The Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13)
Since last time, you have had a chance to compare the version
here in Matthew with the one found in Luke 11:2-4. How many of
you had been aware of the differences previously? What, if anything,
is their significance? Which version is original? That there is
a literary dependence between the two is strongly indicated by
the use of the word epiousios, which is not found anywhere else
in Greek literature (except for later on, in texts influenced
by the Lord's Prayer). I'll bet that in praying this prayer in
English, you never asked questions about whether getting it into
English, translating and interpreting it, posed any difficulties.
Well, that's what we're going to think about today.
From Luke, we learn that the earliest form of this prayer was
something like:
Father,
Your name be sanctified,
Your kingdom come.
Our (epiousion) bread [could mean 'necessary',
'daily', 'for existence', or 'for the coming (day)']
Give us today
And release to us our debts
For we also have released those indebted to us
And do not lead us into temptation.
[For a comparison of different versions, see http://www.bibletexts.com/terms/lordspr.htm]
This is a fundamentally Jewish prayer. The Jewish scholar I. Abrahams gathered excerpts from various Jewish prayers to produce a composite prayer made up of Jewish parallels. It is reproduced here from Davies and Allison's commentary (vol.1, p.595):
Our Father, who art in Heaven. Hallowed be Thine exalted name in the world Thou didst create according to Thy will. May Thy Kingdom and Thy lordship come speedily, and be acknowledged in all the world, that Thy name may be praised in all eternity. May Thy will be done in Heaven, and also on earth give tranquility of spirit to those that fear Thee, yet in all things do what seemeth good to Thee. Let us enjoy the daily bread apportioned to us. Forgive us, our Father, for we have sinned; forgive also all who have done us injury; even as we also forgive all. And lead us not into temptation, but keep us far from evil. For thine is the greatness and the power and the dominion, the victory and the majesty, yea all in Heaven and on earth. Thine is the Kingdom, and thou art Lord of all beings forever. Amen.
These parallels compiled here artificially do serve to show just how Jewish the form, language, and themes of the Lord's Prayer are. This should not surprise the reader of Matthew's Gospel: Matthew contrasts the way Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, not with the way other Jews pray, but with the way Gentiles pray. The single closest prayer that parallels the Lord's Prayer is the Kaddish, which is prayed in the synagogue after the sermon. Its earliest form may have been something like the following (taken once again from Davies and Allison, ibid.):
Exalted and hallowed be his great name
in the world which he created according to his will.
May he let his kingdom rule
in your lifetime and in your days and in the lifetime of the
whole house of Israel,
speedily and soon.
Praised be his great name from eternity to eternity.
And to this say: Amen.
Yet another important parallel is the abbreviated form of the Eighteen Benedictions found in the Babylonian Talmud, which suggests that Matthew may have understood the Lord's Prayer as the 'Christian answer' to contemporary Jewish prayer. See for example the following prayer, taken from b. Ber. 29a:
Give us discernment, O Lord, to know Thy ways, and circumcise our heart to fear Thee, and forgive us so that we may be redeemed, and keep us far from our sufferings, and fatten us in the pastures of Thy land, and gather our dispersions from the four corners of the earth, and let them who err from Thy prescriptions be punished, and lift up Thy hand against the wicked, and let the righteous rejoice in the building of Thy city and the establishment of the temple and in the exalting of the horn of David Thy servant and the preparation of a light for the son of Jesse Thy Messiah; before we call mayest Thou answer; blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hearkenest to prayer.
[For the full text of the Eighteen Benedictions use the following
link:
http://religion.rutgers.edu/iho/prayer.html#eighteen]
Having seen much that puts Jesus' prayer in the context of
Judaism, was there anything distinctive about Jesus' prayer? In
the form Jesus prayed it, it would have begun simply with abba,
and this brief, intimate way of addressing God was certainly not
typical of contemporary Jewish prayer, although the use of 'father'
to address and speak of God was common both in Judaism and in
other religions. At any rate, Matthew obscures this point by changing
it to 'Our Father in Heaven', presumably to make the prayer more
reverent and more appropriate to be used for communal prayer.
At any rate, by doing so Matthew makes the prayer even more typically
Jewish. The other distinctive characteristic is the prayer's eschatological
outlook, if one accepts that it has one - this is a point to which
we must return shortly.
In what language would Jesus have prayed this prayer? Despite
some arguments in favor of Hebrew, most scholars accept Aramaic
as most likely. We can skip trying to reconstruct what the Aramaic
original underlying Q might have looked like, since we have already
seen that Matthew's church was a Greek-speaking community, and
so they would presumably have prayed the prayer in Greek (although
one notes that phrases like maranatha and abba apparently were
familiar even to Greek-speaking Christians, since Paul uses them).
Yet this question is still important, since there may have been
quite a number of Aramaic speakers in the church in Antioch or
wherever Matthew wrote.
For those who are interested, Bruce Chilton (Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography, New York: Doubleday, 2000, pp.297-8) translates the prayer back into Aramaic such as was spoken in Jesus' time. His book is an implausible reconstruction of the life of the historical Jesus, but as a scholar of Aramaic his reconstruction of Jesus' prayer is still to be taken very seriously:
Abba, yitqadash shemakh, tetey malkhuthakh:
Hav li yoma lakhma dateh,
Ushebaq li yat chobati, veal taeleyni lenisyona.
It is to be remembered that others have suggested other renderings. We have ancient Syriac versions, which means essentially that it is in Aramaic but using a different script. But these versions are translations based on the Greek, and so are not that different from our attempts to reconstruct an Aramaic original underlying the Greek text. We also have relatively modern Aramaic versions - Aramaic is a language still spoken inn a few places even today! Also, while we have assumed that Luke's version is to be regarded as more original, some scholars have disputed this based on the fact that it is possible to translate Matthew's version back into Aramaic and come up with a form that is rhythmic and flowing. Many different attempts have been made, and to a certain extent it depends what dialect and form of Aramaic one is rendering it into. Ernst Lohmeyer (The Lord's Prayer, London: Collins, 1965, pp.27-28) produced the following Aramaic version of Matthew's form of the Lord's Prayer, closely following the version reconstructed by C. F. Burney, a scholar of Aramaic famous for his work on the Gospels. It reads:
'abûnan debishmayya
yitqaddash shemâk
têtê malkûtâk
yit'abêd re'ûtâk
kebishmayyâkibe' ar'â
lachman deyômâ
hab lan yômâ dên
ûshebôq lan chôbên
kedishbaqnan lechayyâbên
welâ ta'lînan lenisyônâ
'ellâ passînan min bîshâ
Note the similarities and differences between this and Chilton's reconstruction at the points where Matthew and Luke agree. It is perhaps worth noting that many have managed to translate the Lord's Prayer into nice, poetic, rhythmic English, and this obviously does not prove that Jesus originally said these words in English! So one must consider not just translatability but also rhyme, closeness of meaning, use of typical idioms, etc.
See also the following links:
http://pw1.netcom.com/~aldawood/aramaic.htm
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/JPN-aramaic.html
More important for studying the form of the prayer as we have it is the question of its overall focus. That Matthew's Gospel has a strong eschatological and apocalyptic focus is clear (in fact, Matthew's Gospel formed the basis for Albert Schweitzer's view of the historical Jesus in terms of 'thoroughgoing eschatology'), and we have seen that many take this to be a major emphasis in the Sermon on the Mount. So does this emphasis pervade the Lord's Prayer also? Perhaps the best thing will be to examine the prayer and then to decide after we have done so; however, it is important that we raise this question before beginning, so that we are looking out for indications of an answer.
1. Our Father in heaven
So begins the world's most famous prayer, in its most famous form.
The Aramaic abba was a term of familiarity, although this has
sometimes been overplayed by comparing it with the English 'daddy',
which is not an accurate equivalent. Abba is not 'child-speak',
like 'da da', but is a respectful yet familiar form of address,
for which 'dad' in modern English is not really an adequate equivalent,
since we can at times address our fathers today with a lack of
respect and reverence that was punishable by death in Old Testament
times! So the problem is not so much one of translation and linguistics,
as one of cultural differences and ideas of 'father' that do not
completely overlap.
Matthew's use of 'Our Father in heaven' was something of an obvious
change to make in a Gospel that aims at instructing the Christian
community on how to live the life of discipleship. But Luke's
version also assumes that this is a prayer that the disciples
(plural) will pray, and thus represents a prayer that expresses
not individual interests but that of the group. And thus, since
both closeness and reverence were implicit in the understanding
of father in Matthew's historical and cultural setting, one should
not see any significant change in the meaning from Q's shorter
to Matthew's expanded way of addressing God. If anything, it makes
explicit what is implicit: by addressing God as our Father, it
recognizes that the fatherhood of God has implications for the
way we view one another: if God is our Father, then we as brothers
and sisters should be united in our prayers and in our relationships
and in our attitudes one towards another. Likewise by making explicit
that it is the heavenly Father who is being addressed, Matthew
ensures that God is approached with appropriate reverence and
awe. 'Father in heaven' or 'heavenly Father' is a typical Matthean
phrase. But the fact that Luke has it once, and in close proximity
to the Lord's Prayer (Luke 11:13), indicates that Matthew is emphasizing
and elaborating a theme that ultimately is to be traced back to
Jesus himself.
Excursus: Masculine language and God
Christians of a conservative bent have often found themselves
perplexed by recent concerns about inclusive language and language
the presents God as almost exclusively male. Generally those most
hesitant to discuss the issue as one worthy of serious consideration
are men, and this probably says something! Since this was not
a concern of Matthew's Gospel, we will not spend too much time
on this topic, but it must be mentioned, since it is very clearly
relevant and important to how we today read Matthew's Gospel.
So let's put it bluntly: Is God 'male'? Emphatically not. It
clearly does not make sense to think of God as a physical being,
and thus to portray God as inherently male or female would be
to project our image onto the transcendent God in a way that limits
'him'. But in that last sentence you see the problem English faces
linguistically: we have three pronouns, masculine (he), feminine
(she), and neuter (it). If we want to avoid 'he', we find that
the other options are no better. 'She' implies femininity, and
there is nothing wrong with that per se, but the pronoun is clearly
no more inclusive than 'he' and so is simply making God seem less
like a different half of the human race. 'It' implies God is impersonal,
which is likewise problematic. To simply say 'God' and 'Godself'
is awkward and clumsy, although perhaps we could get used to it
with time. So my suggestion for those concerned is that perhaps
if we spend less time speaking about God as 'he' or 'she' or 'it'
and instead focus on interacting with God and addressing God as
'you', we'll steer clear of the problem to a greater extent, since
'you' is a genuinely inclusive pronoun. Also, history shows that
those who talk much about God and little with God get themselves
into trouble! J
It is also to be remembered that for many today (and presumably
this was true in Jesus' and in Matthew's time too) 'father' does
not immediately conjure up images that are pleasant and appealing.
I remember talking about God with a friend in high school. He
was for the most part uninterested and skeptical, but at one point
he wrote to me that perhaps his problem with thinking about a
heavenly Father had to do with his strained and unhealthy relationship
with his own (earthly) father. 'Father' is a helpful image and
metaphor, but it can also be a problematic one. God as 'father'
is not absent (although he is presented as divorcing Israel in
the Old Testament, and as banishing his children!). God is not
a child abuser (although Andrew Lloyd Webber again is of a different
opinion, as expressed in Jesus Christ Superstar). The image of
Father is not the only one used in the Bible, and if it ceases
to convey the ideas it was intended to then it either must be
redeemed or replaced. And so for those in appropriate cases, I
would have no objection to them praying to God as a heavenly Mother.
But this is not something to be done lightly. The idea of a 'divine
Mother' has down the ages been associated with the worship of
nature. This does not therefore make the concept inherently inappropriate,
but it does carry connotations that cannot be taken over directly
into Christianity without fundamental beliefs being affected thereby.
Yet there is also Biblical basis for the use of feminine language
in the portrait of Wisdom in the Jewish Scriptures, and of Jesus
speaking to Jerusalem like a hen wishing to gather her chicks
under her wings (Luke 13:34). No language that conveys appropriate
ideas about God are inappropriate, but we must always keep in
mind that all our language about God is inadequate, metaphorical,
and in danger of being turned into an idol far less than the reality
of God 'himself'.
2. Hallowed be your name
What does this phrase mean? Surely God's name is holy in and of
itself! What could it possibly mean to pray that God's name be
'sanctified' or 'hallowed'? Perhaps the point already made about
'divine passive' verbs will shed some light. This prayer does
not suggest that God's name should become holy of its own initiative,
any more than the line that follows suggests that God's Kingdom
will come by itself of its own accord. No, it is God who sanctifies
his name, and who brings in the Kingdom. And so this prayer is
for God to bring about the sanctification of God's own name. Now
we still face the question: What does that mean?
Ezekiel 36:22-23 probably provides the clearest background. There,
God says that the divine name has been profaned (i.e. treated
as a common, unclean thing, and so by extension dishonored) before
the nations by Israel. And so God will act in such a way that
his name will once again be sanctified (i.e. set apart, and thus
be extension reverenced and honored). Elsewhere in Jewish prayers,
the idea of God sanctifying or hallowing his name parallels the
idea of God being magnified or glorified. So the idea is essentially,
to express it in other words, that God act so as to cause his
name to be reverenced, respected, and honored by human beings.
The Hebrew verb in certain forms could mean 'to reveal or cause
to be recognized as holy', and this is presumably the meaning
here. It is not that God's name is not intrinsically holy. But
God has associated his name with his people, and their lack of
holiness reflects of God himself. And so God will act to cause
his name to be honored and revered as it should.
This is, it is presumably clear, a dangerous and terrifying prayer
to pray! As those who have associated themselves with God, and
with whom God has associated his name, it is above all else because
of us, because of our disobedience, that God's name is spoken
badly of or not held in high esteem. Christians themselves must
surely be one of the strongest arguments against becoming a Christian
or believing in God! This prayer, for those familiar with the
background in the Hebrew Bible, implies a recognition that God's
name is disrespected first and foremost because of us, and so
it is a prayer that implies repentance. For its earliest prayers,
the arrival of God's eschatological kingdom was imminent. And
thus to pray that God intervene in a decisive manner to cause
his name to be honored, and presumably also to punish those who
bring it dishonor, could not be done unless one had either a very
contrite or a very callous attitude.
3. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in
heaven
This prayer continues the idea of the previous line: the coming
of the kingdom was what would silence those who dishonor God.
Matthew adds a second line alongside that found in Luke, which
can be taken as an explanation of what it means for the kingdom
to come. The underlying Aramaic word for 'kingdom' would have
been malkût, which essentially means reign or rule. Jesus
is not speaking primarily about setting up a state (which is what
modern English speakers think of when they hear 'kingdom'), but
about the reign or rule of God being established. And so when
Matthew adds 'your will be done - as in heaven, (so) also on earth',
he is not making a radical change to the prayer, but (as was his
custom, as we see from his reworking of traditional material throughout
his Gospel) simply explaining its meaning.
Once again, this was not something one could pray for lightly.
It is a prayer that involves the one who prays it. The arrival
of God's kingdom would involve his will at long last being done
perfectly on earth. His kingdom would include those who had sought
to obey his will even prior to the kingdom being fully established
on earth. And so to pray this is to align oneself with God's will,
to commit oneself to obedience as one who expects to belong to
the coming kingdom rather than excluded from it. The close connection
with the reference to the coming of the kingdom, and the fact
that the Greek is literally 'let your will happen/come to pass',
shows that the request is eschatological and not simply moral
in character. While Matthew would not have sharply divided the
two, nonetheless it is important to stress that this is essentially
a request that the world end, and not simply a request that people
be nice to each other while life goes on as it did before.
4. Give us today our 'daily' bread
This prayer is so commonly prayed and so familiar that I imagine
you'll be shocked to learn that it contains a word in Greek the
meaning of which is uncertain. It literally reads "our epiousion
bread give to us today". The Greek word epiousios
does not occur anywhere in Greek literature prior to this point,
and afterwards occurs only in Greek literature influenced by the
Gospels. Origen in the second century recognized this and concluded
that the Gospel authors themselves had made is up. From our perspective,
we should say that Q made it up and Matthew and Luke took it over
from that source. What are the options in interpreting it?
1) One option is to take it as being from epi tên
ousan hêmeran, and thus meaning 'for the present day'.
This option is unlikely, since it makes the petition redundant:
"Give us today our bread for the present day" (it fits
Luke's Gospel even less well, since Luke has "Give us each
day…").
2) Another option is to derive it from epi + ousia.
This would mean 'for existence', and thus the petitions would
mean: "Give us today our bread necessary for existence/for
survival".
3) A third option derives the adjective from hê epiousa
hêmera, "for the following day" or "for
the coming day", which if spoken early in the morning could
mean something like "for the day that is dawning". As
Jeremias and Brown note, the 'coming day' could be understood
in an eschatological sense, "Give us today the bread of the
future", which would mean something like "Give us today
the bread of the coming messianic banquet." A variation on
this option understands the word in the same manner as option
three, but emphasizes that the adjective modifies bread rather
than an implied day. This interpretation also suggests the phrase
could have an eschatological meaning, and thus Donald Hagner translates
it: "Give us today the eschatological bread that will be
ours in the future" (Matthew, vol.1, p.149). However, as
Strecker rightly points out (The Sermon on the Mount, Nashville:
Abingdon, 1988, pp.117-118), one must ask seriously whether one
could ever consider it appropriate to ask that God give eschatological
bread today. And so if one is to maintain this interpretation,
perhaps one would have to suggest that the bread that is asked
for is a present provision that foreshadows the eschatological
bread, just as Jesus' meals with his followers were considered
to foreshadow the meals of the messianic banquet in the coming
kingdom. In a sense, this interpretation is no more surprising
than that in the Jewish prayer mentioned earlier it should be
asked that God bring his kingdom "speedily, in our lifetime."
Perhaps modern Westerners find the arrival of the end today unsettling,
but I doubt that ancient Mediterranean Jewish peasants would have
felt the same way. How members of the congregation in Matthew's
slightly more wealthy, urban church may have felt is another question.
It is generally accepted as being more likely from a linguistic
perspective that (3) is correct to take the adjective as deriving
from epienai and thus meaning 'coming' and thus 'future'. This
would also fit well with the eschatological emphasis of the rest
of the prayer, and of the Sermon on the Mount, and of the Gospel
as a whole. This is not to say that the idea of a 'daily ration'
is completely absent. It is to be found in one of the closest
parallels in the Hebrew Bible to the idea expressed here, namely
Exodus 16, the story of the provision of manna. Since Jewish literature
expresses an expectation for an eschatological return of the manna
in the end times, such an allusion would also fit, and so one
need not necessarily play off the present needs interpretation
and the eschatological interpretation against one another. Yet
that epiousion has an eschatological thrust can perhaps be seen
from the point that most clearly makes the interpretation 'for
the present day' unlikely: the redundancy of having an emphatic
'today' in conjunction with another phrase that means 'for the
present day'. And so, if one rejects option (2) above, then one
is left with either "Give us today our bread that is to come"
or "Give us today our bread of the coming (day)". And
this, even if taken to be primarily about present earthly needs,
would probably also have been understood to have at least some
connection with the coming kingdom, the manna, and perhaps also
the Lord's Supper and Jesus' table fellowship during his ministry,
which foreshadowed the meals that would follow in the messianic
kingdom. And so perhaps we should suggest that the request is
for real bread to meet the present need, but what early Christian
could have asked for this, in the context of an expression of
longing for the kingdom to come and righteousness to be done,
and not thought of the Christian hope that God will bring his
kingdom in which all shall eat and be satisfied, in which the
hungry shall be filled?
As you can see, we pray often and in a simple way for 'daily
bread', but the interpretation and meaning of the phrase is anything
but simple, and since the Gospels use a word not found anywhere
else, the truth is that we shall never be certain of the meaning.
5. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven those
indebted to us
Luke uses 'sin' at one point instead of 'debt', and in so doing
he is replacing a familiar Jewish idiom with a term and concept
more familiar for Greek-speaking readers. The idea of God canceling
debts (which could have brought to mind the Sabbath or Jubilee
year) as we have also cancelled the debts others owe to us is
unlikely to be entirely future, since Jesus spoke of forgiveness
as a present reality; nevertheless, an eschatological aspect that
has the future judgment in view is also to be taken into consideration.
6. And do not bring us into temptation/testing, but deliver
us from evil
For those concerned about harmonizing this with James 1:13, which
says that God does not tempt people, two considerations are important.
First, there is the fact that the verse does not attribute the
testing or tempting to God, but sees God's providential hand at
work in determining whether or not one ends up being tempted.
Second, if the rest of this prayer is taken to have an eschatological
thrust, then this should probably be seen here too. In this case,
the meaning might be something closer to "Do not bring us
into the time of tribulation, but deliver us from the evil one".
Davies and Allison write after arguing for this interpretation
that this petition "is a request for God's aid in the present
crisis, a plea for divine support that one may not succumb to
the apostasy which characterizes the last time of trouble (cf.
Mt 24.5,9-14)" (Matthew, vol.1, p.614). The final adjectival
noun can be taken as either masculine or neuter, and thus can
mean either 'evil' or 'the Evil One'. Both interpretations have
a long history in Christianity, and so for the most part one must
decide the matter based on what one feels to be more likely and
more coherent in the context of Matthew's thought and emphases
as a whole.
The concluding doxology is not found in the original text, as is shown by its absence from the earliest manuscripts. It is first found in Didache in a shorter form: "For yours is the kingdom and the power forever". Prayers normally concluded with doxologies, and there were basically two types of prayer: those with set doxologies, and those to which one appended one's own doxology. It seems that by the end of the first century, it was becoming standard that one end the prayer by saying 'Yours is the kingdom and the power forever, Amen', to which a mention of 'glory' was eventually also added, and became a set part of the liturgical use of the prayer, which in turn influenced the manuscript tradition. See any major exegetical commentary on the Greek text for further details.
After the prayer, Matthew includes the teaching of Jesus recorded in Mark 11:25, which expresses the same idea as the prayer for forgiveness in the Lord's Prayer. He also talks about not doing one's acts of piety so as to be seen, just as he did prior to the Lord's Prayer, so in a sense this material on a common theme forms a sort of 'bracket' or 'frame' for the prayer. It is perhaps difficult for those unfamiliar with the cultural context of the first century Greco-Roman world to understand how radical this teaching is. Outside of Judaism, there wasn't even a concept of charity. Within Judaism, it only existed because one could think of God as a sort of heavenly patron of the poor, and thus God would repay those who helped them. But even within Judaism the idea that one should actively hide one's piety from others so that one is doing it solely as an act of devotion to God was something striking, because of the generally shared cultural assumptions of that time. The whole culture was based on competition between males for honor. 5:16 and 6:1 are able to be reconciled only in this context: one may allow to be observed those good works that will attract glory not to oneself, but to God, the 'heavenly Patron'. The idea in the latter passage is put in precisely these terms: one must choose one's reward: honor from human beings, or honor from God. No one, to my knowledge, had played the two off one another as opposites in quite the way Jesus does here. Nevertheless, elsewhere (in Judaism in particular; see the book of Job, and see also Luke 17:7-10) one finds an emphasis on not doing things for the sake of reward, an idea that Matthew appears not to espouse. See for example the tractate in the Mishnah m. Abot 1:3, which attributes the following maxim to Antigonos of Socho: "Be not like servants who serve the master on condition of receiving a gift, but be like servants who serve the master not on condition of receiving". Perhaps Matthew (and likewise Jesus) is simply being pragmatic, and recognizing that in this sort of cultural context, one cannot simply wean people overnight of all their assumptions, and so it is the most important step that they move their focus from rewards given by human beings to the rewards given by God. (See further the discussion of Davies & Allison, vol.1, pp.633-634). At any rate, as I've emphasized before, if Matthew does not expect people to act completely selflessly, neither does he simply hold out a 'heavenly' carrot in front of people to 'bribe' them into doing what is right. No, in 6:14-15 we see a characteristic of Matthew's understanding of the basis of final judgment: as we have done to others, so God will do to us. This is the 'Golden Rule' taken up and applied as a universal principle that applies to the final judgment, and not just to the question of how we want other people to treat us [see also Matthew 7:1-2]. The return to the theme of final judgment and forgiveness serves to highlight the eschatological character of the prayer for forgiveness in the Lord's Prayer.
Matthew 6:19-34 - God, Wealth, and Worry
Here, following on a theme perhaps related to that of 'daily bread'
in the Lord's Prayer, Matthew includes teaching on where one should
keep one's treasure. Not only were corruption and destruction
real possibilities, but thieves could quite literally 'dig through'
and steal, since the most common way of protecting one's treasure
was to bury it under the floor of the house. Archaeology has regularly
confirmed this. [Just as an aside, modern readers of Jesus' parable
of the 'talents' are usually unaware that the assumption in that
cultural context regarding what one should do with treasure entrusted
to someone by another was that one ought to bury it. The parable
thus runs directly contrary to conventional wisdom]. Like what
preceded it, this section also has to do with honor, since wealth
and honor were strongly interconnected. Once again, the disciples
are taught that they must choose where their honor will be: here,
from other people, or from God in his kingdom.
Heaven should not be thought of here as 'a place people go to
when they die'. As we've already seen, heaven is always associated
with God and his kingdom, and is regularly a cipher for God, a
way of avoiding speaking directly about God, as in the phrase
'the kingdom of Heaven'. So the choice is not exactly between
'here and now' or 'after you die' (as in the traditional contrast
between 'pie in the sky when you die' and 'steak on your plate
while you wait'). It is between 'on the earth' in the present
to be seen and praised by men, or 'in heaven' with God to be 'cashed
in', honored and rewarded when he brings his kingdom in in the
not-too-distant future. So, to put it briefly, 'in heaven' here
essentially means 'with God'. Another way of paraphrasing Matthew
in more contemporary language would be to say "What you value
determines your values".
[Just as an aside, I remember laughing at a warning in a Romanian
hotel room advising those staying there to deposit their values
in the safe in the lobby for safety! There must be an illustration
in this somewhere…]
On sources here in this passage, one can see clearly Matthew's dependence on Q. None of the sayings in this section is found in Mark, while all of them (apart from 6:34, which is found only in Matthew) is found in Luke (cf. Davies and Allison, vol.1, p.627):
Matthew Mark Luke
6:19-21 - 12:33-34
6:22-23 - 11:34-36
6:24 - 16:13 [N.B. here the agreement is
very close indeed]
6:25-33 - 12:22-31
6:34 - -
Luke's order is probably closer to the original. Matthew has grouped together sayings relating to money. He presumably indicates from his inclusion of the saying in vv22-23 here that he understands the 'healthy' eye to be a 'generous' eye, which is another of the word's meanings.
v22-23 - The eye as the lamp of the body
This verse is obviously difficult to understand. To start with,
there is a real danger that interpreters will read this verse
in light of modern understandings of eyes and vision. In the first
century, no one knew that eyes were like windows, allowing light
in. On the other hand, there are many references to eyes as like
lamps, as having their own light within them. And so this saying
does not warn against cataracts that will prevent light getting
into the body. It warns about 'generous' and 'evil' eyes as they
show the light or darkness that is within. In the first century,
as in many Mediterranean cultures today, there was great concern
about being given the 'evil eye'. An evil eye is one that is covetous,
that causes harm, and here we are told that this has to do with
one's inner state. The eye is taken as reflecting what is in the
heart. The sort of eye you have should be a 'generous' one, reflecting
the inner light one has within one's heart. To take eye and heart
here literally and attempt to reinterpret the words of Jesus based
on a modern, medical and scientific understanding of the eye (not
to mention the heart!) is unlikely to produce a coherent interpretation,
and anachronistically reads back our understanding today into
a saying based on a different worldview. However, taken as a metaphor
(which, at any rate, is what it was primarily in its original
context anyway), it still makes sense. The way you look at others
shows what is in your heart. You can look to give, or to take.
You can look to do good, or harm. And so even if no longer related
to a particular understanding of how eyes function, this metaphor
is still intelligible and applicable: your eyes show a lot about
what is inside you, whether it be light or darkness, generosity
or evil.
v24 - Serving Two Masters
The problem with serving two masters is clear: one may have conflicting
demands made upon one by the two, and will then have to choose.
To 'love' or 'hate' could be literal, but may also be used in
the broader sense of 'loving more' and 'loving less', as it is
in Luke 14:26 (see also Genesis 29:30-33; Deuteronomy 21:15).
Matthew reproduces the Aramaic word mammônâ', the
emphatic state of the noun mammon which means 'property' or 'wealth'.
vv25-34 - Worrying about tomorrow
Tomorrow was probably as far ahead as most ancient Mediterranean
peasants ever were likely to worry. They did not live in a world
where one could make long-term plans. Life was not under their
control in anything like the way it is to people in modern North
America. It is relatively easy for an American to say 'Don't worry
about tomorrow'. For most people, there is reasonably good job
security, a regular paycheck. The farmers produce an abundance
of food using modern technology. Few reading these words in North
America have any real understanding of what they mean. They are
spoken to people who live on the edge of starvation, in poverty,
most of whom spent their lives struggling to get the land to produce
enough for them to pay their taxes and landlords and hopefully
have just enough left over to survive for another year. This is
the context of these words, as it would have been the context
of the petition about bread in the Lord's Prayer. Even if there
and here there is an eschatological element, bread was not for
the original hearers of these words simply a convenient thing
to put the contents of a sandwich between. Hard, rough, dark bread
made from unsifted flour was a staple of their diets. Most of
the hearers would not have been concerned about the ancient equivalent
of their car breaking down, making them inconveniently late for
work. They would have been worried about their only donkey dying
and not having an animal to help with the work. This could make
the difference between survival in abject poverty and total starvation.
Having lived in Romania, when I see people getting stressed about
slightly long lines at the checkout at WalMart, I feel like screaming
"You have no idea what worry is! You have no idea how easy
your lives are!"
Jesus' teaching here is twofold. On the one hand, he emphasizes
that the cost vs. effectiveness ratio of worry is very poor. We
worry about all sorts of things that might happen, or that will
probably happen, that are beyond our control. We may in fact take
years off our lives and damage our health and give ourselves ulcers
by worrying, and may cloud our ability to think straight about
our problems; but one thing worry rarely does is actually help
us solve problems! So worry does not help. But this is not all
Jesus says: he says not to worry because the heavenly Father,
who takes care of the flowers and the birds, will take care of
us in the same way.
Excursus: Prayer and Providence in the Modern World
Belief in divine providence as traditionally understood within
Christianity is severely challenged by the discoveries of modern
science. It is not that it becomes impossible to believe that
God acts in the world, but simply that we are much more aware
of the intricate web of cause and effect and of the interdependence
of the many things that happen in our world. We today know that
there are a lot of things that we would call 'natural causes'
that can affect the birds and the flowers: droughts, weather patterns,
human freedom being used in an unwise or even cruel way, lack
of concern for the environment. In a world in which we know that
birds and flowers can become extinct, what does it mean to believe
in providence?
Perhaps the best way to look at this question is to ask what
it means to continue to pray the Lord's Prayer in the modern world.
If we take the prayer "Give us today our bread that is coming"
(or whatever it in fact means) at face value, as a prayer about
our everyday needs, then what does it mean to pray this prayer
in the United States today? Presumably we do not expect God to
simply rain down bread from heaven onto our tables, absolving
us of the need to work. Bread is not something most of us make,
but something we buy. So are we praying that the bread-makers'
union will not go on strike? Are we praying for job security so
that we can work to earn money to buy bread? And if so, do we
mean thereby that we expect to be exempted from the effects of
a changing economy and of life in a capitalist, industrial, democratic
society? Romanian Christians who prayed this prayer through the
1980s still had to wait in long lines to get bread. Many people
in other countries pray this prayer and do without, sometimes
because the fields that could be used for growing food are used
instead to grow coffee or drugs, which can be sold to buy weapons
to wage the ongoing civil war. The Earth is capable of producing
enough for everyone, if the resources are used rightly. And so
we today who pray this prayer must, as in the other petitions
in the Lord's Prayer, recognize that it is not just about asking
God to act, but also about recognizing that we must be part of
the answer to the prayer. Until the kingdom comes, we determine
the opinion others have of God's name. Until the kingdom comes,
it is up to us to do God's will in our own lives and communities.
And until we feast at the messianic banquet, it is up to us to
do our part to ensure that the resources God has provided for
us through natural means on this planet are shared in a fair and
equitable way with all its inhabitants. We do not think that God
intervenes to carry stray cats hit by cars to an angelic veterinarian.
God has made a world in which competition for scarce resources
is part of how the diverse and well-adapted forms of life on this
planet have come to exist as we now know them. This is not to
say that God is absent, but it is to recognize that we must take
seriously the kind of world God chose to make, one that makes
room for human freedom and human responsibility. The book of Genesis
presents humankind as responsible for stewardship of the natural
realm. We are not to ask God to do those things that we are responsible
for so that we may be off the hook from doing them ourselves.
And so we need to recognize our own responsibility in being answers
to this prayer. This in no way negates the prayer's force. I remember
when my wife and I lived in the U.K. and were struggling to make
ends meet since we were both students at Bible college. One day,
my wife heard a sound, opened the door and found that someone
had slipped an envelope (which turned out to have money in it)
through our letterbox. Since she hadn't heard or seen anyone walk
past, she said "It must have been an angel." My reply
was that if it was an angel, then it was a miracle; but if God
managed to get a person to do it, then it was an even greater
miracle! Seeing the kingdom spread in the present involves seeing
God's will be done on earth as in heaven. It means aligning ourselves
with God's will. And so as the early Church fathers recognized,
prayer has more to do with changing us than with changing God.
Let's take one more example of how worry is ultimately self-defeating,
and how Jesus' teaching speaks to a world which is aware of much
more science than any of Jesus' original hearers, and which involves
a different lifestyle that Jesus' original hearers. Stress relates
to the 'fight or flight' mechanism that all animals have. It is
an instinct that is necessary, and without which animals would
hang around much too long while predators approach. Adrenaline
has enabled people to lift cars single-handed off of a loved one
trapped underneath. Most of the time, this mechanism that we have
all inherited serves us well. This mechanism is not part of the
'sinful nature' - it is something we need to survive. But when
we worry about things that we do not need to worry about, worry
becomes a lifestyle, and what was an important contributor to
survival becomes something that actually undermines us. The 'fight
or flight' mechanism evolved to enable organisms to respond to
the only kind of stress there is in the animal kingdom: predators.
And so what it does is shuts off the digestive, reproductive,
and immune systems and channels all energy into running or fighting
for survival. But what happens when one worries constantly in
the modern world about one's job? Worry becomes a lifestyle, the
digestive system is affected, and one develops ulcers. Or the
immune system is affected, and one finds oneself coming down with
colds more often. Or to take another example, those who worry
about not being able to have a child may find their reproductive
system affected, so that the worry becomes literally self-defeating.
The 'flight or fight' mechanism serves the purpose it evolved
for very well: there is no point in finishing digesting lunch
if you will not live to eat again, no point in keeping the reproductive
system running if you are about to die. By channeling all energy
into an immediate survival effort in the short term, this biological
instinct can save our lives. But when we short-circuit the system
by worrying constantly and making it a habit of lifestyle, we
damage ourselves, and sometimes even undermine our chances of
achieving whatever it is we are worrying about. Jesus' teaching
about worry does not reflect the modern understanding of the world,
but I think we can see how it is very applicable indeed in our
context today.
**FOR NEXT TIME:**
Read Matthew 7-10, with the help of the commentary.