NOTES for Mat 6:16-24

Have you ever, say, gone swimming while vacationing at the seaside and left a bag with money on the beach? You splash around in the water, but something spoils your pleasure: you keep looking back at your things... "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Of course, this is a very primitive illustration of Jesus' words, but are you and I really such complicated beings? The same mechanism for distributing our attention operates in more "spiritual" situations too. Of course, earthly matters are important, and they must be given attention. Will we be able each time to keep within ourselves the right vertical order of what matters most, where God, the Spirit, and love are above all?

The following words of Christ about God and mammon, or wealth, speak about the same thing. Jesus is not against wealth or well-being. He says that they must not be placed at the center of our service and attention; that place must be reserved for God.

God Himself never forces His mercy on anyone. Even His coming into this world takes place simply as the birth of an earthly Child. If we are called to become like His perfection (Mt 5:48), then our mercy and piety too must be neither showy nor intrusive, but a joyful expression of our hidden relationship with the heavenly Father.

Great Lent begins today. The texts we read speak about what is most important at this time, yet how far all this is from our ideas of fasting. What the prophet Joel calls "tearing the heart" always means sadness and tears for us. But the Lord gives us His answer, paradoxical at first glance, that completely overturns the picture. Purification is joy; returning to Him can and should be a feast for us; fasting is a time of reunion between the Creator and creation. A "fasting face" is a human invention for justifying one's laziness and consoling one's vanity. But the Lord calls us to tear the crust of sin from the heart so that all the filth may come out. And then our faces will shine with the joy of Great Lent.

Three times in the first half of the sixth chapter of Matthew's Gospel these words of the Savior are quoted. Let us note that He says this about almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. There is a small book by Vladimir Solovyov, "The Spiritual Foundations of Life," in which he writes about prayer, almsgiving, and fasting as the basic components of a person's righteous life. Indeed, each person's "position" in the universe is determined by his relationships along three "coordinate axes": his connection with God, his connection with other people, and his connection with nature. Prayer, almsgiving, and fasting are expressions of right relationships along these "axes."

Thus Jesus' words refer to the whole fullness of human life. He says that this life is carried out not so much visibly as "in secret," not so much in deeds as in the intentions of the heart, not so much in actions as in relationships. Accordingly, the visible reward of this world is not what matters for us, because it passes away together with this world; what matters is the reward from the invisible God, because that reward is eternal life.

These savior’s words are quoted three times throughout the first half of the sixth chapter of Matthew’s Evangel. We notice he talks this about alms, prayer and fasting. Russian Vladimir Solov’ev (Владимир Соловьев) wrote about prayer, alms and fasting as the main components of a righteous human life in a small book entitle “The Spiritual Foundations of Life”. Everybody’ position in the universe is defined indeed by his relation in three “coordinate axes” – relationship with God, relationship with another people and relation with nature. Prayer, alms, and fasting are expressions of good relation on these axes.

Thus, Jesus’ words are related thereby to all the completeness of human life. He says that this life is fulfilled not in visible ways, but much in “secret”, not in behaviors, but much in mind, not in actions, but much in relationship. And thereafter, not the world’s visible reward is most important to us, because it happens to be perishable with this world, but reward from the invisible God because it {reward} is everlasting life.

"If the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness?" the Lord says to us today. How can this be - how can light be darkness? Here is one possible interpretation: the question is what serves as light for us, what we choose in that capacity. If we consider a cozy half-light, or even darkness, to be light, then what is darkness? If we do not step out into the light of Christ's commandments, but prefer to be satisfied with the local lighting of selected rules, what are our chances of seeing anything beyond our own nose? What, then, is light for us? The light of Christ, which enlightens all people and all things, or something else?

The Savior's words about treasure and the heart touch on one of the main questions of spiritual life. What is spiritual life? What determines a person's spiritual condition? Speaking in biblical language, it is the condition of his heart. What is this heart on which so much depends? Why, even before the coming of Christ, did the call sound to love God first of all with the heart, with the whole heart, and only then with the whole soul and all one's strength? In the language of the Bible, the heart is the center of the person, his spiritual center.

Creating man, God breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and man comes alive, acquiring a soul. The soul is human nature, that specific thing that makes man human. Something similar also exists in animals: thanks to their souls, animals possess a certain biological identity.

But the human soul is special, because it appears as a result of the action on nature of God's breath, which, according to God's design, was to determine human life completely. Before the fall, that is exactly how it was. Later, after the fall, the situation changed: the human soul became connected with blood just as the souls of animals are.

The natural component in man prevailed over the spiritual. But even after the fall, the action of God's breath on human nature did not cease completely; otherwise man would simply have turned into an animal, becoming just another variety of ape. It is precisely this breath that gives us the possibility of becoming aware of ourselves, of knowing about our own existence.

Animals are not aware of themselves. For us humans, self-awareness is a psychological axiom: we know that we exist, and this knowledge is for us something self-evident and needing no proof. But this is only the beginning. One can go further, and then in the depth of one's "I" we discover that system of values and life priorities that determines the quality of our life. This spiritual "I" is what the Bible calls the heart. The spiritual "I" manifests itself first of all through the will.

An act of will is the beginning of every choice and every decision. And a choice is made, and a decision accepted, according to the system of values and priorities a person professes, in deeds of course and not in words. These values and priorities are the very "treasure" of which the Savior speaks, because our treasure becomes exactly what is absolutely and unconditionally important for us. Thus our heart turns out to be where its treasure is. And after the heart come the soul, the strength, and the whole life. In short, we ourselves.

Christ's words about the impossibility of serving two masters and His call not to be anxious about tomorrow are often understood to mean that Christians need nothing from what our untransformed world can offer a person, and that they need neither food nor clothing. Yet Jesus says nothing of the kind. He calls only for setting spiritual and practical priorities in the right order. Where should one begin: with the Kingdom, or with questions about food and clothing? For Jesus the answer is clear: first the Kingdom, and then everything else.

For a Christian, there should be no questions here. To the question whether we live in order to eat or eat in order to live, any Christian can give only one answer. But what does the call not to be anxious about tomorrow mean in this context? Not to make provisions? But what if, without making them, you will not survive the winter? In the end, sometimes it makes sense to think about tomorrow the day before precisely because otherwise, when tomorrow comes, you will have to think more about food than about the Kingdom.

The matter, however, is different. In the sense of the corresponding Greek word, this is not about thinking ahead about what in fact should be thought through ahead of time. It is about anxiety that weighs over a person and takes such possession of him that he is no longer able to think about anything else. At the limit, such anxiety can bring a person to despondency and despair; thoughts about the future can become a real nightmare for him, and possible future problems, often impossible ones as well, begin to poison his whole life, not the future life but the present one. Yet the most terrible thing is not even that normal spiritual life is out of the question in such a condition, but that it cuts a person off from the Kingdom completely. Care for this world fully hides the Kingdom from a person tormented by imaginary nightmares of tomorrow, and without formally renouncing anything, he proves completely unable not only to take even one step toward the Kingdom, but even to remember it; and so, in anxieties over illusory problems, he loses salvation and life.

The unfamiliar word "mammon" actually means a "stronghold," something one can rely on, a source of hope. Of course, the Lord understands that all of us need to eat, drink, dress, earn a living, and so on, but He says that in a person's life there cannot be two hopes, two treasures, two goals. He uses little birds and flowers of the field as examples to show that one can be free, happy, and beautiful while hoping not in "treasure on earth," but in God. Moreover, this beauty is purer, this freedom clearer, than anything the "trouble of the day" can offer us. And this is not about fleeing life, not about irresponsibility or getting something for nothing, but about turning to the most precious and most meaningful content of life - to God, who is absolutely more wondrous than any treasure.

Calling us to trust that God knows all our needs and will not leave us without care, the Lord Jesus Christ opens to us a new, almost unknown dimension of our life. We are so afraid of being left without necessities, of losing the means of existence, that this fear takes possession of the whole heart, and the poor are in no better position here than the rich. Yet the Lord speaks of a life that is not enclosed only within the material world and not limited only to the short span of earthly life. Christ's astonishing words about how the heavenly Father feeds the birds and clothes the flowers of the field reveal the meaningfulness and beauty of the world in which God has placed us.

And these words of Christ set before us a choice: what exactly constitutes the goal of our life. It is important that, by choosing God and His Kingdom, we lose nothing, because "all these things will be added to you"; but by choosing momentary well-being, we risk losing something infinitely precious and irreplaceable.

Speaking about the care of the Heavenly Father for His creation, Jesus calls His disciples to look at the world around them. Birds that do not need to worry about stores of food, plants adorned more richly than kings, a person's growth - all this testifies to divine providence. By discovering the beauty of the universe and grasping its laws, a person fulfills the Creator's command. For when the Lord created Adam, He gave him authority over every living thing, entrusted the world to him, and therefore it is so important for a person to learn how this world is arranged. The amazing beauty and harmony placed in nature can become a true source of the knowledge of God. And this knowledge directly concerns us, human beings; it is the knowledge that "your Heavenly Father knows that you need them."

How often we neglect this attentive looking at the world, which gives so many opportunities to give thanks and to understand Him. We prefer to learn all sorts of theological truths instead of simply looking around and seeing a lily, a bird, or just realizing how amazingly precisely your own body works. And is this not one of the ways of seeking the Kingdom of God?

Many people cannot make sense of these words at all. How can we not be anxious when we must work in order to eat? Even the birds of the air, though they neither sow nor reap, constantly work their wings to find food for themselves and their chicks.

Yet not being anxious does not mean not working. This passage speaks of the anxiety that overwhelms a person, ceases to be reasonable, and turns human life into constant worry, preventing us from receiving the Heavenly Father’s many gifts. Our desire to minimize unexpected troubles is understandable, but when we try to anticipate every possible future, we risk becoming like Clever Elsie, who deprived herself of the present out of fear of one possible future.

But if we place more hope in God than in our own limited efforts, we can calmly begin our daily work, trusting that it will not become a meaningless waste of strength. The Lord Himself will be beside us in sorrow and in joy.

It is no accident that this passage ends with a call to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. For this is the one essential thing to which everything else will be added.

Forgiveness Sunday is one of the most remarkable days in the church year. And the old custom comes to mind: when someone asks for forgiveness, to answer, "God will forgive." To a modern person these words grate on the ear. That is the fate of language. But I think our ancestors had no less spirituality than we do, and so let us think about this once more.

We do not value these words because we treat God's forgiveness too easily, as though it were something self-evident because of His great mercy. We say to ourselves: a person, yes, can forgive or can refuse to forgive, and so when we ask for forgiveness we want to hear not "God will forgive," but "I forgive you." And here precisely we must remember the words of today's Gospel reading: if you forgive people their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive people their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. In other words, the situation turns back on you yourself (and that is how it should always be in life!).

But what do we know about forgiveness? At times a person is guided by the common saying: I forgive everyone who owes me. But seriously, in reality the first true teacher of forgiveness is, of course, Joseph, who forgave his brothers. Let us learn from the great teachers.

And I would like to say one more thing. It is no accident at all that the words about forgiveness are joined here in the text with words about asceticism. These two aspects of life have the deepest connection, which can be pictured this way: fasting - humility, in the biblical sense and not the everyday one - the suppression of pride - forgiveness.