Living the Dream
12/10/2006 - Fasting & Lasting Treasures
Living the Dream of God
Two Worlds Diverge
“Living the Dream” is all about living the “Dream of God” ... God's dream is His kingdom which He had in mind when He originally created this earth and its inhabitants ... that was heaven on earth in so many ways but mostly the garden was heaven on earth because God lived there ... God dwelt with Adam and Eve ... they took walks together ... they talked with each other ... the garden of Eden was “heaven on earth” until something happened that interrupted the dream ...
The serpent convinced the first earth dwellers that God could not be trusted ... that He was holding something back from them ... something that they deserved ... the first earth dwellers decided to take matters into their own hands and heaven and earth divided ...
not a physical divide like two cities drifting away from each other on two different tectonic plates but more like a relational divide in which God's space and our space just don't connect like they used to ...
It's like we might say of a particular neighbor who's lifestyle is completely foreign to us ... their house is right next door to ours but they live in a different world ...
The entire story of the Old Testament is about the children of Israel trying to return to a land and a kingdom and a temple where once again heaven and earth would intersect ... and their story, much like our story, continues to come up short ...
Jesus, Heaven on Earth
Isn't it interesting that when Jesus moved around from town to town people flocked to be near him ... some would say that people came because of his unmatched ability to teach or because of his power to heal and perform miracles ... I'm sure that all of those things are reasons why people would sell their shirts to be with Jesus but I'm guessing it goes much deeper than that ...
Whether you realized it or not, to be with Jesus was to be in the very presence of God ... when you stepped into Jesus' space, you were stepping into heaven ... you were stepping into the very environment for which you were originally created ... and it felt wonderful ... for most ...
It felt wonderful for everyone except those who for one reason or another were deeply entrenched in this earth ... in human space ... and so for those whose identities were completely wrapped up in this world ... in doing things my way ... the Jesus environment was completely threatening ... if I am a religious leader in Jesus' day I will be threatened by his talk of another kingdom ... if I am a political character I will be threatened ... if I am one who prides myself in working my way up the ladder I am threatened ... if I am one who has learned how to work the earthly system to my advantage I will be threatened ...
But if I am poor in spirit ... if I am mourning ... meek ... hungry for righteousness ... merciful ... pure in heart ... a peacemaker ... persecuted ... then I am going to find the message of the kingdom of heaven to be absolutely mesmerizing ...
Jesus calls these people salt and light ... they are the ones who have the capacity to grasp the wonders of His kingdom ... these are the people who long to dwell in the presence of Jesus ... these are the people who have the potential to move this world in a different direction ...
So Jesus launches into this sermon on the mount by addressing a number of issues like murder and adultery and divorce and truth-telling and vengeance and enemies ... he uses the pattern “you have heard it said ... but I tell you” ...
we would miss his whole point if we walked away from the hill thinking that Jesus left us with a list of things to do and not do ... Jesus far exceeded the establishment of another moral code but rather took us to the very essence of these issues and showed us how foreign they are in His presence ...
He is saying, “sure, you can live on this earth, in your world, and never physically murder anyone ... but in my kingdom not even hatred can exist ... you may be able to exercise enough self-control not to kill somebody but to not hate someone is only possible when you are living my dream ... when you are living in my presence ...
When Jesus shifts to addressing our “acts of righteousness,” he uses the pattern “so when you ... do not ... but instead” ...
So when you give to the needy ... do not announce it with trumpets ... but instead do your giving in secret ...
So when you pray ... do not pray standing in public ... do not babble on and on ... but instead pray in your room ... instead use simple words ...
Jesus is saying that it is possible to perform “acts of righteousness” in your world ... but that is all that they are ... “acts” ... and their benefits do not extend beyond the limits of your world ...
but if you are living the dream ... if you are aware of heaven on earth, then your giving and your praying will be something completely different ...
Fasting & Lasting Treasures
With that said, we continue on into Jesus' teachings on “Fasting & Lasting Treasures” in Matthew 6, starting with verse 16 ...
Fasting
16 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
So Jesus talks about fasting ... I'm not sure what fasting was all about then ... I know that today it tends to be rather demonstrative ... TV preachers proclaim a day of fasting to bring attention to some cause ... I know of Christians who fast but unfortunately the only reason I know is because they tell me ... which kind of defeats the purpose according to Jesus ...
“Fast” Toward the Father
I read a fascinating explanation of what Jesus understood fasting to be in a book called Sermon on the Mount by Clarence Jordan, who also wrote The Cotton Patch Gospel ...
Obviously, fasting meant to Jesus something radically different from what it did to the Pharisees. To them it had become the brand of religiosity. But Jesus took it back to its original and deeper meaning. At first, it did not at all mean doing without food or becoming unkempt in personal appearance. It was a spontaneous expression of a deep emotional feeling and was usually associated with extreme grief. When one's heart was in great anguish, there was little desire for food, so not eating came to be associated with a deep inner experience. Especially when people were deeply grieved over their sins and were desperately seeking God's forgiveness, they paid little attention to such material things as food and clothing. Finally, the external evidences of fasting became mistaken for the real experience.
So fasting really means to “move fast” toward a dominating objective. If taking time to prepare food, or shave, or have your trousers pressed slows you down and prevents you from “fasting” toward your objective, you will do without those things ...
To some extent, then, all people fast, in that at some time or another there comes into their lives a deep concern or obsession that is stronger than bread and meat ...
Jesus' ... desire was that people fast “toward the Father.” That's the way he did it. A good example was when he had been pouring out his heart to the sinful Samaritan woman at the well and had forgotten all about food. When his disciples returned with some food and said, “Rabbi, eat,” he said, “I have food to eat that you don't know about.” When they began asking each other if someone had given him something to eat, he said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his task” (John 4:31-34). He was so absorbed in accomplishing the task of the Father that to have stopped for physical bread would have slowed him down; that is, it would have prevented him from “fasting.”
Kingdom citizens fast, not when they do so outwardly by abstaining from food or wearing certain kinds of clothing or going through ceremonial forms, but when the spirit of Jesus Christ dwells in them in such a compelling way that his kingdom is their chief concern ...
“Fast” Away
Now it may be that there are times that in order to “fast” toward the Father, we need to “fast” away from things that keep us tied down to this material world ... perhaps we need to consider other things in addition to food that we need to “fast” away from ... I know that sometimes I desperately need to “fast” away from shopping, the television, the newspaper, the internet, my cell phone, or my email, in order to break those ties to this earthly system and its demands and move toward the Father ...
Fasting for the Hungry
One book I read recently suggested that the early church used to fast when there wasn't enough food to go around in their community ... they would go without food until there was enough food for everyone to eat ... amazing ... when's the last time you heard of Christians in this country passing up on a meal so that others in their community could eat ... I'll bet it happens all the time between hungry people in third world nations ...
Perhaps there are all kinds of reasons for fasting today, but I hope we are starting to see how these “acts of righteousness” are secret, intimate exchanges between us and our Father ... they are attempts to dwell with our Father ... to realize heaven on earth ...
Once again, doing the “act of righteousness” is not the goal ... the act of righteousness occurs as the result of pursuing the Kingdom of God ... it is not planned but rather quite spontaneous ... it is not public but secret ... sometimes not even realized by the person who is doing it ...
Lasting Treasures
Jesus wraps up this portion of his teaching on our “acts of righteousness” by bringing us full circle ... he started out by talking about giving to the needy and now he comes back to the issue of how we view our material things ... our treasures ...
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth ... but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven ...
In a way this summarizes the entire teaching of Jesus ... he is saying that our lives have their greatest value in the realm of heaven, in the pursuit of the Kingdom dream ... not in the pursuits of this material earth ...
Tom Wright reminds us ... “we shouldn't imagine [Jesus] means ‘don't worry about this life – get ready for the next one'. ‘Heaven' 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 ... [Jesus] wanted his followers to establish heavenly treasure right now, treasure which they could enjoy in the present as well as the future, treasure that wasn't subject to the problems that face all earthly hoards.”
Unhealthy Eyes
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
Brian McLaren writes ... “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.”
During our advent moment we looked forward to Jesus coming to set us free from a culture of money and greed ... if our eyes are fixed on Christ and on His kingdom, then our lives will be full of light ...
Two Masters
24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
McLaren on a roll ... “Jesus uses this very language of power and domination in this section of the manifesto. You can't serve two masters, he says. You can't be a citizen of the kingdom of God while you also bow the knee to an economic Caesar. Money, it turns out, is a cruel taskmaster; when you serve money, soon you will resent God for interfering with your humming, expanding economic kingdom. Similarly, if you serve God, you will soon resent wealth for its constant guerilla warfare, its subtle invasion of every sector of life, its relentless conquest of life's nonmaterial values. You have to choose.”
Heaven or Earth?
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven ...
The serpent convinced the first earth dwellers that God could not be trusted ... they chose to serve their own agenda and the two worlds divided ...
Jesus is calling us back ... not by following a prescribed list of religious “acts of righteousness,” but by living the dream of God ... by following hard after Him ... and in that we will discover that the kingdom of God is near ... the kingdom of God is here ...