Written by: Andii Bowsher - Anglican Chaplain to Bradford College and University

Matthew 6 v 19-21
“Don’t store treasures for yourselves here on earth where moths and rust will destroy them and thieves can break in and steal them. But store your treasures in heaven where they cannot be destroyed by moths or rust and where thieves cannot break in and steal them. Your heart will be where your treasure is.”

Notes
So how do we store up treasures in heaven? It's not like we can go down to our local HSBC (Heavenly Storage Banking Co-op) and put in a bag of denarii. The clue is in the last sentence: “Your heart will be where your treasure is.” If your treasure is in heaven then that is where your heart will be. If you want to make sure that you are storing heavenly treasure then pay attention to what you are giving your heart to - what you are treasuring.

In the Jewish-Christian tradition, the heart "refers to the source of all physical, emotional, intellectual, volitional and moral energies" (from the book “Way of the Heart” by Henri Nouwen). So if we are giving our energies (our heart) to the goodies of consumer culture then we are not storing up heavenly treasures. If we are giving our heart-energies to God and to the things that Christ calls us to then we are treasuring the things of God, we are storing up treasures in heaven. Go figure....

Prayer
O God, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.
(Written by St Augustine of Hippo, in “Confessions”)

Matthew 6 v 22-23
“The eye is a light for the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. And if the only light you have is really darkness, then you have the worst darkness.”

Notes 
Perhaps the nearest phrasing in present-day English to this “eye language” is the way we use “vision” - as in, “What's your vision for it?” So we might re-work these verses as: “Your vision is what informs your whole outlook...”

Given that these words are between verses about what we give our heart energy to and who we serve, then we should probably understand them as a challenge to pay attention to what we think our life is about. Darkness comes from a vision for living that buys into consumerism (where we value people by their ability to buy and by their choices of purchase) or that values people according to their contribution to what we think of as our good.

We are enlightened by a vision that sees God at work in the world created good, among people that are so valued that Christ died for them. We are enlightened by a vision of grace working out into human life through us.

Prayer
Lighten our darkness, Lord, we pray, and in your mercy, defend us from all perils and dangers of this night. Lighten our darkness for the love of your only Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
(Anglican collect from “Evening Prayer”) 

Matthew 6 v 24
“No one can serve two masters. The person will hate one master and love the other, or will follow one master and refuse to follow the other. You cannot serve both God and worldly riches.”

Notes
It's disturbing how much Jesus warns about wealth, disturbing because in the west we don't realise how wealthy we really are. To get an idea, try calulating your ecological footprint (see the link below) and see how much more than your fair share of the planetary resources just living in an affluent society takes up.

We like to think that we can handle it, that we've got our attitudes to wealth and God sorted, that our loyalty really is with God not affluence - but is that really so? The reason Jesus kept banging on about wealth was that it is so addictive, and an addiction has the power over us that God should have. It forms our decisions, changes our priorities, gets our commitment.

Denial is part of the standard defence mechanism of addiction. A passage like this invites us to confront our denial. Take the eco-footprint test…

(Try this site - http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.asp)

Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, so that I may buy only what is valuable, teach me to want only what is good. So that I may treat God in a rich way, teach me to treat riches in a godly way.
So that I may cling tightly to God, teach me to cling lightly to what I purchase, until my soul is content in you. Amen
(From Christian Aid)

Matthew 6 v 25-27
“So I tell you, don’t worry about the food or drink you need to live, or about the clothes you need for your body. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothes. Look at the birds in the air. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, but your heavenly Father feeds them. And you know that you are worth much more than the birds. You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it.”

Notes
Of course, so much advertising is precisely about contradicting this: we are scared, guilt-tripped, complimented and bedazzled into worrying about what we wear, drink and eat, and we are steered away from being satisfied with what we have.

The aim of the corporations is to have you "branded" so that you will only really consider buying their brand (because it's cool, sexy, easy or whatever). Studies have shown that kids as young as two or three recognise and go for brands. See, for example:
http://www.agencyfaqs.org/www1/interactive/cartoon_network/advertising_to_children2.html

Not worrying about food, drink and clothes in today's western world means practising mental and spiritual hygiene with advertising, product placement and with the attitudes of our branded friends and work- or class-mates. 

Prayer
Be with me, and help me when I spend money. Be with me, and help me to choose carefully to know when “enough” becomes “too much” ... and to remember the people I cannot see behind the food I eat and the products I use. Be with them, and help them. 
(From a prayer by Rebecca Dudley which can be found at
http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/worship/archive/0204mark.htm)

Matthew 6 v 28-30
“And why do you worry about clothes? Look at how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that even Solomon with his riches was not dressed as beautifully as one of these flowers. God clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today but tomorrow is thrown into the fire. So you can be even more sure that God will clothe you. Don’t have so little faith!”

Notes
Jesus was thinking of whether people had adequate clothes. In our society we tend to worry about whether they make our bums look too big, whether they fit or improve our image, and so on. These are issues that Jesus was not addressing here. He was talking about trusting that God would supply our needs. But should we be asking God for the best designer stuff?

There are two main considerations, I think. One is that God wants us to be in the world - we have to relate to our companions and colleagues and customers; how we dress may be part of that. On the other hand, God's concern for justice means that we may want to avoid as far as possible propping up a system where the actual makers are paid a pittance to work in appalling conditions while the mark-up for attaching a label is huge and goes to corporate executives and designers.

It's not easy; we need God's wisdom to decide.

(For more help in thinking about this, try:
http://www.freshworship.org/zine/simplicity.html)

Prayer
We are sorry when through selfishness, laziness or fear, we prefer to stay within our self-containedness rather than risk making ourselves vulnerable to others and their pain and the details of their lives. We pray for the willingness to get involved in this world of endless opportunities and for the wisdom to discern your guiding voice.
(Prayer from Grace alternative worship service at:
http://www.freshworship.org/zine/simplicity.html)

Matthew 6 v 31-34
“Don’t worry and say, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ The people who don’t know God keep trying to get these things, and your Father in heaven knows you need them. The thing you should want most is God’s kingdom and doing what God wants. Then all these other things you need will be given to you. So don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have its own worries. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Notes
There's often a direct correlation between what we are encouraged to desire and to purchase (by advertising, etc) and the demands of justice (which is a major kingdom sign that God wants). Our (overstimulated) desire for foods and clothing of particular kinds is exploited to hike the prices, but at the same time the producers (cocoa growers, sweatshop machinists, etc) are paid a tiny fraction which isn't even enough to live on properly to produce the stuff.

So let's not worry about whether or not we have these things - in our society that's largely not the issue - but we should be concerned at whether our acquisitions have been produced in ways that don't cost the earth or exploit relatively powerless producers in the two-thirds world. Sometimes that may even mean we pay a bit more, but then if God wants us to be just in our dealings “then all these other things will be given to you” ... so what's your excuse?

Prayer
O God, it's great to know that you will supply our needs, help us to buy responsibly and to try to make sure the supply routes are just and true to your values. Amen

Matthew 7 v 1-5
“Don’t judge other people, or you will be judged. You will be judged in the same way that you judge others, and the amount you give to others will be given to you.
“Why do you notice the little piece of dust in your friend’s eye, but you don’t notice the big piece of wood in your own eye? How can you say to your friend, ‘Let me take that little piece of dust out of your eye’? Look at yourself! You still have that big piece of wood in your own eye. You hypocrite! First, take the wood out of your own eye. Then you will see clearly to take the dust out of your friend’s eye.”

Notes
The besetting temptation for us when we start to take issues of lifestyle justice seriously is that we become judgemental – a most unlovely and un-Christlike trait guaranteed to make others run in the opposite direction and make fun of your concerns. We need to remember that we will all find it really hard to be both in and yet not of this present world system. Inevitably we will make compromises as we try to match competing demands for our time and energies.

As we remember these logs in our own eyes, let's be gentle with others around us to encourage them to take little steps towards a more just and righteous society, and perhaps we will be challenged by them and learn from them too. Our doing right shouldn't make others wrong; it's something we need to do together.

Do we need to make any apologies or change our ways in the light of this passage?

Prayer
May I weep for pride and loose talk ... May I weep for the blame heaped on others ... 
May I weep for the things I clutch at .... 
Strip from me, O God: pretence and divided loyalties ... Grudges and compulsive habits ... lustful alighting places ... unloving relationships ... self-sufficient attitudes.
May we weep for our hollow society ...
May we weep for our neglect and brutality ...
May we weep for blighted lives ...
May holy Jesus pardon us for these sins, free us from all evils, and power us into new ways. (From “Celtic Worship” by Ray Simpson)


word-on-the-web uses the Scripture text taken from the Youth Bible, New Century Version (Anglicised Edition) copyright 1993 by Word Publishing Milton Keynes