Breaking the Word

 "No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. "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 clothing?…

O you of little faith?…  Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil (Mt 6:24-34)

Look at the birds of the air and lilies of the fields, says Jesus. I am sure Jesus spent time in admiring and enjoying the feel of the birds and the natural things. He would have spent hours looking at them and that is why he is able to reflect on them. All these made him reflect on the goodness of the Father. His spirituality is so much earthly (reflecting on earthly things because they are creations of God and not running away from earthly things) and his teaching are from his own experience (not from ideas and principles).

Jesus seemed to have lived the present moment; he was not anxious about the next moment. He was celebrating the goodness of God here and now.  He wanted his followers to do the same. He wanted them to make God their priority. Jesus is talking about God the creature. He is talking about a God who is invisibly present in his creatures.

When Jesus tells us not to worry about what to eat or drink or wear, he does not mean these things do not matter. Jesus himself liked a party as much as anyone else. He took his disciples with him whenever he was invited. What he says is that we should not put the world first. Rather, put God first and the world will come in. That is, we need to think about God’s kingdom and righteousness (covenant behaviour). These are signs of God’s people. 

   "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be. "The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be. (Mt 6:19-23)

Jesus does not tell us to avoid treasure. Human nature is such that it will long for treasures and it will store up treasures. But what he says is that we should store up treasures in heaven. Yes, we have to create heaven here on earth. Heaven is not after our death and heaven is not somewhere outside the earth. We have to make heaven here. That is we need to see God here and godly values here on earth. Where God is there heaven is.

“The lamp of the body is eye. If the eye is sound…”We need to keep our eyes fixed on God. And we need to take care where we look at. Where our mind is there our looks are also tuned to. So we need to tune our eyes to look at God. If our eyes are not on God then we will be in the wrong directions. So we need to look at God and tune our eyes to God and see only God.

‘Mammon’ refers to property and wealth. We should not make property as our gods. Money is powerful and money speaks almost all languages. But when money becomes our boss then we are taken around by it. We have only one boss and that is God himself. He is the one who gives directions to our life.