Season 4 - Episode 2
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Hey there, Covenant family. We’re jumping back into what we often call the Sermon on the Mount. It’s a collection of Jesus’ teachings recorded in the gospel of Matthew. The setting Matthew sets is Jesus on a hillside with a crowd of people around listening to him interpret scripture, provide wisdom and instruction, and generally teaching them the way of God. For those in our anabaptist tradition, this collection of Jesus’ teaching is central because it is God in the flesh sharing and guiding us into understanding the heart of God. And the short section we’re going to read today gets at something very personal.
Today we're using a relatively new translation called the First Nations Version. This translation was born out of a longing by Terry Wildman to have a translation of the New Testament that was sensitive to the context of First Nations people in North America. (Or, as they would say, of Turtle Island.) Terry worked with OneBook and Wycliffe Associates, two translation organizations with many decades of experience with translation in indigenous cultures around the world, and InterVarsity Press. Together, they worked with a team of Native scholars, pastors, church leaders, and church members to produce a translation that is unique among translations in the English language. It is earthy and beautiful and jarring and accessible - all in good ways. This is how the First Nations Version translates Matthew 6:19-24.
As I’m reading, I’ll also read an interpretive note included in the flow of the text.
19“Take care not to store up possessions on earth that can be spoiled by worms, eaten by moths, or stolen by thieves. 20Instead, give away your possessions to the ones in need, and then you will be storing up great possessions in the spirit-world above, where nothing can be lost or stolen. 21For where you store your valued possessions is where your heart will be.”
Among the tribes of Wrestles with Creator (Israel) a greedy person was said to have a bad eye and unable to see the good road. A generous person was said to have a good eye, full of light and able to clearly see the good road.
22 So he said to them, “Light shines into the body through the eye. If your eye is clear, your whole being is full of light. 23But if your eye is bad, then your whole being is full of darkness. If the only light you have is darkness, then the darkness is very great!
24“No one can be loyal to two rival chiefs. You will have to choose between them. You will either hate one chief and love the other, or honor one and resent the other. You cannot be loyal to the Great Provider and to possessions at the same time.
The point Jesus is making, and the challenge he is offering here, is for us to consider our relationship to our money and possessions. It is so easy for possessions to turn the tables on us - where we become possessed by them. Acquiring, maintaining, upgrading, storing, protecting, purging, wanting, and enjoying stuff can easily become our life. Our economic structure is largely based on promoting this way of living and measuring value.
Jesus reminds us that no matter how important we think our stuff is, it is not permanent. It is vulnerable to destruction or theft. And, quite frankly, fear about this reality can drive our focus on our stuff even deeper. Jesus suggests that releasing our grip on it for the good of the world will help us keep our heart focused on the world God envisions and is working with us to build.
Then Jesus goes even further. He paints money and possessions not as passive distractions from God’s spirit-world reality. He describes “stuff” as a rival chief - a competing master. And he presents our dilemma: No one can be loyal to two rival chiefs. You can’t be loyal to the Great Provider, that is God, and to possessions at the same time.
Jesus talks about money a lot. But here he seems to boil it down to its essence. Who are you going to serve? As Bob Dylan sang in 1979, “You gotta serve somebody.” This is an invitation for each of us to take stock of where our loyalties lie. Are we aligned with the buy, sell, consume, horde, get, enjoy, rinse, and repeat world of stuff that we live in? Or are we aligned with the serve, give, share, love, live open-handed world of the Great Provider and the spirit-world above?