CHAPTER 8
Matthew Matthew 6:19–7:12
LISTEN to the Story
19“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23But 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!
24“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.
25“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
7:1“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
6“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.
7“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
9“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
Listening to the Text in the Story: Genesis 1:29; Exodus 15:27–16:36; 18:14–26; Leviticus 11:7; 17:1–26:46; 2 Samuel 12:1–5; 1 Kings 10:4–29; 18:21; Psalms 37; 39:5; 84:11–12; 104:27–28; Proverbs 3:5–8; 12:25; 23:4–5; Jeremiah 29:12–14; Sirach 29:11.
Imagine the disciple of Jesus who takes her master’s advice. She’s heard Jesus say she’s supposed to enter her closet to pray. So, that very night during evening prayers, she walks into the inner room of her house and closes the door behind her. Perhaps she’s taken a little lamp into the dark, small, cramped space. She can barely see the treasures of her family, locked away from public view and potential thieves. Her husband’s tools, her dowry, a small bag of coins, perhaps even some jewelry and pearls wrapped up in a cloth are all hidden in the shadows, keeping her company as she prays “your kingdom come” and “give us today our daily bread” and “as we forgive our debtors.” Then the last line of her new prayer echoes in the darkness, “but deliver us from the evil one”—a haunting refrain that makes her wonder how all these things fit together in the kingdom that Jesus so passionately talked about that day on the mountain. Consider the cognitive dissonance of praying to God about debtors and daily provisions while staring at your treasures. For some of us, it would be like going to the bank, entering the vault that housed our valuables, pulling out the secret contents of our safety deposit box, then praying to God about the needs of the world. A corporate prayer offered in the solitary confinement of a treasure room brings to light what is valuable and what is hidden in the dark. “And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
It is telling that Jesus so quickly moved from talking about the necessity of forgiving debtors to the importance of storing up treasures in heaven (Matt 6:14–15, 19–21). Forgiveness is a costly thing. We play down the price of forgiveness, acting like only emotions are involved when it comes to “forgive and forget.” Yet as important as our emotional health can be, Jesus taught that sin is more damaging than hurt feelings and emotional scars. He knew that forgiving our debtors would require sacrifice built upon an absolute trust in a generous God. Indeed, to tell a debtor, “You don’t owe me anything” (especially when that’s not the case—his foolishness cost you a hundred dollars!), is based on the presumption that divine rewards are better than human repayment. Why? Because the treasures of this earth don’t last. But heavenly treasures? God’s rewards last forever because the kingdom of heaven is eternal. So Jesus will say things like, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth” and “you cannot serve God and money” and “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear” and “seek first his kingdom” and “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” and “do not throw your pearls to pigs” and “ask and it will be given to you” and “how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts” (Matt 6:19, 24, 25, 33; 7:2, 6, 7, 11). In fact, it could be said that this entire passage (6:19–7:12) sums up what it looks like “on the ground” when we offer the heavenly prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (6:12).
EXPLAIN the Story
Most scholars see this part of the Sermon on the Mount as a random collection of sayings of Jesus. It’s difficult to determine how these verses fit together; the transitions from one passage to the next are rough. In fact, this is where Jesus sounds like he’s emptying both barrels of his “shotgun sermon.” Don’t treasure earthly things. Boom. Watch what you watch. Boom. Don’t worship money. Boom. Don’t worry. Boom. Don’t judge, don’t help pigs, ask God for anything, and remember the “Golden Rule.” Boom, boom, boom, boom. With his rapid-fire warnings (and a respite of encouraging words thrown in every now and then—reloading!), Jesus seems to be shooting at anything that moves against the purposes of God. But Davies and Allison see symmetry in the shot pattern of Jesus’s target:1
Instruction
| Exhortation (6:19–21) | Exhortation (7:1–2) |
| Parable on the eye (6:22–23) | Parable on the eye (7:3–5) |
| Second parable (6:24) | Second parable (7:6) |
Encouragement
| The heavenly Father’s care (6:25–34) | The heavenly Father’s care (7:7–11) |
| (argument from minor to major) | (argument from minor to major) |
The Golden Rule (7:12)
To be sure, Jesus moves from one topic to the next with lightning speed, expecting his listeners to keep up with him. Yet one can see a method to his madness—indeed, to see clearly is key—linking these two sections of the Sermon with two parables about how we see things, one for each eye. First, loving your neighbor as yourself cannot be reduced to “spiritual things” as disciples seek heavenly rewards. Rather, to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness—singular vision that is “healthy”—affects even the most mundane realities of life: food and clothing, money and pearls. The kingdom of heaven coming to earth invades every corner of daily living, even the closet (and what’s inside!). Second, how we see others reveals how we see ourselves. There’s a reciprocity to judgment that some people can’t see, which is why they need the corrective vision of the Golden Rule: “Do to others what you would have them to do you” (7:12). It not only sums up the Law and the Prophets but is the essence of the Sermon. Therefore, to see clearly both ourselves and others (instruction, 6:19–24; 7:1–6) is crucial to the kingdom, for it ultimately reveals how we see God (encouragement, 6:25–34; 7:7–11).
But we have a problem: when it comes to making sense of each parable for each eye, we are blind. We can’t quite figure out what Jesus meant in the first parable, that we should avoid “the evil eye” because the eye is “the lamp of the body.” Jesus sounds very serious when he warned about the effects of bad eyesight: “If your eye [ophthalmos] is evil [ponēros], your whole body will be filled with darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness (Matt 6:23).”2 But his concern is lost on us because we know eyes don’t bring light into the “whole body,” and we don’t believe in the power of “the evil eye.” Besides, how can “light” within us be “darkness”? Moreover, regarding the other parable, the ludicrous picture of a man walking around with a plank in his eye is so absurd that the logic breaks down (7:3–5). Of course, exaggeration for effect is often built upon a non sequitur. Yet in this case the grotesque imagery is so ridiculous, it obscures the point: not only is it hard for us to see someone with a beam protruding from his eye, to suggest that he can “see clearly” once the beam is removed is unimaginable. The man would lose his eye! There’s no way he could see the speck in his brother’s eye, much less anything else. Is that the point Jesus is making, the absurdity of a “plankless” hypocrite still trying to “judge” another? Indeed, it’s hard to see what Jesus meant. One moment he’s saying, “Don’t judge,” and the next he’s talking about removing “the speck from your brother’s eye,” even calling certain people pigs and dogs—certainly very judgmental comments.
So we need to spend some time hearing the parables on Jesus’s terms, because the “eyes” are key to seeing the rest of what he’s saying. In fact, if Davies and Allison are right, these two parables of the eye are a lens through which we see how all of these “random” sayings about treasures, masters, anxiety, judgment, pigs, dogs, and good gifts a father gives to his son are linked together—twin passages that work like a pair of spectacles improving our vision of the kingdom of God.3
How to Overcome the Evil Eye (6:19–34)
I want to start with the end of this passage (encouragement, 6:25–34) and work backward to see why Jesus warned his disciples about the evil eye. As far as Jesus was concerned, if you are convinced that God is on your side—that there is no reason to be anxious about whether you have enough to make it in this life—then why would you look upon the world with the evil eye? Rather, we should look at creation with a “single” eye (haplous, NIV: “healthy”; 6:22) and learn the lesson that God takes care of his own. Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air,” and “See how the flowers of the field grow,” inviting his disciples to have “kingdom” eyes (vv. 26, 28).4 God reigns over his creation. If he takes care of birds that don’t store up treasures on earth, then certainly the Lord will take care of Jesus’s disciples—especially since they “seek first his kingdom,” a singular focus of storing up treasures in heaven (vv. 20, 33). If Jesus’s disciples will live for the kingdom, then God will take care of everything else—not only food and drink but also clothes and even the length of their days on earth (vv. 25–31). In other words, Jesus works from the presumption that God will take care of our business if we take care of his: to love our neighbor as ourselves.
This is where the evil eye comes in. First-century people believed that eyes were not only—as we say—a “window into the soul” (the belief that we are able to see the spirit of a person in their eyes) but also a lamp for the body, releasing the light from within.5 If the light within is darkness, then the person has an evil eye, intending harm to others. It’s almost like the hypnotist who says, “Look deeply into my eyes,” believing he can release his (malevolent?) will on his subject. Of course, if the interior light of the body is bright, then the good-intentioned soul has “bright eyes,” bringing favor to others. In Jesus’s day, then, to give someone “the evil eye” was an attempt to bring ruin upon an enemy, releasing the power of ill intent. Furthermore, to accuse someone of having “the evil eye” was the same as saying they were greedy, jealous (not wanting others to have), and envious of others (wanting what they have, Matt 20:15). Jesus, on the other hand, wanted his disciples to be generous, to love enemies, and to light up the world because God is generous, he loves his enemies, and he is the light of the world. So rather than look upon neighbors as competitors for the limited resources of the world,6 giving them the evil eye of envy and jealousy, Jesus encouraged his disciples to seek God’s righteous kingdom first (the singular eye of loving others), knowing that God is on their side. Besides, to pursue selfishly the necessities of life on earth as the top priority—“If I don’t take care of me, who will?” (little faith!)—makes the God of Israel appear as one of the pagan gods, whose devotees know they have to “run after these things, and [yet] your heavenly Father knows you need them” (6:32).
The harried life of “running after these things” is slavery (v. 24). Who wants to devote their numbered days on this earth to serve a master who can’t take care of you? “Mammon,” a code word for material possessions, is a fickle god. One day you have enough. The next day you’re worried whether you will be able to provide for you and your family. Even if you stockpile enough goods in your closet to last a while, other threats “eat away” at your future—not to mention thieves (evil eye!) who act upon their envious greed (vv. 19–20). It’s as if there is no safe place on earth for providence. But Jesus would have his disciples locate providence in heaven, not on earth, to serve God and not mammon, to look upon this world with a “kingdom” eye rather than the evil eye.7 God is the one who’s running this place. And since the kingdom of heaven is coming to earth through his son, Jesus Christ, then storing heavenly, secret, invisible treasures—vouchsafed for the future (v. 20)—is the best way to live visibly on earth. God sees it all—the secrets of your heart, the treasures of your life, the light within your body. Indeed, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”; therefore, you can be confident that “your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (vv. 18, 21). So why borrow tomorrow’s grief when the relentless arrival of each day brings its own trouble on earth (v. 34)? Praying “give us today our daily bread” is all we need, because all we can do is seek the kingdom of God today: loving our neighbor as ourselves.
Okay. Let’s think this through. If God supplies everything we need to live on earth, if our number one priority is to live for his kingdom—to love others, even our enemies—then sharing our treasures on earth is the surest way to store up treasures in heaven.8 If we refuse to bend our knee to mammon, where fears of scarcity create anxiety about our future, and look upon God’s creation with kingdom eyes—see how God takes care of birds and grass?—then we will see the eternal resources of heaven’s kingdom on earth. If God takes care of tomorrow, and all we have is today, then what we do after we pray in our closet, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” will reveal what we treasure. We may hide our valuables under lock and key—there are thieves—but the question is: Are we loving our neighbors as ourselves? Yet how we love our neighbors with our treasures is difficult; using our pearls to help others is a daunting task. What if they don’t deserve it because they’ve created their own economic mess? What if we’ve already forgiven their debts—what they owed us—and they still need more? What if they waste the gift on their own foolish, selfish desires? It would be like throwing our pearls to pigs. Surely God doesn’t want us to take what is holy—God’s good gifts to his children—and give it to people who have gone “to the dogs,” does he?
How to Treat Plank Eye (7:1–12)
The end game of Jesus’s advice about judging brothers and giving to others has to do with the welfare of his disciples. He’s most concerned about what will happen to them if they are not wise in following his instructions. For example, throughout the Sermon Jesus has been teaching his disciples the way of mercy in their pursuit of righteousness: loving enemies, forgiving debtors, trusting God. And built into the kingdom of God is a reward: those who show mercy will receive mercy (5:7), those who forgive will be forgiven (6:14), those who trust God will be entrusted with the riches of the kingdom (v. 33). But just as mercy is reciprocal, so also is judgment (7:2). Therefore, the best advice Jesus could give is this: “Do not judge” (v. 1). But if you don’t take his advice and you judge others, then don’t be surprised when you are judged in return because judgment (the opposite of mercy, Jas 2:13) begets judgment. In fact, judgment is merciless: it requires exactly what is measured out against others. No one wants that kind of judgment (our desire for revenge proves it). Besides, Jesus has already challenged the justice of the lex talionis (“eye for eye”) because it fosters abuse by evil people (Matt 5:38–41). Instead, the way Jesus’s disciples “do justice” (righteousness!) in his kingdom is to show mercy, always ready to “give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you” (v. 42). “But what about pigs and dogs? If you try to give pigs your pearls, they’ll spoil them, and if you try to give what is sacred to dogs, they’ll attack you (7:6). See? Even Jesus encouraged us to be judgmental at times.” Well, before we accuse Jesus of being judgmental or even inconsistent at this point,9 we need to understand what he meant by pigs and dogs.
Dogs were wild animals, undesirable scavengers, a menace to all people—gentiles as well as Jews. Pigs, on the other hand, were considered unclean by the Jews (Lev 11:7).10 To Jewish ears, then, Jesus was stating the obvious: pigs have no use for pearls; people don’t feed dogs, especially “sacred” food. To give pigs your pearls or to feed dogs holy food is foolish. The reasons are obvious: pigs don’t wear pearls, and dogs have no regard for what is holy and what isn’t. So, pearls are wasted on pigs, and wild dogs will bite the hands that feed them. Yet it’s obvious Jesus wasn’t giving lessons on animal care. In the context of his teaching about judging and the parable of the eye (7:1–5), “pigs” and “dogs” represent certain kinds of people. But who? Certainly, these terms can’t be Jewish code words for all gentiles because Jesus has already referred to them in benign terms (although the NIV translates ethnikoi and ethnē in 6:7, 32 as “pagans,” it means “peoples”—a Jewish term for everyone else), and almost as soon as he gave it, he would be violating his own advice (8:5–13). Some think Jesus was relying on common slurs to warn his disciples about undesirable people regardless of ethnicity—the worst of the worst.11 But how does that square with the unequivocal teaching, “love your enemies,” of which there are certainly “dogs” and “pigs”? Others claim we cannot define “dogs” and “pigs” until we identify what is sacred and what are pearls. Jesus was speaking metaphorically about people in relation to the gospel, the pearls of the kingdom (message?) and the sacred food of God (Eucharist?).12 Either Jesus was warning his disciples that they can’t force the gospel on people,13 or pointing out those who aren’t ready for it—like the gentiles. Accordingly, Jesus’s advice was timely but not timeless: don’t share the gospel with gentiles now (pigs/dogs). The gentile mission comes later.14
Once again, we find ourselves struggling to make sense of what Jesus meant because his teaching is so enigmatic. Identifying who are dogs and pigs, what is sacred and what are pearls—all of this is in the eye of the beholder. How we see others determines how we will treat them. Of course, if we have something obscuring our vision—a plank in our eye—then we might end up treating our brothers like pigs and our enemies like dogs.15 “Seeing clearly” is what Jesus is most concerned about here. For if we don’t see clearly (explained by the second parable of the eye, 7:3–5), we will judge others and be judged as hypocrites with “plank eye.” Then the people we see as “pigs” will despise our pearls, and the ones we’ve dismissed as “dogs” will turn on us and tear us to pieces (v. 6). In other words, I think Jesus’s second parable on the eye deconstructs not only the way we judge one another16 but also the way we treat “outsiders.” The presumption he is challenging is whether any of us “see clearly.” Notice, in Jesus’s parable, everyone has something in their eye, whether a beam or a speck. But judgment works from the presumption of infallibility—that we see things clearly. Yet we all have a problem (whether we admit it or not).17 The “infallible” judge has a beam obscuring his vision, and everyone else sees it but him. Notice also that, according to Jesus, no one can help a hypocrite remove the beam from his eye (he must do it himself). But he can’t see it because he can’t see. Indeed, the only way a hypocrite will see clearly is to admit he can’t see things clearly. (Any chance of that happening?) What about the person with a speck in their eye? Well, Jesus assumes they will need someone to help them remove the speck because everyone knows you need a clear eye to see it. But the speck-eyed person can’t see it because the instrument by which he or she sees is the problem! (What are they going to do? Are they going to pluck out the one good eye with their hand, hold it some distance away from the other eye so they can “see” the speck to remove it and clear up their vision?) They need someone else to see the speck to remove it. So to whom do they turn for help? The only one who can, the hypocrite who admits their own hypocrisy. The humility required to see our hypocrisy helps us see things clearly.
LIVE the Story
The irony of Jesus’s strategy, relying upon our ability to “see” ourselves in the parody of his parable, is genius. Consider the implications of having something stuck in our eyes. “Plank eye” can’t see that he needs help, but he is trying to help others who haven’t asked for it, and “speck eye” knows he needs help and asks others to see the speck because he asked for it. This makes complete sense. I wouldn’t know a person has a speck in his eye unless he comes to me looking for help. Why? Because the only person who knows they have the speck in their eye is the one who has it but can’t “see” it. I’ve never walked up to a person, saw a foreign substance in their eye, and said, “Hey. Do you need help with that?” Never. But several times my children and my wife have approached me saying, “Help me. I’ve got something in my eye.” Then I look carefully trying to find the speck, and sometimes I see it, sometimes I don’t. It’s only when I don’t see it that my family member gets upset. “Well, there’s got to be something in there. I know it!” Then I look again as my speck-eyed loved one hopes desperately that I can see it—because they can’t!—and remove it so they can see. In other words, when dealing with planks and specks, Jesus knew that we need each other to see clearly. Only hypocrites think they can see things by themselves, and that invariably leads to judgment (and a lot of damage).18
So, when it comes to spotting pigs and dogs, I can’t see them by myself. It takes a bunch of “clear-eyed” people—hypocrites who recognize their hypocrisy (humility!)—to help me not waste my pearls on pigs or try to feed dogs the sacred food I treasure. Yes, there are certain kinds of people who act like pigs and dogs—those who don’t value your pearls and will devour your food and try to devour you. Jesus knew this better than anyone. He didn’t look at the world with a starry-eyed optimism: “Everyone’s good and we’re all going to make it!” No, he kept trying to get his disciples to see the world with kingdom eyes; not only admitting that our enemies are evil (Matt 5:39) but also that evil runs through every single one of us—even disciples: “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts. . .” (7:11). Yet we’re still supposed to love our enemies and our neighbors, giving to everyone who asks (5:42). Does that mean pigs too? Well, yes, except Jesus assumed we would know that pigs don’t ask for pearls. Dogs don’t recognize what is sacred. Why? Because they are slaves of mammon. I think that’s the implication of the symmetry of these two passages (6:19–34 and 7:1–12), twin teachings that run on parallel tracks.19 In other words, Jesus has already identified pigs and dogs for us. They hoard treasures on earth because nothing is heavenly (materialists say nothing is sacred). They are slaves of mammon because there is no god to serve (nihilists can’t see the beauty of pearls). They “eagerly run after” earthly things because they worry about tomorrow (pragmatists seek first their kingdom). To give them our pearls—something they didn’t ask for—would be a waste; they don’t value them because they don’t need them. Jesus’s disciples, on the other hand, value pearls and eat sacred food because we serve a God who knows how to give good gifts to his children (7:9–11). How do we know that? Because we ask, “Give us this day our daily bread,” and we receive. We seek first his righteous kingdom, and we find endless grace. We knock on heaven’s door, and God opens his treasury: all debts are forgiven (7:7–8). Therefore, freely as we receive, freely we give to others—even our pearls!—especially to those who ask. This is the Law and the Prophets (v. 12). This is the righteousness that exceeds all others. This is what it means to be “blessed.” This is the kingdom of heaven on earth, and it’s ours (5:3, 10).
So, why worry? Worry doesn’t work. It doesn’t change a thing. Fretting over what will happen doesn’t affect the future. You’ve heard the well-known saying, “Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.” Even worse, the stress of rocking back and forth in your mind, playing the mental game of working through a hundred scenarios (and most of them aren’t good), is harmful. Anxiety only makes us miserable in the present. Even though we know these things, we will persist in our habit of worry—some of us more than others—to the detriment of ourselves and other people. Of course, worry is seated in fear. We only fret over what could hurt us. (I never worry while I anticipate good things. “Oh no. I hope the great bonus in pay won’t ruin me.” Hardly.) Moreover, since bad things happen to everyone, we wonder when evil will come knocking on our door, bringing the bad news everyone dreads: the phone call in the middle of the night, the lab results confirming the diagnosis, the somber look on your boss’s face when he calls you into his office. Our bodies uncontrollably respond to the horror: the mind goes blank, peripheral vision is lost, weakness invades muscles, nausea erupts as waves of despair wash over you. Then, as you return to the reality of your distress, a second sickness kicks in as you think about your family, your life, your future. What can be done? How will my family take the news? Is this the end? The fact that I’m okay at the moment doesn’t bring any comfort. All I can think about is what hasn’t happened yet, as if the future is some unknown misery that will slap me in the face, sobering me to the hopeless reality that there’s nothing I can do about it. Advice to “take it like a man” doesn’t help. What I want is to go back to the way things were when I lived in the ignorant bliss that everything is okay, when I believed that God was on my side. But now, I can’t help but wonder: Where is God when I need him the most? Why did he let this happen to me? What are we going to do? If God didn’t stop the evil then, how can I count on him now? Indeed, worrying about what happens next turns us all into practical atheists. And the one thing atheists need, as far as Jesus was concerned, is a lot of talk about God and a reminder that we’re not alone.
Jesus kept bringing up God as he gave two reasons why we shouldn’t worry: 1) since God takes care of what he’s made, he will take care of us, and 2) we are wasting our God-given life worrying about things we can’t change. But that’s not the end of it, as if all we need to overcome anxiety is a lot of God talk about creation. Rather, his “theological” argument is built upon the realities of the human condition. Jesus started with this assumption: we worry about what we treasure, we treasure what we are devoted to, and we are devoted to what makes life better for us. Everyone knows that earthly treasures make life better. So at this point we would have expected Jesus to talk about sacrificing for the kingdom. “You worry about things that don’t matter. Set your affection on spiritual things, and you won’t care about the necessities of life.” But that’s not his argument. Instead, Jesus admitted that earthly treasures make life better: not only the basics (food, drink, and shelter) but also beautiful things like clothes and pearls. Not only that, but God cares about these things too. The problem, according to Jesus, is that earthly treasures don’t last; therefore, a person better use them wisely. Yet people foolishly strive after more earthly treasures, devoted to them like a slave to his master rather than to God and his kingdom. In other words, these slaves tend to look at the world with an “evil eye”; they don’t have a good eye on the kingdom, to see that loving your neighbor is far more valuable than loving things. To invest in people—not things—is the wisdom of the kingdom of God. Indeed, out of everything that has been created by humanity (bread and clothes) and by God (birds and fields), we are the most important treasures on earth—especially to God—which is why we shouldn’t worry. It’s because people are more important than things.
The husband of a former student of mine told me a story many years ago about a lesson he learned from a man who lived in one of the nations in southern Africa (I can’t remember which one). This Western, white family was living and serving with other African, black Christians trying to live for the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. Their standard of living was much less than what he experienced in America, and yet things were not as important to the locals as to the typical American—which is why what happened confused the white missionary. One of his good friends had been saving for many years for a little handheld radio. When he finally bought it and brought it home, he showed everyone the clever, little device. The whole town was amazed by the simple gadget. His friend listened to his radio practically all night long, celebrating his treasure. The next day, a neighbor came to see the radio, asking if he could take it home to show his family. The man agreed without hesitation. After several days, the missionary noticed that his friend didn’t have his radio. The neighbor had kept the thing for a long time, but that didn’t seem to bother his friend. Eventually, after nearly a month the neighbor brought the radio back to its rightful owner, but the radio was broken, obviously neglected and abused. As the missionary watched his friend turn the radio on and off, on and off, realizing it didn’t work anymore, he expected an angry showdown. Instead, his friend took the radio to his house and never said a word. Confused, the missionary pointed out the obvious: “Why don’t you confront your neighbor? He ruined your radio, something you’ve saved for years to buy!” His friend, astonished by the missionary’s complaint, said simply, “My neighbor is more important than this little radio.”
It seems the “plank” in the missionary’s eye obscured his vision, especially when he tried to remove the “speck” from the eye of his African brother. The missionary said with tears in his eyes, “I went to southern Africa to share the good news of the kingdom. But what really happened was they taught me what Jesus emphasized: people are more important than things.” Then he went on to speculate about how he would have handled the situation—like any other American. How we would get angry. How we would make judgments about the irresponsibility of our brother. How we would try to teach them a lesson about the value of other people’s property. To be sure, we would straighten them out, fixing them, forcing them to realize the error of their ways. In fact, that’s what we typically do; we turn people into projects and call it the work of God. But that’s not what Jesus taught us to do. We are supposed to give to those who ask. We are supposed to forgive our debtors as God has forgiven us. We are supposed to remove the plank from our eyes so that we can see each other with kingdom eyes. Then we will ask God for what we all need, and we will receive it because God gives good gifts to all of his children. We will seek the kingdom of loving our neighbor as ourselves, and we will find the work of God in all of us—our neighbor and ourselves. We will knock on heaven’s door, and God will open up the treasures of his mercy for every single one of us because we forgive as we are forgiven. This is what it means to be blessed in the kingdom of God, storing up treasures in heaven because we treasure one another on earth.
1. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:626.
2. My translation. Notice how the NIV turns the analogy into a medical warning, changing “eye” to a plural noun and translating ponēros as “unhealthy” and haplous as “healthy” (6:22).
3. Luz, Matthew, 1:328, reads these two pericopae together (6:19–34 and 7:1–11) as “Guidance for the Community,” pointing out catchwords that link them: each section introduced by a prohibition with mē (“not”; 6:19, 25; 7:1, 6), with aphanizō (“make invisible”) and ophthalmos (“eye”) forming a bridge between the two passages (6:22–23 and 7:3–5).
4. The verbs are emblepō and katamanthanō, implying not only visual sight but a reflective ability to learn by observation.
5. See the discussions in Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:635–39; McKnight, Sermon on the Mount, 207–8.
6. For first-century perceptions of scarce resources, see Malina, New Testament World, 71–93.
7. See Talbert, Matthew, 97–98, who emphasizes the importance of “seeing” as it relates to character formation—the main purpose of the Sermon according to Talbert.
8. So also McKnight, Sermon on the Mount, 206–8, 221–25.
9. Luz goes so far as to say that this verse (Matt 7:6) is so antithetical to everything Jesus taught that it comes from neither Jesus nor Matthew—it was added to the Gospel much later. Therefore, Luz refuses to comment on its meaning (Matthew, 1:356).
10. Nolland emphasizes the contrast between scavenger and domesticated animal; dogs were never fed, but pigs were fed to be fattened for the market (Matthew, 322–23).
11. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:675–77.
12. Turner, Matthew, 206–7.
13. Keener, Matthew, 242–44.
14. McKnight, Sermon on the Mount, 237–38, is one example of this interpretation.
15. Turner, Matthew, 207.
16. McKnight, Sermon on the Mount, 229: “Since no human lives up to his or her own standard, that standard deconstructs a human’s attempt to play God with others.”
17. “When I judge, I am blind to my own evil and to the grace granted the other person” (Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, 172).
18. “Superiority is masquerading as care and generosity” (Nolland, Matthew, 320).
19. Don’t store treasures on earth and don’t judge; having a single eye is to see clearly; pigs and dogs are enslaved to mammon; don’t worry because God’s children receive good gifts when they ask him; seeking first the kingdom is loving your neighbor as yourself.