eyes being unhealthy

i am pretty bombarded these days at the UYWI National Conference is coming quickly. but i just thought i'd post a nice little thought that was a challenge to me by mclaren in "secret message of jesus". (oh by the way i may be getting some copies of this book to pass out. so hit me up if you want one.)

Matthew 6: 19 – 24

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

"Here again the kingdom of God clearly confronts the kingdom of our wolrd today. How often do our lives revolve around status - oriented accumalation and conspicious consumption? In that context, Jesus' words about our eyes being unhealthy seem to have a special resonance in our world. We are daily massaged by a hyperactive consumerist vision to see and measure everything in life in terms of money - so that, as everyone knows, even time is money. With that kind of unhealthy, shady outlook, all of life falls into a kind of dismal shadow, just as Jesus said it would.

Perhaps it now becomes clear why giving to the poor begins Jesus' list of spiritual practices: if we are to experience spiritual transformation... then we must be liberated from enslavement to money."

i am not sure i can add anything to his breakdowm of that passage. i just loved the flow of the passages by jesus. he starts with the "don't store up treasures in heaven" than bridges to the "eyes being unhealthy" and ends with "You cannot serve God and wealth". i think i have never really looked at them all in context and how connected they are... i probably have taught on each individually but not together. i like this jesus guy. peace.