Worry

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.  But 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!  (Matthew 6:22-23)”

The next section of the Sermon on the Mount, the rest of chapter 6, deals with treasure and worry.  The verses cited here remind me of Hannibal Lechter in Silence of the Lambs: “We covet what we see every day.”  If we pursue things that are holy and uplifting, our whole body will be healthy.  If we chase things that are distracting, worrying and sinful, we will be prone to sin.  That can have a spiritual, mental and sometimes even a physical effect on us.

I always liked to say that you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.  And while I believe that is true, I have found that I do have to.  If I miss even a week, I have noticed that my life becomes a bit messier and I believe it is because my thoughts are on the things of this world more than they should be.  These days, I try to be careful about what I read, watch on TV, what music I listen to.  I try to be “in this world but not of it”.  

Jesus goes on to remind us that we are like (but more valuable than) the grass of the field, here today and cast into the fire tomorrow.  And not even Solomon in all his glory was as beautiful as those wildflowers.  “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow.  Each day has trouble enough of its own.”  In this age of news cycles and fear-mongering, I find this advice something to treasure.  Between the politics, wars and natural disasters, I sometimes feel overwhelmed.  But if, as the song goes, we turn our eyes upon Jesus, if we “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, (then) all these things will be given to (us) as well.”

In fact, Jesus tells us we cannot do both.  We cannot serve both God and “mammon” - the wealth of this world.  I think of Peter stepping out of the boat to walk on water.  He does just fine while his eyes are on Jesus, but starts to sink as soon as he realizes what he’s doing and sees the wind and the waves.  Jesus reprimands him (lovingly, I think, maybe even poking fun at him) the same way he does his listeners here: “oh ye of little faith!”  Peter was the only disciple who stepped out of the boat.  When our eyes are on him, when our heart is pure and turned only to him, God can work miracles in our lives.