How many of you own a flashlight? I probably have half a dozen, and most of them have dead batteries in them. I’d be lost without the flashlight app on my smart phone, because it’s always charged. It works. It helps me see where I’m going. It is, to use Jesus’ word, healthy.
I think you can all see where I’m going with this one. Jesus is talking, in this section of the Sermon on the Mount, about maintaining right relationships both with God and with the world we live in. In the last passage he gave instructions about how, practically, to start weaning his followers’ attention away from worldly things. Remember, by giving alms we practice putting our neighbor ahead of our bank accounts, by fasting we reduce the tyranny our appetites have over us, and by prayer we develop dependence upon God. In this passage he gives us more detailed instructions about the equipment we need.
Sometimes the word ?????? is translated “light,” sometimes “lamp.” Is there a difference? Are our eyes what we see by, or what we see with? The light is outside of us, the lamp is part of us. So for a person to be full of light, the eyes first have to be in good working order. For us, that’s 20/20 vision, right? That’s certainly the standard for everyday life. But our eyes must also be looking in the right direction.
Slight change of topic – but you’ll get the point in a minute. Back in my youth, I was taught that God was a fiction, invented by people who needed a crutch to stumble through life. And I’ve come to understand that, in fact, religion is a crutch. What I don’t understand is why they thought that was a bad thing. Shouldn’t people who need crutches have them? Shouldn’t nearsighted people wear glasses? What’s wrong with using a microphone to talk to a crowd, or a bag to carry more than your hands can hold? If your eyes and hearing and legs all work just fine, you don’t need special devices for everyday life. But what if you want to do better than that? What if you want to study the stars? There are devices that improve upon normality.
Of course ordinary vision is just fine for ordinary things. We can see to recognize faces, to drive, to read, to do all the daily tasks which occupy our days. But what if we want to see beyond things? What if we want to see the difference between good and evil, or the purpose of life, or why people are the complicated messes we all are? For seeing those things, neither bifocals nor microscopes will help at all. We need a com-pletely different kind of lens.
All of you have heard of seeing life through rose-colored glasses. That is an optimistic attitude that just doesn’t seem to notice negative things. These people are often impractical dreamers with an unrealistic view of life. Others are the opposite, mistrusting everyone and just knowing that things are going to turn out badly. The fact is that what we see is affected by how we see. People have different perspectives, see from particular angles. I’d like to suggest that the Holy Spirit gives us Christ’s perspective.
God has revealed to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches every-thing, even the depths of God. For what human knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. [1 Cor 2]
We need to start seeing the world through Christ-colored glasses, which is not the same as rose-colored glasses. Jesus saw compassionately, but he also saw clearly and realistically.
Now, Jesus gave this sermon before the gift of the Holy Spirit. You may object that I’m over-interpreting. But I don’t think so, because he knew that much if not all of what he taught would not be fully understood until later.
I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. [Jn 17: 25-26]
We can therefore assume that Jesus is talking to his church, to people who have received the Holy Spirit. For Jesus’ people, a healthy eye includes the gift of expanded vision, the ability to see beyond the surface, clearly, without shadows or distortion. But were all of them acting like it? Are all of us acting like it? Remember that what we see is affected by how we see. And if we see with worldly eyes we are not seeing things as they are, but as the world and its systems wish us to see.
Watch out that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental princi-ples of the world, and not according to Christ. [Col 2:8]
But – how can we see through Christ’s eyes? Is it the same as WWJD? “What Would Jesus Do?” Well, that’s not a bad place to start, even though it has become a bit of a bumper-sticker and sometimes trivializes the question. I looked it up online to see what various people had to say about it. One that I particularly liked had no attribution. It was, “Jesus led by example and trusted in God in all circumstances. To sum up, in three words, WWJD is What Jesus Did.” Another pointed to the very passage we are looking at, just a few verses farther on: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” [Mt 6:33].
WWJD is not really the question, though, however tempting it is to go there. Be-cause what Jesus did always depended on what he saw. The website Compelling-Truth.org puts it this way: “Jesus] could see the deeper truths and the spiritual realities at play. We often cannot... our actions should be guided by our knowledge of God and His instructions as well as by the continual direction of the Holy Spirit.”
So what does it mean to see through Jesus’ eyes? Remember that I said that Jesus was compassionate, but also clear-sighted and realistic. So there are hard truths we have to add to the starting point“love one another.” The first thing we have to keep in mind is that neither people nor human institutions are naturally inclined to be good, nor can be made so by human endeavor. The second is that God’s purposes are not the same as our desires – even if we want what seem like very good things.
Many commentators believe that this passage about a healthy eye refers explicitly to the previous verses. “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” [Mt 6:20-21] Keep in mind that this passage is not referring to wealth, or at least not solely. It simply means that we should not love – or out our trust in - temporary things. We need to start looking at all things from the perspective of eternity: from possessions to politics, from art to science, from sport and philosophy to fame and family, all need to occupy the right place in our hearts and lives. The apostle John puts it this way: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. [1 Jn 2:15] I think you all realize that the love we are NOT to feel for these things is not the same as the love that we ARE to feel for people.
Then how should we view the things of the world? Should we shun them, give them all away, live like holy hermits or mendicant friars, relying on the kindness of strangers rather than our own skill and industry? That’s the subject of a whole ‘nother sermon series. I will simply say here that “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by God’s word and by prayer.” [1 Tim 4:4-5] These things are gifts, and we are their stewards on God’s behalf.
So. If we view the world through Jesus’ eyes, we will see things correctly, value them accordingly, and choose between them appropriately. “Your word is a lamp to my feet,” says the Psalmist, “and a light to my path.” [Ps 119:105] Who could ask for anything more? But we get an added bonus.
These corrective lenses are also protective lenses. Because being in Christ, looking through his eyes, shields us as sunglasses do. We have a screen against the spiritual equivalent of UV light – the things that are so subtle that we don’t even notice until the damage has been done. But we are also protected against oncoming headlights: the things that are so huge and unexpected that you feel kind of dumbfounded - what our cousins the Brits call gobsmacked - when they appear out of left field.
It is incredibly easy to be poisoned by the world’s attitudes and assumptions. In our age it seems that the issues that best illustrate these dangers are ones of sexuality. When I went to college the dorms were all same-sex, and no one of the opposite sex was allowed above the first floor. When I was dating my first boyfriend, couples wouldn’t even think of moving in together before the wedding. Nowadays it’s the norm. People who delay sexual activity until marriage are viewed with utter incomprehension. In fact, several years ago, when the Presbyteries were arguing over Amendment B (you remember, the one which required fidelity in marriage or chastity in sin-gleness for officers) we broke into small groups for discussion. One of the people in my group was very concerned that this would mean that some of their seniors would be ineligible for service, because they were living together without getting married because if they did they’d lose social security benefits. Most everyone in the room nodded, and agreed that it would be a terrible thing to condemn something for making such an economically sensible decision.
Think about that. What I heard was, “It’s okay to sin as long as it is to your economic advantage.” Can you really see this any other way? How did that happen? It snuck up on us, didn’t it? Was this change in our thinking solely due to the advent of birth control, or did it possibly have something to do with our attitude towards God? I’m an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud, of course, if not an actual religious fanatic, to think that it matters.
That’s the UV light. How long did it take for us to realize that it causes cancer?
And then there’s the oncoming headlights, the sudden unexpected crisis. Have you been following the discussions about gender fluidity? That topic came out of no-where. People are still scrambling to figure out how to respond to being criticized - or fired - if they use the wrong pronouns. And do you really think that you can’t tell what sex your child is when he or she (excuse the explicit pronouns) is born, if not before?
It is only the word of God and the mind of Christ that can help us both under-stand and withstand these pressures. Today’s non-Christians are not content simply to go their own way; they require everyone else to agree with them. “Do not enter the path of the wicked,” says the book of Proverbs, “. . . For they cannot sleep unless . . . they have made someone stumble.” [Pr 4:14-16] But this is not really new; it only seems so now because Christians used to be in the majority. Paul understood this quite clearly; he wrote to the church in Ephesus, where riots by the silversmiths and follow-ers of the goddess Artemis had nearly gotten them thrown out of town: “Stand, therefore, and belt your waist with truth and put on the breastplate of right-eousness.” [Eph 6:14] The word of God protects us from the world. Or it should.
Instead of looking at the world through the eyes of Christ, some have used the word of God to advance the world’s agenda. People have used verses taken out of context to justify their actions ever since the gospel was first preached, and that word is so powerful that when it is misused it can do great damage. One of the earliest ex-amples was the idea that since we were forgiven, Christians could do anything they liked. Misinterpreting Proverbs 13:24, “Those who spare the rod hate their chil-dren,” has led to child abuse. In some places, quoting Genesis 16, “in pain you shall bring forth children,” doctors refused to give women ether in childbirth. Liberation theology arose from making Jesus a political rather than a religious revolutionary, for-getting that he said, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.” [Jn 18:36] And there’s the perennial conflation of agape with eros: they are both translated “love,” but one is erotic and the other selfless. They are not the same. Today’s sexual confusion is defended with “There is no longer male and female. . . in Christ Jesus” from Galatians 3:28. And the most shameful distortion in all of our history is the justification of race-based slavery from Genesis 9:25, in which God said of Noah’s sons, “Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.” I could go on. And on.
We can expect the world to despise the things of God. But too often now we hear the Church echoing and even endorsing the fashions and follies of the world rather than exposing them. We fear the judgment of the world, and dilute the message so as not to offend. But “do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” [Jas 4:4a] We supposedly have the light of the Spirit to lead us into truth. If we turn aside, it casts a shadow over our understanding rather than illuminating it. And this darkness is not the darkness of ignorance. It is the darkness of rejection. The greater the light, the deeper the shadow. “If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
