This passage was not immediately clear to the group. The passage spoke of the eye being the lamp to the body and if it was healthy, the body was filled with light, but if it was not healthy, the body was filled with darkness. The group's conversation began to focus on perspective. The passage seems to suggest that how you perceive the world determines how you both understand and act in the world. Someone pointed out that this has actually been tested for people who have a positive perception of the world and those who have a negative perception. The data seems to suggest that the way you look at that world is hardwired to a large degree many. If you have a healthy perception, that is reflected in your life. If you do not, that unhealthy perception is reflected in your life. Of course, the observation was made that all perception is filtered to one degree or another. You never truly see things the way they are, but you can convince yourself that you are seeing things clearly and everyone else is wrong. This is more easy to do as a group than as an individual. We see this in the political process on both sides of the fence. The group began to see the wisdom of Luke placing this passage before Jesus' attacks on the Pharisees and scribes. They had a blind spot that distorted their perception of the world and of the faith. That blind spot was deadly to them and those they taught.
As a group, we also read the translation of this passage from The Message. This translation was surprisingly helpful for many in the group. "If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, you body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar." We loved the image of living wide-eyed in wonder and belief. We find the wide-eyed living so often in children and that wonder seems to disappear as we get older. We also liked the image of squnity-eyed living. If you look at the world in fear and distrust, your world gets smaller and smaller. Jesus intends us to live wide-eyed. In doing so, we give up our certainty about our perception and open ourselves the vision and understanding that God has for us. All in all, not a bad way to view the world.
Pastor Summer
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