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Matthew 6:19-21 & 24
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth . . . but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. . . . For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. . . . No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 1)
This passage is all about learning to love and serve God for himself, and in secret, rather than simply having an eye on the main chance, either to show off by being so religious or to store up wealth (62).
“Heaven” here is where God is right now, and where, if you learn to love and serve God right now, you will have treasure in the present, not just in the future. . . . How can we do this? . . . Learn to live in the presence of the loving father. Learn to do everything for him and him alone. Get your priorities right (63).
A. Orendorff
If “celebrity” is the religion of choice in America, then its pantheon is food, sex and money. There are, after all, few “gods” that hold the universal sway of wealth. “Mammon,” as it is sometime rendered, grips our hearts and captures our imaginations with an almost irresistible power and vigor. Of course, the tricky thing about money is you don’t have to have it to be owned by it. Being broke doesn’t insulate us from idolatry. So what does? A better treasure, Jesus says, a heavenly treasure, one that can’t be lost or depreciate or fade away or be stolen. In other words, you can’t fight earthly treasure with pious self-denial. The only way to fight treasure is with treasure. We must, as the Psalmist says, “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8). We need a visceral weapon against a visceral enemy. What we need is to see, to know, to experience on the heart the superior treasure of “knowing Christ Jesus” before we can count the rest of this life as loss, rubbish, nothingness and dung (Phil. 3:7-8).
Matthew 6:9-10
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 1)
[T]his God is not a man-made idol. He is the living God, who dwells in “heaven,” and longs to see his sovereign and saving rule come to birth on “earth.” This is, in fact, a prayer for the kingdom of God to become fully present: not for God’s people to be snatched away from earth to heaven, but for the glory and beauty of heaven to be turned into [an] earthly reality as well. When that is done, God’s name—his character, his reputation, his very presence—will be held in high honour everywhere. The first half of the prayer is thus all about God. Prayer that doesn’t start there is always in danger of concentrating on ourselves, and very soon it stops being prayer altogether and collapses into the random thoughts, fears and longings of our own minds (59).
A. Orendorff
Prayer is not about getting God to give us life on our terms, nor is it merely about living life on life’s terms. Rather, prayer is about the reckless and self-abandoning work of living life on God’s terms. Prayer, as Eugene Peterson points out, is dangerous work. Prayer goes about the humbling task of asking God to be God, of allowing His name to be honored, of letting His will be done, of seeing His kingdom come. What we often forget is that all of these pious requests carry with them the unavoidable consequences that if God is God, then you and I don’t get to be, that if God’s name is honored, then ours might be neglected, that if God’s will is done, then ours might be overlooked, that if God’s kingdom comes, then ours might just sit on the shelf.
This, Jesus says, is prayer. This is real prayer: making God—his name, will and kingdom—the center of our thoughts and lives. And though this is difficult and counter-intuitive work, it is the only real work worth doing. For it is only as we experience the holiness of God’s name, that we are relinquished from the endless task of making a name for ourselves. It is only as we submit to God’s sovereign will that are we released from the bondage of our relentless will. It is only as God’s kingdom comes, that our own private monarchies are overthrown and liberated. It is only when God is God, that we can finally rest as his children.
Matthew 6:1
Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
A. Orendorff
Motives matter. As Tom Wright points out, “What matters [when it comes to “practicing your righteousness”] is learning to do [it] simply to and for God himself. All the Sermon on the Mount, in fact, is centred on God himself, who easily gets squeezed out of religion if we’re not careful” (55). Who we aim to please, in other words, is a far more fundamental question than what we actually do. The second—what we do—will inevitably flow out the first—who we aim to please. If my aim—i.e., the motive of my heart—is to please my wife, to, as Jesus says, “practice my righteousness” before her that I might be seen and appreciated, then one of two things will inevitably happen. One, I will either fail to please her, stumble in my righteous practice, and be crushed by defeat or, two, I will slowly but surely begin to accommodate what I do and who I am to fit her expectations and desires, thereby pushing God, as Wright says, more and more to the periphery.
While pleasing one’s wife (as well as the other people in a person’s life) is a good thing, when it becomes an ultimate thing it warps and perverts our motives such that we stop worshipping God and begin to worship an idol. God must be God in order for our motives and therefore our hearts to be pleasing in his sight. And (most wonderfully) it is there that the greatest reward lies.
Matthew 5:38-39, 43-48
You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil [‘don’t use violence to resist evil’]. . . .You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 1)
Jesus offers a new sort of justice, a creative, healing restorative justice. The old justice in the Bible was designed to prevent revenge running away with itself. . . . Better [still] to have no vengeance at all, but rather a creative way forward, reflecting the astonishingly patient love of God himself, who wants Israel to shine his light into the world so that all people will see that he is the one true God, and that his deepest nature is overflowing with love. No other god encourages people to behave in a way like this (51).
Whatever situation you’re in, you need to think it through for yourself. What would it mean to reflect God’s generous love despite the pressure and provocation, despite your own anger and frustration?
Impossible? Well, yes, at one level. But again Jesus’ teaching isn’t just good advice, it’s good news. Jesus did it all himself and opened up the new way of being human so that all who follow him can discover it. . . . The Sermon on the Mount isn’t about us. . . . It’s about Jesus himself. This was the blueprint for his own life. . . . The Sermon on the Mount isn’t just about how to behave. It’s about discovering the living God in the loving, and dying, Jesus, and learning to reflect that love ourselves into the world that needs it so badly (52-3).
Matthew 5:27-30
You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 1)
Deal ruthlessly with lust. . . . Don’t suppose that Jesus means you must never feel the impulse of lust when you look at someone attractive. That would be impossible, and is not in any case what the words mean. What he commands us to avoid is the gaze, and the lustful imagination, that follows the initial impulse. . . . Choosing not to be swept along by inappropriate sexual passion may well feel on occasion like cutting off a hand or plucking out an eye, and our world has frequently tried to tell us that doing this is very bad for us. . . . Jesus [however] is not just giving moral commands. He is unveiling a whole new way of being human (48-9).
A. Orendorff
Authentic Christian discipleship—following after and being like Jesus—is always set in the context of the cross. When Jesus (and Paul and John and Peter and the author of Hebrews) talk about how we to reclaim our humanity, when Scripture describe the process of being “made new,” it is always set in the most self-denying and self-destroying terms. Resisting the pull of death, resisting the siren of temptation, is hard, brutal, uncomfortable work. And that (as Jesus makes plain) is how it’s suppose to be. The way we know we're resisting temptation and following hard after God is that it hurts. It feels like “cutting off a hand or plucking out an eye.” Yet it is in that death to self that our life to God takes place. Pain is where we met and are met by God.
Matthew 5:21-24
You have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.” But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, “You fool!” will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 1)
In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes the commands of the law and shows how they provide a blueprint for a way of being fully, genuinely, gloriously human (43).
Jesus offers two remarkably specific and practical commands. Be reconciled; make friends. How simple that is—and yet how hugely different and costly (44).
All this is, of course, impossible. That is, it’s impossible until you look at Jesus. . . . Jesus himself refused to go the way of anger. Instead, he took the anger of his enemies within Israel, and of Israel’s enemies, the Romans, on to himself, and died under its load. From that point on, reconciliation is not simply an ideal we must strive for. It is an achievement, an accomplishment, which we in turn must now embody (45).
Matthew 5:13-17 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
Tom Wright,
Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 1)This passage shows how Jesus himself . . . was, in fact, the reality towards which Israel’s whole life and tradition had pointed. . . . He had come to fulfill the law and the prophets. . . . Jesus wasn’t intending to abandon the law and the prophets. Israel’s’ whole story, commands, promises and all, was going to come true in him (39-41).
This was truly revolutionary, and at the same time deeply in tune with the ancient stories and promise of the Bible. And the remarkable thing is that Jesus brought it all into reality in his own person. He was the salt of the earth. He was the light of the world: set up on a hill-top, crucified for all the world to see, becoming a beacon of hope and new life for everybody, drawing people to worship his father, embodying the way of self-giving love which is the deepest fulfillment of the law and the prophets (41).
Matthew 5:3Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Tom Wright,
Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 1)The life of heaven—the life of the realm where God is already king—is to become the life of the world, transforming the present “earth” into the place of beauty and delight that God always intended. And those who follow Jesus are to begin to live by this rule here and now. That’s the point of the Sermon on the Mount, and these “beatitudes” in particular. They are a summons to live in the present in the way that will make sense in God’s promised future; because that future has arrived in the present in Jesus of Nazareth. It may seem upside down, but we are called to believe, with great daring, that it is in fact the right way up (38).
A. OrendorffWhat would it look like to live as though being “poor in spirit” really were the way of blessing and inheritance? What would it mean to live “right way up” in an “upside down” world? Reflecting briefly, I suppose this would mean at least two things. First, it would mean living honestly. Living honestly means more than just telling the truth about who I am (what we normally call “confession”—owing my sin and presenting myself as I am); it also means ordering my life beneath the reality that in and of myself I am both untrustworthy and untrusting, unlovely and unloving, unfaithful and disbelieving. I am poor and to live as though I were rich is a lie.
Second, it would mean valuing “poverty,” valuing what can (for all intents and purposes) offer me nothing that this world considers valuable. The litmus-test for Matthew 5:3 is: In what ways am I giving my time, money and relational energy to people and projects that cannot add any profit to my life?
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