Community Church Sermons

Year C

October 6, 2013

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

IMAGINE!

Matthew 6:19-24

Rev. Martin C. Singley, III

Senior Pastor

Remember Amelia Bedelia?

Amelia is the housemaid in the much-loved children’s books created by Peggy Parish. Amelia’s life is filled with misadventure because she follows every instruction to the letter. When asked to "dress the chicken”…Amelia sews a tiny little pair of overalls and puts them on a chicken. When told to “put the lights out”…she goes around the house unscrewing all the lightbulbs.

Little kids laugh at all the mistakes made by Amelia Bedelia by not grasping how language works. All languages have things called “idioms” – figures of speech that don’t make a whole lot of sense when read literally. So “kick the bucket” has nothing to do with either kicking OR a bucket. It has to do with what? - dying. It’s an idiom! And being “up the river without a paddle” is not at all about boating, but about facing a big challenge without the tools to do something about it. It’s an idiom! And here in the South, “Bless your heart!” is not necessarily a compliment!

“Catch my drift?” – that’s an idiom too!

One of the reasons we American Christians don’t understand the Bible – and we don’t, although we claim we do – is because we haven’t taken the time to understand Jewish language and culture. We desperately want to read the Bible literally and when we do we end up with an Amelia Bedelia kind of faith. If you’d like to study up on the many Jewish idioms that show up in the Bible I’d encourage you to read the work of Lois Tverberg who has catalogued a lot of these interesting figures of speech we encounter in the Bible.

Like the one in today’s reading from Matthew 6.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.”

My best boyhood friend – Dennis Astrella – and I were shocked when we were told what this passage means.

You see, we had discovered that Dennis’ older brother Phil had hidden away in his bedroom a good-sized stack of magazines that contained photographic content that was probably not something our mothers would want us to see. So every chance we had, we snuck into Phil’s room and looked at it!

But then one night at church youth group some guy came to talk to us about guarding our lives from sinful influences. And he used the illustration of magazines similar to the ones we’d found in Phil’s bedroom. And his point was this: if you let this stuff into your life, you’ll go downhill morally and spiritually “faster than a speeding bullet” (hey, that’s an idiom!). And he finished off by saying, “Jesus said, ‘The eye is the lamp of the body. If you let darkness in through your eyes, your whole body will be full of darkness and you – Marty and Dennis – will go to “hell in a handbasket.” Another idiom! The speaker actually did not call us out, but we knew he was talking about us! And so we were filled with guilt, “the gift that keeps on giving.”

I wish I’d known back then what I know now.

Jesus was not really talking about the magazines in Phil’s room, although Jesus would certainly caution us against consuming material that drags down our moral center. It is not a good or healthy thing to allow pornography into our lives.

Nor is it a good thing to have “bad eyes.”

Even today in Israel, someone might come and knock on your door and say, “ten b’ayin yaffa.” “B’ayin” means “eye.” “Yaffa” means “beautiful” or “lovely” or…”good.”

“Ten” means “give.”

Putting it all together: “Give with a good eye.” A lovely eye. A beautiful eye.”

And when that person comes to the door and says, “ten b’ayin yaffa” you know they have come to ask you to give to those less fortunate.

In the Bible “giving with a good eye” means “being generous.” And the kind of generosity it refers to is not just about the transaction of “giving.” It is about how you “see” others – especially the poor. Having a good eye means looking at people the way God looks at people. Looking at them with an eye that sees goodness, loveliness, and beauty – no matter how broken the outward appearance. It means looking at other people the same way God looks at YOU, and becoming generous toward them, just like God has been generous toward YOU.

But having a “bad eye” in the Bible literally means “being stingy.” And the stinginess of the “bad eye” – like the generosity of the “good eye” - also has to do with how you see others: looking at them with a critical eyes, with a judgmental eye, with an eye that does not see them as God’s children, as our sisters and brothers, as not deserving our help, and without compassion and void of mercy. Having a “bad eye” is to ignore the needs of others.

This is something we had to wrestle with in the leadership of our church when we took up the challenge of the IMAGINE! campaign. Would we feel right about asking the people of our church family to be generous to the bank – or to our neighbors? Would this be just another financial campaign that makes us feel better about ourselves because the books balance and all our needs are met? Or would it be an attempt to become more able to become more generous toward others?

Would we choose to have a “good eye” – or a “bad eye?”

Well, you know the answer to that. In fact that’s how our campaign came to be called “IMAGINE!” And IMAGINE! has this subtext: Freedom to give, Freedom to reach, Freedom to love!” I love that!! It takes a “good eye” to say that!

And I am so proud of our leadership – and of you – for making the choice to have a “good eye!”

Imagination is about seeing things, seeing people and things the way God sees people and things. And then stepping out in faith to accomplish God’s will – not the bank’s will, not the will of those with “bad eyes” – and there are lots of “bad eyes” people in the world - but God’s will.

And when your eyes are good, Jesus said, your whole body will be full of light.

God-centered and God-driven generosity has an illuminating impact upon your life. When Jesus says “your whole body will be full of light” he means that you will see God more clearly, you will come to know God more intimately, you will discover more of God’s purpose for you, you will experience God’s power, and you will come to more deeply understand how very much God loves you!

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.”

And notice what Jesus says at the end of the passage: “You cannot serve God and Money.” Do you see how the whole passage fits together once you understand the idiom?

And the test of which one you truly serve – God or Money - is whether or not you have a “good eye!”

I want you to know what a brave and faithful thing you are doing as we IMAGINE!

I am so proud to be your pastor. This church family has truly “beautiful eyes!”

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Some of the content in this sermon has been drawn from Lois Tverberg’s book, Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus.