Two Edged Sword

Greetings once again, I hope this posting finds you all well.

In my last post I talked a little bit about having gotten alone for a couple of days and read all four gospels in succession and also said that I wanted to incorporate some of the stuff that I learned into my future submissions....well, here's number one...

Matthew 6:19-34

So, up until the very end of the 5th chapter, Matthew's accounting of the story has Christ either been being born or tempted in the wilderness. After the temptation he goes out to the people and begins to meet their felt needs (mainly by healing them), and once he has kind of earned a hearing by healing folks and has gathered a significant crowd he starts talking....and says some fairly devastating stuff.

6:19-34 is part of this long speech that Christ gives on the mountainside...he's talked about all kinds of stuff and just before this is talking about prayer and fasting. Then, in my opinion, he makes a hard break from verse 18 to verse 19 and begins talking about a separate subject...namely money or provision...which he relates directly to our faith.

I think that it is hard to overestimate how counter to our present culture these statements of Christ really are. I mean, diametrically opposed comes to mind...our society is so very focused on things Christ speaks against. The problem for me with many of the harder teachings of Christ is that I've read the things since childhood and my mind glosses them over. In many cases I read over earth shattering truths like I sing over Mary Had a Little Lamb.

The danger with reading scandalous things over and over again is that we get used to them and they cease being scandalous.

For this first posting on this passage, I wanted to give you a handy tool for opening ourselves up to sharpness of the words of Christ. I did this too and it helped a ton...so I invite you to read this passage while:

1. praying for new eyes
2. holding two different color highlighters or pens

Every time Christ tells you to do something highlight it in color number one.
Every time Christ asks you a question, highlight it in color number two.

Now write down all of the commands and all of the questions. Jesus starts with a command in this passage, so you start with the commands as well. (I had to do some further study to make sure that I actually understood the command Christ was giving...check out www.bible.org for study aides).

For each command ask yourself the following questions:

1. Am I following this command in my life right now?
(if you answer yes to this then you don't have to ask the rest of the questions.......you're also a big fat liar...just kidding...not really you liar.)

2. If I began actually following this command in my life right now immediately, how big of a change would it be?

3. Is it possible for me to follow this command?

For the questions you wrote down, you'll find that the answers are pretty obvious, especially in light of the narrative before and after them. "well of course I'm more important than a sparrow, Jesus...duh.." or "well I guess if you're going to bring lillies into the conversation it doesn't make sense for me to worry about my clothes..." I think Christ often asks questions that are easy to answer with our mouths and hard to answer with our lives.

So now, write down your answer to each of the questions that Christ asks and then ask the following questions of yourself:

1. How closely do the answer that I just wrote down and the life I live match?

(if they don't match)

2. If the answer and my life were to match, how big of a change would it be?
3. Why is it that what I know to be true does not inform how I live my life? What does my life say about where my faith really lies?

As I said earlier, I'm going to talk a little more later about this passage, but this exercise helped me in really hearing what it was that Christ was saying to me.

So what are the tough commands for you? For me, it was "do not worry." Which is, in essence, the only command he gives here. He gives it four different times in two different ways, just to make sure that I get it. For those of you who know me well, you know that adding the words "do not" in front of "worry" just doesn't compute in my brain...

What about His questions? I think those are all hard and unfortunately the easy answers aren't easy to flesh out for me...

You know I think that we have been wired by our culture to worry and hoard and run after wealth above all other things. I think I've been wired to be fearful, and I think fear leads to greed and many other things. Above all I've been wired to trust in myself, my job, my cars, my house, my IRA, my mutual funds....anything but my God. I've seen through my reading that Christ wants nothing less than a complete rewire...