Some of Jesus’ teaching requires that we think a bit more deeply to grasp what he means. We shouldn’t be discouraged if we don’t immediately understand everything he says, the rewards for grappling with something are always worth it! As a rule, if a sentence appears to be tricky to understand, try reading the paragraph around it and then the chapter around that. Holding a word or a sentence in its context often helps shed the light we need.
Jesus didn’t come to court crowds, rather he came to recruit apprentices; people who’d devote themselves solely to him and his teaching. In a metaphor about light and dark, lamps and eyes Jesus contrasts the fickle attention of the crowd (calling it evil) to the healthy eye of a devoted disciple. The word used for a ‘healthy’ eye is a word that can also be translated ‘single’. A healthy eye is a singularly devoted eye, one full of light that doesn’t dart back and forth between light and dark.
Jesus presents himself as one who’s greater than Solomon (the wisest man who’d ever lived) and greater than Jonah (the Old Testament prophet); and he contrasts the crowd to a pagan Queen (who travelled thousands of miles to see Solomon) and the murderous Ninevites (who changed their ways following Jonah’s warning). He is the light of the world, the greatest source of illumination there is and yet the crowd are refusing to give him the complete and undivided devotion that he deserves. It’s this that means they’re ‘unhealthy/evil’ – their eyes aren’t singleminded.
This meaning is drawn out further by the comparable passage in Matthew’s gospel where in place of the evil crowd, money is the subject of the contrast. An eye that’s healthy where wealth is concerned is one singularly devoted to God. Trying to serve both God and money is the definition of having a split interest. Jesus says: “See clearly: set your sights, your life and your wealth on the service and satisfaction of a single master.”
