8TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (A)

No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. 

Mt 6:23-34

The parallels to these verses in Matthew are spread out in three different chapters of Luke: Mt 6:22-23 =  Luke 11:-35; Mt 6:14 = Luke 16:13;  Mt 6:25-34 = Luke 12:22-31. 

v. 22-23. The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be.

We have already been reminded that the lamp gives light to all in the house (5:15); similarly, the eye gives light (insight) to the whole body:  whether you are a seeing man or a blind man depends entirely on your  eyes. In what sense is Matthew using this parable? “Sound” is “haplous”, which as we have seen means both single and generous; “not sound” is  “poniros”, and “the evil eye” means “grudging”, “mean”, “stingy”.  If the disciple is generous towards God, he will be full of light (perfect, as his heavenly Father is perfect 5:48). If he is mean, he will be full of darkness  (like the devil). The next saying expounds the other sense of “haplous” =  single or simple. The disciple must keep his eye on one master, not on two.

v. 24. No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

The man with the eye which is not sound is attempting the impossible—to serve two masters; the man with the sound eye has chosen God.  Mammon is an Aramaic word, meaning “wealth”, “property”. Devotion to God cannot be combined with devotion to mammon, because, as we have seen already, there will be occasions when the former will demand  the sacrifice of the latter (5:29. 30. 40). A choice is therefore necessary between God and mammon; or between faith and anxiety (see following verses).

v. 25. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

The disciple who is told not to serve mammon may well reply, “But I must have enough to live and to clothe myself. To this, Jesus replies that God who has made life and the body will certainly look after those things which are less than these - viz. food and clothing.

v. 26. Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?

Moreover, he feeds the birds: how much more will he feed men.

v. 27. Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?

And anxiety cannot increase a man's span of life (or stature [margin], “helikia” can mean both). Cf. 5:36 for our inability to control the colr of our hair. These things are in the hands of God.

vv. 28-30. Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?

The same type of argument as that in v. 26 above is used with regard to  anxiety about clothing. God clothes the lilies, even better than man can  clothe himself; the lilies are of less value than man: therefore God will  take care of man's clothing. To think otherwise is to be men of little  faith (“oligopistoi”, a rare word, which Matthew uses four times: here and  8:26, 14:31, 16:8; the only other occurrence of it in the New Testament is  Luke 12:28, the parallel to this passage: did Luke take it from here?).

v. 31. So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?

Repeats v.25 in order to round off' the passage - an example of  Matthew's use of inclusio.

v. 32. All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

The Gentiles (who live without faith in God, cf. 5:47) are anxious about  these things. The disciples, on the other hand, are to trust God as the Father who knows all their needs before they ask (cf 6:8).

v. 34. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.

The final futility is to be anxious about tomorrow: tomorrow is completely outside our possible control today (cf. 5:36 and, 6:27). There is a possible set of verbal links common to vv. 33, 34, and vv. 10, 11 in the Lord's Prayer: kingdom, righteousness, tomorrow, this day; kingdom, [God's] will, this day, and tomorrow.