During the last couple of programs, we talked about what it means when someone says, “Walking in the dust of our Rabbi” and we learned that in Ancient Israel the disciples of Rabbis endeavoured to learn from and imitate their teachers to the point that they even adopted their habits and personas; they would even imitate their facial expressions and mannerisms and this was a mark of great respect for their beloved teachers.
To walk in the dust of a Rabbi means to walk so closely to them that the very dust of the earth that is stirred up by their walking would settle on the disciples because they wanted to walk in their very footsteps and be close enough to learn every tiny detail of their teachers’ life.
It’s also our desire to be authentic disciples of our Rabbi, but we’ve never really been taught what it means to be a disciple, we kind of have an idea but not to the same extent as is the case in Jewish culture. We don’t have to become Jewish of course, but because we’re unaware of the context and setting of Jesus’s discipleship training, it’s possible we can run the risk of missing the point He was making.
If we’re honest, we have to admit that sometimes the things Jesus said are confusing and the reason they’re confusing is that we read them with the mindset and worldview of the 21st century western context instead of a 1st century Jewish context.
Have you ever heard idioms or figures of speech? You’ll recognise these straight away…’beat around the bush’, ‘kick the bucket’, ‘get someone’s goat’, ‘catch my drift’…these are all figures of speech whose meanings have nothing whatsoever to do running around bushes, kicking buckets, taking someone’s goat or catching a drift! They’re terms that mean something different to the explicit words being used.
If you use the term ‘kick the bucket’ you need to make sure that it’s a culturally relevant term or people will think you’re strange because you want to go around kicking buckets!
Let’s look at a Jewish idiom or figure of speech from Jesus’s day.
Matthew 6:19-25, Jesus said, “Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, and where thieves don’t break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and wealth. For this reason I say to you, don’t be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
This is a very common and well known passage from the Sermon on the Mount. The interesting thing about this passage is that it’s talking about financial and material wealth and possessions, and Jesus is stating that we shouldn’t be obsessed with financial and material wealth here on earth where it’s going to corrode and disappear, but rather we should be focusing on spiritual treasure that is stored for us in heaven by our Father and to trust God to meet our physical and material needs in this life.
The passage begins by saying not to chase treasure here on earth because it’s transitory and passing, rather we should store spiritual treasure in heaven where it can’t be lost, destroyed or stolen.
The end of the passage says that it’s not possible to serve two masters at once, in other words we will either pursue God and spiritual treasure that will last forever, or we’ll pursue financial and material wealth here on earth that will last for a little while but will then disappear, but at the end of the day we can’t serve both! It’s one or the other and we have to make a determination as to which it will be.
That’s fine, that makes sense doesn’t it? But here’s where the confusion often comes in…right in the middle of this passage there appears to be a section that is completely out of context and it makes no sense whatsoever.
Verses 22-23. “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
What does this have to do with material wealth or spiritual treasure?
Some translations refer to the eye being healthy or evil, sound or unsound, good or bad…and still none of these descriptions make sense with regard to the context of treasure or wealth.
You could also be forgiven for thinking that Jesus was being superstitious and warning against the evil eye, and this particular superstition is still very, very prominent in the Middle East today…but Jesus wasn’t and never will be superstitious, so what was He trying to say?
In Hebrew the idiom or figure of speech or ‘an evil eye’ is ‘ayin ra’ah’ and in ancient Jewish custom someone with an evil eye was stingy and selfish and a good eye in Hebrew is ‘ayin tovah’ which means to be generous and giving.
So in the middle of this passage about not chasing and obsessing about material wealth in this life, Jesus tells His people that their eyes…either being evil or dark or healthy or good or clear…which ever adjective is used in your translation, will declare what the whole person is going to be like with regard to their wealth or treasure.
A person with a bad or evil eye is stingy, greedy, selfish and cares nothing for other people and their needs. Stingy people look out for themselves only and their one motivation is to hog everything for themselves and their whole life demonstrates this attitude. How great is the darkness for a person with a bad eye, or a stingy mean-spirited heart!
But a person with a clear or good or healthy eye, is thoughtful and generous and giving, they’re not obsessed with hogging wealth and treasure for themselves, they know God will take care of their needs, they’re not driven by material comforts and they’re happy to share what they have with others. A generous-hearted person has a life that is full of light and love and it shows!
So Jesus was absolutely crystal clear and His contrasting reference to a bad eye and a good eye in the context of storing up treasure in heaven rather than on earth and then going on to declare that a person cannot serve God and have a generous and giving heart, if they’re obsessed first and foremost with accumulating wealth and possessions for themselves, was perfectly appropriate and logical!
In its original context, this entire passage makes perfect sense.
The difference between Israel’s God and the god’s of her ancient neighbours (and this is true today as well for the entire world) is that they (the neighbouring nations), were terribly immoral, fickle and often cruel. The God of Israel is unique in that He has always had a heart to redeem and forgive the sinner, and compassion toward the vulnerable and needy. When God’s people wrongly believed that He was only interested in rituals He would send prophets to tell them otherwise; the rituals were not what He loved, they were a representation of greater truths and standards, they were prophetic pictures of their Messiah and so on. There were for connection and routine to build remembrance and understanding between Him and them. What He mostly wanted was love from His people for Himself and in turn, love, care and compassion for others.
Remember Shema and God’s command that we love Him with our whole inner life?
Some have wondered what difference it makes that Jesus was Jewish. The intrinsic difference of Jewish culture and custom in the Torah (God’s Teaching and Law) and that of other peoples, is God’s great concern for society and the vulnerable living in it and Jesus emphasised the same thing when He walked the earth. As well as a close communion and relationship between Himself and His people that was never the case with the other nations around about and their false gods and religions. Remember Abraham was originally a pagan from Chaldea, and God told him to leave his family, his nations, his religion and his culture…everything and God took him to a new place and stated from scratch with him and his descendants. That’s why Jesus Jewishness to important.
So the more we learn about Jesus’s Jewish cultural setting and context, the more we discover that being a follower of Jesus our Rabbi, and walking in His dust so that we become just like Him, the more we will understand that we too need to learn to have a very good, healthy, clear eye.
Shalom
Mandy
