Proper 3

Preparation

Please begin by reading Matthew 6:24-34 in your Bible. If you do not have one at hand, we have provided the text for you at the end of this reflection.

Reflection--What?  Me Worry?

    Alright, confession time.  Even though as I write this in early 2008 I am well into my sixth decade of life, I am still something of a “worry wart.”  Oh, I don’t mean an incapacitating anxiety about things.  If that was ever present in my life, it has ebbed away with the passage of time.  I mean that there is still a slight nagging voice that even now wants to try to convince me that all those countless times in my life when a way out of some real need or difficult circumstance has presented itself at the proper time was just coincidence.

    You would think that by now I would know better and let go of that last remnant of worry.   In truth I do know better.  Has not God always provided? Have not food and shelter and other necessities of life always been provided?   Hasn’t God always sent someone into my life when I needed a listening ear or a voice of counsel?  When I turned off the noise and distractions and really sought it, have I not always heard “the still, small voice” my soul hungered to hear?  Yes, yes, and yes!  Looking back over the years, God has always been good and faithful—good and faithful to provide the right answer, whether that be “yes” or even a painful “no.”

    I want to be clear that I am not saying that this passage from Jesus’ “sermon on the mount” is a call to an irresponsible, naïve “don’t worry, be happy” philosophy.  Nor is it a passage that invites a blithe disregard for the fact that many do not have adequate food or drink or shelter or other necessities.  I believe that it is, as one commenter put it, “a profound call to a lighthearted service of God, characterized by a reckless trust in the divine provisions.”*  It is God’s promise to help clear out the clutter that can get in the way of our real job in life, “striv[ing] first for the reign of God and God’s righteousness.”   When we do our part by working to move closer and closer to a life in imitation of Christ (which, by the way, includes our doing things like helping meet the real needs of others; e.g., see Matthew 25:30-46), we can leave the rest up to God. 

    Bottom line?  It really all comes down to that old admonition:  “trust and obey.”   If we can just do that, we have it made!

    It is such a simple lesson.  Yes, I know that I have been painfully slow in learning it.  Looking back over the years I can see that I have gone into the mighty, sustaining ocean of trust in God timidly, an inch at the time.   I wish that I had just jumped in with both feet at the beginning, for every move forward has brought progress and God has never failed me—but that is not my nature I suppose.  Probably more than once Jesus has wagged his finger at me and said “oh you of little faith.”

    The legacy I would like to pass along to you, grounded in years of practical experience,  is that you need not be so timid.  Don’t waste time as I have done.  Be bold!  Put first things first!  We serve a wonderful God who will not fail us!  The more quickly we adopt "trust and obey" as a way of life, the more vibrant will be the reign of God  in our lives and in the world at large.  Make your answer to “What?  Me worry?” a resounding “No!”

    revclay

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Matthew 6:24-34

    [Jesus said:]  "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

    "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet God feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?  And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin,  yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will God not much more clothe you --  you of little faith?

    “Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?'  For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly parent knows that you need all these things.  But strive first for the reign of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

    "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.”