Scripture Matthew 6:19-23, 25-27
Concerning Treasures
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
The Eye
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If, then, the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
Do Not Worry
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life?
Sermon
In my second year of seminary, I learned a big word from a friend in my Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) cohort. CPE is a hospital-based experience for learning active listening and pastoral care. My friend’s name was David, and he had a passionate interest in teleology—which is to say, the study of what is the greatest good, what is the highest purpose of any given organism or system. As people in training for pastoral care, what was our purpose, what was the greatest good we might aim for? And, of course, what was the purpose, the greatest good, for those folks we were seeking to care for, in this vulnerable moment of their lives?
I thought about David this week as I was reading, not only today’s passage from the Sermon on the Mount, but also John Calvin’s commentary on it. Jesus is sharing several teachings here that are not obviously connected. But in pondering them we may find a theme that resonates, not only through these verses, but throughout Jesus’s teachings in the gospels. I think Calvin names it well. He writes,
We know how carefully the philosophers conducted their inquiries respecting the supreme good. It was the chief point on which they bestowed their labor, and justly: for it is the principle on which the regulation of our life entirely depends, and the object to which all our senses are directed. If honor is reckoned the supreme good, the minds of men must be wholly occupied with ambition: if money, covetousness will immediately predominate: if pleasure, it will be impossible to prevent men from sinking into brutal indulgence. We all have a natural desire to pursue happiness; and the consequence is, that false imaginations carry us away in every direction. [1]
Calvin describes Jesus’s purpose here: It is to point his listeners on that grassy hillside in Judea in the direction of the greatest good, what we should be constantly moving toward, the principle on which the regulation of our life entirely depends. And the answer is that our highest happiness is heaven; it is oneness with God.
To be clear: Jesus also sees our life on earth as a blessing to be enjoyed. After all, he is criticized in the gospels for showing up at dinner parties, enjoying the food, and drinking the wine. Our lives can help us to understand the goodness of God’s creation, divine generosity, the kind of heaven on earth we can experience when we truly open ourselves to God’s love and care and show that same love and care to others. We might call all this, storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven, since, “…where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” ~Matt. 6:21 The treasure we should be chasing is oneness with God.
This sounds simple, and yet it is often so difficult and complicated. We all want to be happy. And I fully believe that God, who created all things and called them “good,” wants us to be happy as well. But it is easy to be lured into thinking all kinds of things are the greatest good. A persuasive advertisement can present simultaneous images of wealth, thinness, excitement, and alcohol consumption—any one of which might creep into our consciousness and throw down roots, becoming our driving force.
Jesus tells his congregation on the mountainside not to worry, not to be anxious about things like what we will eat and what we will wear. But we all know wonderful people whose anxieties absolutely revolve around these things, and for good reason. And, let’s not forget, that was also the case with the vast majority of Jesus’s outdoor congregation when we spoke these words. Concern for food and clothing was not and is not a trivial thing, but something life and dignity depend upon. And yet, Jesus is trying to help his listeners to manage their anxiety through a life focused on recognizing the love and care of God.
He is not telling us to banish all anxiety. Calvin suggests that Jesus is warning us against excessive anxiety—the kind of anxiety that can make us ill, or cause us to lose precious hours of sleep, or paralyze us emotionally. We can find ourselves obsessively reading our smartphones, looking through all the bad news, and losing hours of our lives doomscrolling. Excessive anxiety can even cause us to forget about God’s love for us, and God’s promise to care for us.
Of course, we all have worries—whether about our budgets, or our weight, or the state of our nation, or the state of the world. We have worries about our children, and our grandchildren, and our parents, and our grandparents. We have worries about those who are struggling with illness or misfortune. And yes, Calvin says, it is not only normal but expected that we should care. Care is good. But it is not good when worry spills over into every little nook and cranny of our psyche, so that nothing else seems as real as what we’re worrying over.
We have many paths to helping us reduce our anxiety. Jesus recommends that we look to God’s creation—the birds of the air, who don’t do the kind of manual labor the working poor have always been relegated to, but who get along on what God provides. Being in nature has been scientifically proven to reduce anxiety. Jesus points us to God, who, even in our worst moments, can provide solace. Prayer and meditation, walking or biking, community—having compassionate and attentive listeners in our lives—all these can help us to be more open to the joys of life. Medications as we know them weren’t available in Jesus’s day, but they’re available to us, if our anxiety becomes truly incapacitating. And of course, trying to limit our doomscrolling is always a good idea.
Jesus’s recommendation is one we all should take seriously. Remembering that God is, that God created us, and that God wants us to thrive, in itself, is a balm. How would our lives change if we recognized that walking with God our creator, our loving parent, is, in fact, our path?
Jesus’s teaching about treasure in heaven and his teaching about anxiety are bookends to the teaching about the eye as the lamp of the body. Jesus uses the eye as a metaphor here, as he so often does, because the eye, in simplest terms, is the thing that helps us to know where to go, which path to take. If the eye is healthy, the Greek says, the body will be healthy. If the heart knows what to focus on, the spirit within us is healthy. The eye that can see God’s love and truth will walk the path God invites us to walk.
Jesus asks us to pursue that teleological prize: the greatest good. He reminds us to set our minds and hearts on God, to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven. He suggests that we allow God’s creation to remind us of all that is good, all that is a blessing. And if we heed his reminders, love and gratitude and generosity will flow through us and out into God’s world as a result.
Thanks be to God. Amen. [2]
[1] John Calvin, Matthew 6:19-21, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke: Volume First (1555), tr. Rev. William Pringle (1845); (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library), http://www.ccel.org.
[2] Calvin, Matthew 6:19-27, Op. Cit.