Giving Sight To The Blind: Peeling Onions (II of III)

Matthew 6:19-24

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

It took a a beautiful Wheaton College chapel message to get my lazy fingers into gear on these "Peeling Onions" reflections, but it was this passage from Matthew that inspired the title.

I recently began a slow walk through the New Testament. (Someone yells out, "How slow?") So slow that... well, put it this way. I just finished a slow run through the Old Testament, and that job took five years! But we digress.

So here we are on Matthew 6, and I read the above verses...

And I'm just about to move on... And I'm struck by a thought.

That's odd!

That... what?

Well, Jesus is talking about the dangers of money. And then he started talking about eyes... And then he started talking about money again!

I cannot claim to have read Leviticus more than twice in my life, but I've read the Sermon on the Mount dozens of times.

And yet. I had never noticed that oddity before. Why is a discussion about eyes sandwiched between two warnings about money?

I looked more closely at the verses again.

And I discovered a footnote I had never really noticed before.

"The Greek for healthy here implies generous."

Huh. OK... and what about the unhealthy eyes? Another footnote!

"The Greek for unhealthy here implies stingy."

OOOOOOooooh. So let's read that passage again.

The eye is the lamp of the body. If you see the world through generous eyes, your whole body will be full of light. But if you view the world with stingy eyes, your whole body will be full of darkness!

Wow. I've been reading that passage for decades. Never had a clue. But now I see that it's really a single passage about money. Always was. It just took me forty years to notice.

Thus the title of this blog: Peeling Onions. The Bible, God's gift to us, is the most beautiful document in the world. But! We have to read it slowly if we want to gain all that it has to give. We must move slowly if God is to peel away our misunderstandings and give us new layers of insight.

And now it's time (as with a TV commercial pitch) for the... "But wait!"

Yes. There's more. The Bible is even better than a multi-purpose Ginsu 2.

My encounter with Matthew 6? That happened in November of last year.

Yessir. I'm moving along at a good clip. Today I'm on Matthew 20!

One clarification is in order before we skip forward 15 chapters. The actual Greek behind that passage in Matthew 6 is singular. As in, Jesus spoke about a healthy EYE and an unhealthy EYE.

I mention that because we're going to find that EYE again.

(Keep your eyes open!)

Matthew 20:1-15
For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

Didn't see it? I didn't either. But it's there.

I wouldn't have known were it not for the commentary that pointed this out. But there it is. The EYE. The onion yields another layer. In Matthew 6, Jesus warns against seeing the world through a stingy eye. In Matthew 20, he bring his point home with a story.

Maybe we should be taking this one seriously?

My prior blog touched on politics, and it seems a return trip is in order. Before we hit the road, however, I'll note that I absolutely despise even the notion of being affiliated with any one party. I ask each and every candidate the same two questions:

1) Are you competent for the job?
2) How do your priorities align with those of Christ Jesus?

With that as backdrop, let's proceed. Well, it goes without saying that the Republican Party claims to represent Christians. And does so stridently.

So let's ask the question. Of the Republican candidates now vying to win the primaries... How many are viewing the world through a healthy eye?

Well, I guess we'd need to know how God sees the world to answer that.

In Matthew 20, we see that God wants to employee the underdogs. The under-employed... and pay these particular souls more than they deserve.

That, friends, is what Jesus says viewing the world generously looks like.

I'm not aware of any Republican candidates espousing this point of view.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Now it must be said that I've given Republicans most of my attention over these past two blogs. True enough, and there is a reason why. Jesus said it for me over 2,000 years ago.

John 9:41
Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.’

The Republican party courts and expects the "Evangelical" vote. I put quotes around the word because it no longer means what it used to mean. Republicans still get that vote, but that simply goes to show that both Republicans and Evangelicals share a common problem: a diseased eye whose condition has worsened to the point of spiritual blindness.

...If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

Those are strong words for the Republican party. And for "Evangelicals", whatever that word means anymore.

But it's also a strong reminder for me. Do I have a healthy eye? I'm not a Democrat, much less a fan of the welfare state, and yet Jesus' story rivets me. At least in spiritual terms, God's grace is extravagant–so much so as to appear exactly that way. So I, too, am in the spotlight. And feeling uncomfortable. How much of my life is marked by grace like this?

To be continued...