values. We enter here into the internal realm Jesus was speaking of in yesterday’s reading – about that which we store within us. The “light” He’s referred to before with which our body may be filled is also a metaphor for values, for worth. Are we going to focus on one sort of abundance – or do we put another first? Jesus has taught that we must choose that which we worship: God or mammon. This is the choice He is emphasizing here. What do we put first? What do we love? He goes to the heart of the question – what is within the heart of the man who asks? Perhaps he’s asking out of greed, or perhaps a sense of justice. We don’t know – the question is, where will he put his highest value? His healing, one way or another, is to be directed elsewhere.

Then He spoke a parable to them, saying, “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” A note reads, “The rich man is a fool, despite his material success, because he vainly puts all his trust in his possessions rather than in God. To be rich toward God (v. 21) is to have a life of close communion with Him through faith and works.” What comes first? Where do our values – and that which therefore creates self-worth – come from? The rich man clearly put all his hopes, all his efforts, toward one thing. He did not put first what needs to be certain and sure, a safeguard he truly needs – that of his own soul, the internal reality or state of his being and true worth.

Then He said to His disciples, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith? And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.” Another note in my study bible says that “this is an exhortation against worry (v. 22) and anxiety (v. 26), not against God-ordained planning and earnest work.” Once again, we are drawn toward the understanding of the awareness of God of all things – and the fact that we are worth so much more than the birds (as Jesus mentioned sparrows in yesterday’s reading). So much of what we do in life is focused on getting material things. What about the things that remain first, and more important? “Life in abundance” is more than the material. It is that which adds dimension to us, enlivens us, teaches us how to live, and to live with life abundantly. It is that which adds that extra depth and width and height to life, which feeds us with spiritual food and nourishment, meaning, and joy.

I don’t think Jesus would ever deny that we need material things to live, we live in a world of material reality. But “material-mindedness” is much more than simply acknowledging the reality of the world and the way it works. To be strictly “material-minded” means that we are without that enlivening spirit of understanding that gives so much to us, that fills our lives with love and meaning, that challenges us to live as truly “incarnationally” as we can – as human beings filled with light. This is not a choice between life in abundance in a material sense and the abundance of the spiritual life per se. (In fact, Jesus indicates quite the opposite, stressing that we need not have undue anxiety about the material things we need.) Rather, the message here is about the power and abundance of the spiritual life, that this must be our focus. If we focus too much on the material – with all the emphasis and stress that goes along with that alone – we are likely to miss the boat altogether. We will miss the light, that which makes us more real, gives us more depth, more abundance, and a greater sense of joy and meaning in our lives. What is first with you? Where is your light, your treasure? What do you make sure you have before all else?