Being Present To Provision

Matthew 6: 24-34

‘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 your heavenly Father 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 he 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 Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his 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.

At first glance, this week’s reading, in contrast with the readings of the last several weeks, is a bit of a relief. Instead of overtly challenging us with ultra-high Kingdom ideals, Jesus says,  “Don’t think about money or food or clothes or the future. Don’t worry, God will take care of you, he knows what you need, he will feed you and clothe you. Don’t worry about tomorrow.”  Such a loving God we have!

And then the discomfort starts to seep in. If we accept that the last four weeks’ Gospel readings were pushing us beyond simply keeping laws and rules and were inviting us to go deeper to discover the inner heart of God’s law and of his kingdom then this week’s reading is the ultimate challenge to let go of all control and lose ourselves in God’s love and providence.  It’s direct, explicit and hard to slide over. This is the crux of our faith in God: do we trust him or not? Do we believe that he will take care of us or not?

It is truly a difficult task Jesus sets for us in this week’s Gospel.  Jesus isn’t saying that money itself is bad. Money is simply what it is: a currency of exchange. If I give you some money and you give me some bread, where’s the sin? But ever since people learned to exchange currency for goods, it has been accepted that the wealthier you are, the more control and power you can have. But the more control and power you have of that sort, the less likely it is that you will depend upon and trust God to take care of you. The less you have to trust God, the less inclined you are to seek him, have relationship with him and experience his provision.

Do we trust God or not? Do we believe that he will take care of us or not?

Jesus is also not indicating that having any thoughts or plans for the future is bad. It’s when we begin to worry and obsess about the future that the problems begin. We envision situations where the worst happens. We gnaw on these possibilities and we try to work out how we can change people and situations so that we are comfortable. We feel our ideas, visions and opinions are the valid ones and are what should be guiding the process. We work to make others see our point of view so they will admit that we are right.  We want to know we are in control.

Do we trust God or not? Do we believe that he will take care of us or not?

Do we ever feel like we have enough? There is a subtle and pervading sense in all societies that the more we have, the less vulnerable we are. It’s like our money and possessions are a cushion that we use as a shield. They give us a sense of being securely in control and sometimes they are symbols of power and status. We have fears about being without them and about not having enough.

 

Do we trust God or not? Do we believe that he will take care of us or not?

Pondering on what Jesus says to us in this Gospel reading is where we discover that it’s actually much easier to try to keep laws and rules than to throw ourselves without reservation into the merciful arms of God. This where we find out that Christ calls us to move beyond our basic human nature, a nature that wants to create rules where there were none. Don’t get me wrong. People and communities need laws. Society needs laws, the church needs laws and families need laws - otherwise, anarchy would reign. But when it comes to our relationship with God, our broken human nature wants desperately to be in control. We want rules and rituals that guarantee that by our actions we can manipulate God into acting the way we want him to act, give us what we want to have or at least feel we have the power to keep him from being angry.

Have you ever had the experience of praying a certain way or praying a certain prayer and being blessed with a beautiful answer from God? Now, were you or were you not tempted to repeat that prayer or way of praying the next time you needed to ask God for a particular favor? Have you ever had things go wrong in your life and felt that it had to somehow be your fault, that you didn’t pray properly or didn’t have enough faith or weren’t good enough? These feelings and questions stem from our basic need to feel we are in control. Everyone has this need; it’s human nature and it is a need that can certainly be used for good. However, it can also easily become distorted, imbalanced and detrimental to the spiritual walk.

In this week’s first reading, the Lord says that even if a mother could forget her nursing child or showed no compassion for the baby in her womb, he could never forget us (you!). The psalmist says, “For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him. He alone is my rock, my salvation and my fortress; I shall not be shaken.” Then Jesus tells us that God cares for us and provides for all our needs. He encourages us to stop our imbalanced striving and simply trust. He instructs us to stay in the present moment because when all our thoughts and energies are directed toward being in complete control of our future moments we totally miss experiencing his beautiful provision for the present moment.

God will never engage in a power struggle with us.  If we decide to spend our time wrangling with what was, what is and what is to come, he will allow us to do that. It doesn’t mean we will have more control over anything. It will mostly mean we will go around in endless circles: circles of anxiety, circles of confusion, circles of resentment and circles of energy spent on what fails to satisfy and will never bring us peace. ‘Being in control’ is rarely a desirable condition nor will it fulfill the deepest desires of our hearts.  

Of all the steps Jesus encouraged us to take toward the heart of God in the last several Gospels, this week’s exhortation is actually the most difficult. I often fail to trust and abandon myself wholeheartedly to God’s provision. I have areas in my life where I slip so easily and begin to entertain anxious thoughts or where I allow my mind to dwell too long and too heavily in the future.  But that’s all right. God knows my desire is to grow in trust and freedom so all he does is send his gentle Spirit to remind me of this desire and to support me with grace so I can turn myself back to him. The point isn’t to be complete all at once.

The point is to begin.