1. Frame
Here’s the frame: I’ll assume that the text is not a static picture or representation upon which I ought to reflect. I’ll assume that the text is not an object of contemplation.
Rather, I’ll assume that the text is itself an agent, something more like a computer program than a still from a movie. The point of the text is to do something, to make something happen, to enroll some agent or entrain some agent in some other agent(s)’ project.
The text is an operation. It’s a plug-in that needs to be run.
But we’ve got compatibility problems, cross-platform issues that require the text to be translated back into machine-code and then creatively recompiled. If we want it to run – rather than function as a museum piece – then we’re going to have to port the text onto the kind of platforms we’ve got available. We’re going to have to render the text sufficiently pliable to cross the gap.
Hopefully, however, once it’s up and running, this kind of program will work more like a virus than a webpage and it, in turn, will exapt, repurpose and reconfigure the operating system itself in surprising ways.
Jesus-text: an applet for inception.
Such a project can fail in a number of ways: (1) we might not be able to get the text to run at all, (2) we might get it to run but only after having changed so much code that, functionally, it no longer resembles the original program, or (3) it might crash our operating systems altogether!
The measure for success in creatively porting this text: when we finally run it on the extant platform, does it produce charity?
Which brings me to my second assumption: whatever this text does, it will be for nothing if it does not show charity.
2. Thesis
My working hypothesis is this: Matthew 6:24-7:1-2 consists of a series of concrete instructions for how to pay attention.
What does this matter? Attention is the sine qua non for both charity and Spirit. There is neither life, nor love, nor spirit without attention.
3. Overview
I’m going to take 6:24-34 as an operational unit. I’ll tack on 7:1-2 for fun.
With respect to 6:24-34, I’ll take 6:24 as the unit’s own thesis and 6:25-34 as an extended explanation of that thesis.
With respect to 6:25-34, I’ll take v25 and v34 as equivalent to one another. The initial explanation of v24 is given in v25 and then repeated, by way of conclusion, in v34. The middle section, verses 26-33, elaborates at length on the explanation of v25/34.
4. The Text
Here’s the full KJV text, formatted in such a way (with awkward blockquotes) to diagram the structure I outlined above:
24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, [shall he] not much more [clothe] you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day [is] the evil thereof.
5. Two Masters
I’m going to take the claim of 6:24 that “no man can serve two masters” as an injunction against multi-tasking.
Effectively, Jesus’ claim is that no person can pay attention to two things at the same time. Paying attention to two things at the same time amounts to not paying attention.
Here, “paying attention” means “serving.”
If you try to pay attention to two things at the same time, then you’ll fail to pay attention because your attention will bifurcate into “love” and “hate.” Instead of attending to and serving things in light of what they need from you, you’ll end up judging them in terms of your own preferences, in terms of your own likes or dislikes. This bifurcation of attention into modes of (self-) preference (i.e., love/hate) is the root of sin.
6. Take No Thought For Your Life
Jesus’ advice about how to pay attention – that is, for how to attend or serve – is repeated five times in these ten verses. It boils down to this: “take no thought.”
This is pretty straightforward advice. To pay attention to what’s going on, we have to stop thinking about stuff.
When you’re playing with your four-year old, stop thinking about what other stuff you have to do. When you’re on a date with your wife, stop thinking about the “insensitive” thing she (purportedly) did the other day. When you’re going to bed at night, stop thinking about your credit card balance. Et cetera. Be where you are, do what you’re doing.
Verse 25 initially encapsulates the gist of Jesus’ point by saying that you should “take no thought for your life.”
How does taking no thought for my life help me to serve and pay attention? For starters, in order to serve and attend to others I’m going to have to stop thinking about my life. If I’m thinking about my life when I’m supposed to be paying attention and serving, then my attention will bifurcate into preferential judgments about the stuff at hand.
Example: “I really should be paying attention to how well I wipe my baby’s bum while I change his diaper so he won’t get a rash, but I don’t like the smell of this poop so I’m thinking instead about going to the movies later.”
However, Jesus also has something more in mind. Taking thought for your life, he says, amounts to taking thought for what you are going to eat, drink, and wear.
Shouldn’t we take thought for these things? No, because life itself is “more than meat, and the body than raiment.”
What is this “more”?
7. Take No Thought For the Morrow
Verse 34 recapitulates, by way of conclusion, what Jesus means when he says that we should take no thought for our lives: “take no thought for the morrow.”
What is this “more” that life is? This “more” is the present moment. Life is more than our thoughts about what we ought to do next (or what we did or didn’t do yesterday). Life is more than this thinking about tomorrow. Life is the excess of this (unchosen) present moment, a moment that is too much, too full, to be mastered and, instead, can only be served.
Why do we prefer our thoughts about the future to the fulness of the present? Thoughts about the future are thin enough that we can manipulate them according to our preferences: in our fantasies about the future we get to play the master. But if we want to be in the present moment, the only way to be there is to serve.
Seek first to serve. Seek first “the kingdom of God, and his righteousness,” and all the rest of the future stuff “will be added unto you” because the present moment is always full enough to “take thought for the things of itself.” Tomorrow will bring its own “opportunities for service” (i.e., he kakia) that will be “sufficient unto the day.”
8. Judge Not
All of this advice about how and why we need to pay attention is then neatly summarized in these famous verses.
Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. (7:1-2)
Pragmatically, in order to pay attention, we must suspend judgment. We must stop judging things in terms of our preferences. We must stop taking thought for our lives. Life is more than preference – it’s service.
Judgment: the practice of taking (rather then receiving) thought.
With what judgment we judge, we shall be judged. If we suspend judgment and, instead, attend and serve, then we will be served in turn. The Father will feed us. God will clothe us. All the other things of life will be added unto us.
That is, if we can manage to pay attention.
July 24, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Lovely, Adam. I can see diapers and dates are the stuff of your life these days! I might have given examples from teenagers trying to talk so fast to me about their evening that I can’t hear, especially because I am trying to read a good book. In any case, I like the nuance you have provided about what judgment entails and why attention is so important to our tasks.
July 25, 2010 at 3:13 am
Adam, a good reading in several ways. First, I just like where you’re going here. Second, I like how the reading itself is an example of paying attention to a familiar text and seeing it in its moment (in its speaking). You say we have to “stop judging things in terms of our preferences” and I would continue that line of thought: to read the scriptures is to approach them without judgment, without prior conceptions, and rather to “run them” in that moment of reading in order to produce charity. I didn’t put that the best way, but I hope it makes sense.
I do think that it’s helpful in this approach to this text to consider the practical as well as the theoretical. One of the most daunting things in this interpretation is trying to figure out (but not necessarily conceptualize) how to take no thought. The chapters on dealing with distractions in Bhante Henepola Gunaratana’s “Mindfulness in Plain English” came to mind, as did the distinction he draws between mindfulness and concentration. Because if we’re to pay attention through seeking service, how does one do this in practice and not end up simply abstracting? There’s a quote … found it: “One of the most difficult things to learn is that mindfulness is not dependent on any emotional or mental state. [...] You don’t need to move at a snail’s pace to be mindful. You don’t even need to be calm. You can be mindful while solving problems in intensive calculus. You can be mindful in the middle of a football scrimmage. You can even be mindful in the midst of a raging fury. Mental and physical activities are no bar to mindfulness” (156). If we’re looking at Christ as the example of taking no thought, paying attention, awareness, etc., it’s important I think to realize that the example extends not to a sermon or an action, but to the sum of his life itself: a life where he clearly participated in mental achievements, physical activities, and wide-ranging emotions. The trick is seeing how all of these added together were in the service of his fellow beings (i.e., I would argue, through charity).
Anyways, this is kind of a rambling response, for which I apologize, but I really enjoyed the reading and the thoughts it has brought up for me personally. Thanks!
July 25, 2010 at 1:06 pm
As usual, first a comment on content. I’ll come to the question of methodology tomorrow.
I’m fascinated in particular by two lacunae in your reading. First, I wonder how careful attention to the reframing of the claim about “two masters” in terms of God vs. mammon might affect, complicate, or even problematize your interpretation. Second, I wonder how or whether your reading can grapple with the (confessedly strange) appearance in verse 34 of the word “evil” (I know that you’ve offered your own translation of he kakia as “opportunities for service,” but the Greek has an undeniably negative meaning that, it seems to me, must be grappled with).
I should clarify that I don’t think these are the seed of an undoing of your reading. Indeed, I think that your reading is quite good. I suppose I just wonder whether these points might make it clear that while Buddha can fit into Jesus, Jesus cannot quite fit into Buddha.
Maybe.
July 26, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Who mentioned the Tathagata? (Oh, yeah – Jenny did. You’ll have to talk to Jenny about that ;)
Some (weak) responses:
1. About the he kakia from verse 34: kakia does have an undeniably “negative” connotation, but I think the KJV translation of “evil” misses the point. I don’t hear any “moral” dimension or malice involved here. Rather, I think a translation like “trouble” or “difficulty” is more etymologically and contextually apt.
In this light, my proposed translation of that phrase would be something like:
Sufficient unto the day is the suffering thereof.
Though if we don’t put a kind of positive, ironic spin on “suffering” here (akin to reading the experience of “suffering” as closely connected with the experience of “grace” as something unconditionally given) then we would have to abandon altogether the parallels between verse 34 and all the preceding verses that describe how we don’t need to “take thought” for tomorrow because God will take care of all that when it comes.
In other words, I think that in relation to the preceding eight verses, we have to read kakia with an ironic spin.
2. You’re right that my refusal to read the “serving” of verse 24 as equivalent to the “loving” of that same verse puts real pressure on the traditional reading. In particular, it makes it hard to give a straightforward reading of the concluding declaration: “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
But reading serving/loving as non-equivalent terms makes it much easier to make sense of the next 10 verses. In particular, it makes it easier to make some pragmatic sense out of Jesus’ command in 7:1 to suspend judgment.
Also, reading serving/loving as non-equivalent allows us to avoid the claim that “hating” is the legitimate opposite of love/service such that serving and loving truly amounts to properly separating out who to love and who to hate.
I’d rather strain a little bit with the question of how to read “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” than strain to construct a practical through-line with all of the next 12 verses.
I’d prefer to read the upshot of this last phrase as something like: you can’t serve both God and mammon because if you serve God then you’ll end up serving everyone (whether you love them or hate them), whereas if you serve mammon you’ll only preferentially serve those people who you love and leave aside those people who you hate.
But this is, of course, a choice and things are bound to get lost either way in the process of porting.
Have you got any alternative readings in mind? I’d (honestly) like to hear them.
July 26, 2010 at 5:02 pm
A quick response for the moment, Adam.
(1) On he kakia, I think I’m fully prepared to embrace your translation: “suffering,” with all the interpretive nuances you’d like to read into that word. That is anything but a weak response!
(2) Reading your response to the question of God vs. mammon, I’m wondering whether I’m not following your answer, or whether you didn’t follow my (confessedly semi-obscure) question. Let me see if I can make my question clearer, and you can either (a) show me how your answer is an answer to that question or (b) answer the question I was really trying to ask. :)
What I meant to ask with my question was how the strong opposition between God and mammon (which, if I hear you right, you are reading as an opposition between a kind of universal servitude and a kind of preferential servitude), if it is taken on its own terms (roughly, as an opposition between the economic—the literal meaning of the word mammon—and whatever is supposed to be referred to by the term “God,” something presumably non- or anti- or at least otherwise-than-economic), might inflect the ideas you spell out in your post.
I suppose my half-formulated idea is that a strict imperative to dwell in whatever-makes-up-the-present-moment would have, in light of the opposition of verse 24, to distinguish between the economic and the other-than-strictly-economic. Would you just associate the economic with the fantastic (this is what I had in mind, I think, with the verb “affect”)? Would you have to quadrangulate your opposition with a split between giving oneself to the economic present and giving oneself to the divine present (this is, awfully formulated as it here is, what I had in mind, I think, with the verb “complicate”)? Or would you have to reformulate your theses entirely, due to an incommensurability between the economic/other-than-economic split and the present-moment-awareness/fantastic-blindness split (this is, I think, what I had in mind with the verb “problematize”)?
Something along those lines?
July 26, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Brilliant, Adam. I esp. like how clearly yet succinctly you laid out your approach to the text in part 1 (“The Frame”).
Although I like your reading of verse 24, I’m ultimately not inclined to embrace your split of love and hate in this verse. But I think the rest of your reading holds together. My complaint is simply that I think you’re wresting the NT connotations of agape. But I think your reading of the subsequent verses can be maintained.
Consider the subsequent parallel line where “love the one” is (seems) parallel to “hold to the one” (antecho). I don’t have good Greek references handy, but it seems there is a “suffering before” connotation here that complements the meaning of agape. Specifically, however, I am thinking of kenotic love in a way that I think is pretty close to the role sunyata (emptiness) plays in Buddhist thought and practice.
So, to love (e.g., our neighbor) is to suffer before/with (e.g., the person that is before us, or whom we happen upon). To despise is to try and avoid this encounter, to deny or flee what is before us.
To hold to money is thus tantamount to holding to the future, at the expense of the present (I will put my post up later this week which will partly elaborate on this idea). Misers accumulate wealth to enjoy at a later date. Money cannot be enjoyed presently; rather, accumulated wealth (beyond what is “sufficient for our needs”…) can only be used to purchase things that could be consumed/enjoyed at a later date.
If God is love, esp. this kenotic kind of love, then choosing to serve God, and love God, is tantamount to basically emptying ourselves of everything except enjoyment and thanksgiving for what we presently suffer.
Or something like that….
July 27, 2010 at 3:00 am
Hey, I didn’t bring up the Tathagata … oh, wait, I guess I kind of did. But that wasn’t my precise intent. I was just trying to point out that if we take the reading here as functional, then the practical implications (including those in Christ’s life itself) also come into play.
July 27, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Methodology….
I very much like your “frame,” which should be no surprise. And I think I embrace without reserve everything you’re saying about what might be called the “charity side” of the operation. But I have a question about its “program side.”
It is quite common in hermeneutics to oppose historical-critical approaches to more explicitly theological approaches to the text, and it might be possible to use your frame to maintain this kind of split, associating your project with the theological (particularly given that you say absolutely nothing historically critically in your post, really).
I wonder, though, whether it wouldn’t be possible to take apart that opposition by suggesting that historical-critical work on scripture is essentially part of the program code. And wouldn’t that imply that charity cannot genuinely be produced unless the historical-critical is dealt with?
Perhaps I could put my question in a more compact way as follows: If extreme rigor is called for on the (theological) side of charity in the operation of interpretation, is the same extreme rigor called for on the (historical-critical) side of code construction in the same operation?
August 4, 2010 at 7:39 pm
From Claudia
When I met Adam a few months ago and he said that he was working on the Beatitudes, I wondered if he had anything new to say. He said that he didn’t. He did, though. He gives us a thoughtful, extensive disquisition on why we should “take no thought.” I love it.
This entry causes me to ask a very big question. Are the scriptures for real life? Is this message for the readers for everyone? Are all tasks worthy of complete attention? Are folding laundry and washing dishes worthy of complete attention? Shouldn’t we use such time to “take thought” for any number of important things that will not be done unless we do?
I fear that this is a message for the rabbis who can spend their time sequestered in their closets, off reading Torah, who have household help to take care of the details of real life so that others, their betters, can be in the moment of contemplation of important things. This is certainly the message of Mary and Martha. It’s for the people who can cause their meals to be prepared with a “singleness of purpose.” To take no thought one is required to have a staff.
But probably I am wrong here. I should try “taking no thought,” giving up multi-tasking, living in the moment. It would be worth an experimental try.
Claudia Bushman
August 5, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Claudia, for my part, I think that Jesus means that the laundry and dishes are worthy of my full attention. Giving our full attention to whatever needs to be done or whoever we are with is just as sure a door to the presence of God as studying a scriptural text. The rabbi has no spiritual advantage over the housewife.
August 7, 2010 at 6:23 pm
[...] excess, which might be understood as being more than is sufficient for one’s needs (compare here Adam Miller’s related thoughts on Jesus’ teaching about God versus mammon, and the [...]