A Pure Eye

A Pure Eye

Luke 11:33 - 36

Rabbi Rev. Dr. Michael H. Koplitz

33 “No one lights a lamp and puts it away in a cellar nor under a basket, but on

the lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light. 34 “Your eye is the lamp

of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when

it is bad, your body also is full of darkness. 35 “So watch out that the light in you is

not darkness. 36 “Therefore if your whole body is full of light, without any dark

part, it will be wholly illuminated, as when the lamp illuminates you with its light.”

In chapter 11 of Luke, starting on verse 33 and going to 36, we have what I would call

a proverb. It’s basically Jesus telling us that we have to ensure that evil does not enter

our souls. This is a theme that goes throughout all the Gospels and, in fact, the entire

Bible. We must be careful that evil inclination, some of us call it the influence of Satan,

does not infect our souls and bodies. If that does happen and we don’t have repentance,

we could end up not in heaven but elsewhere.

A problem is how do you see the good in the world when the news media only likes to

report on the evil of the world. Let me give you an example. I was appointed to a church

in the West End of the city of York in Pennsylvania. In the United Methodist system,

pastors change positions on July 1. On July 2, I came into the church and was

approached by the janitor, who said that some vandalism occurred on the back of the

building. Someone from the community decided to do some spray painting. The janitor

said that he could remove it. What he didn’t tell me is that he called the local news

agency, Channel 8, and let them know that this happened. I thought it was more

important to call the police so they could find out who did it. Be that as it may.

A reporter from Channel 8 showed up with his camera crew, and before the janitor

cleaned off the graffiti, he made sure he got his pictures and videos of it. He then came

to talk to me. Oh, by the way, I’m not going to tell you this person's name, even though

I still remember it 15 years later. He asked me what I thought about the vandalism. I

didn’t answer that question; instead, I said to him, Why don’t we report the good things

the church was doing?. During that same day, the vacation Bible school started. We had

about 60 kids from the city with us that we could teach about Jesus, who probably

would not hear about Jesus outside of being at our vacation Bible school week.

The reporter looked at me and said, “I only broadcast bad news.” So I looked at him

and said, "So you are not going to tell the people of York and Lancaster about the great

things that we are doing to try to help kids in the inner city to learn how to be good

human beings and serve Jesus Christ.” He looked me in the face and said, “I only report

bad things because that’s what people want to hear.” It was apparent to him that he

believed that if he told stories of the good stuff that was happening, he would lose his

viewership.

During the following weeks, I watched some news broadcasts, and it didn’t matter

which media platform I listened to; 99% of it was bad news. Okay, that percentage is

probably a little too high, but go ahead and sit down and watch 30 minutes of the news

broadcasts, and you will find that most of it, if not all of it, are bad things that are

happening in the world. What happened to telling the community of the wonderful

things that are happening?

When all you hear are the bad things that are happening in your community, you start

to believe that there is no good in the community. It is a very depressing thing. Perhaps

because the news media only likes to tell us of the bad things, that may be causing some

of the depression and mental illness that we see in the world today. Perhaps there are

people rejecting the evil of the world by nonconformance thus feeling that they are

separated from the world and thus forming their own world If you think everything

that’s going to happen in your community is going to be bad and may affect you

negatively, then you might develop some mental problems because where’s the hope