Sermon on the Mount
#6: Don’t Worry, Be Happy
November 5th, 2006
Jonathan Slater
Text:
Matthew 6:19-34
Romans 4:16-25
A young woman brings home her fiancé to meet her parents. After dinner, her mother tells her father to find out about the young man. The father invites the fiancée to his study for a drink.
“So what are your plans?” the father asks the young man.
“I am a Torah scholar,” he replies.
“A Torah scholar. Hmmm,” the father says. “Admirable, but what will you do to provide a nice house for my daughter to live in, as she is accustomed to?”
“I will study,” the young man replies, “and God will provide for us.”
“And how will you buy her a beautiful engagement ring, such as she deserves,” asks the father.
“I will concentrate on my studies,” the young man replies. “God will provide for us.”
“And children?” asks the Father. “How will you support the children?”
“Don’t worry, sir. God will provide,” replies the fiancé.
The conversation proceeds like this, and each time the father questions, the young idealist insists that God will provide. Later, the mother asks, “How did it go, Honey?”
The father answers, “He has no job and no plans, but the good new is he thinks I’m God.”
God will provide. So Don’t Worry.
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat. God will provide.
Do not worry about your body, what you will wear. God will provide.
God provides food for the birds, even though they don’t sow, reap, or gather into barns.
You are more valuable than birds, so surely God will also provide food for you. So don’t worry.
God provides clothing for the grass of the field, even though they don’t toil or spin.
You are move valuable than the grass of the field, so surely God will also provide clothes for you.
So don’t worry.
It’s people who don’t know who God is, and how God cares and provides, that worry about these things.
Your job is not to worry about providing for your own material necessities, but to seek first the kingdom and righteousness of God. God knows about your needs for food and clothing, and will provide for them.
For a long time, this has been one of my favorite passages of scripture. It has been a scripture of comfort and assurance of Gods provision; But even more so, it has been a scripture of invitation—an invitation to live in light of the kingdom of God. To let the reality that, in spite of appearances to the contrary, Jesus Christ is Lord shape the decisions I make in all areas of my life.
But as I prepared to speak this morning, the passage struck me somewhat differently. I don’t know if it was the proximity of talk of “faith,” and “the righteousness of God” in the text, or simply because the Youth Sunday School class last week was on the call of Abraham; but for some reason I thought of Abraham. But before I get to Abraham, I should attend more directly to the text from Matthew 6.
I think the first thing to point out here, is that the text is not about a happy-go-lucky optimism that says that we shouldn’t worry because there is nothing to worry about. In fact, Jesus does not say we shouldn’t worry at all. Rather, it is our present physical needs, such as food and clothing that we are not to worry about. And we are not to worry about the troubles of tomorrow because there are already enough troubles to worry about today.
Secondly, Jesus does not say that food and clothing are unimportant. He is not presenting a kind of dualistic picture of existence, where bodily and material things are unimportant, in contrast to spiritual or heavenly realities. Just because bodily life is about more than food and clothing does not mean that our bodily needs for food and clothing are irrelevant. Rather, Jesus says that we don’t need to worry about these things because God will provide them for us. The God who provides for the bodily necessities of the birds and the lilies, will also provide for the bodily necessities of us, who are more important than the birds of the air and the flowers of the fields.
But what does not worrying about basic material necessities look like? Here I think we might consider two possibilities. The first might be called “idealistic,” and the second “realistic.”
The idealist might say that we don’t need to give these material necessities any of our attention. We can ignore them, and pursue more important things—perhaps such as studying Torah. God will provide for our material necessities without us having to do anything.
Now the realist will see this as naive and foolish—even presumptuo
us. The only way the young Torah scholar is able to support himself and his future wife is because his future father-in-law has the means to provide for them.
The realist will insist that one needs to distinguish worrying from working. Just because we are not to have anxiety about food and clothing doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do anything to provide for our bodily necessities; that we shouldn’t plan and work towards providing food and clothing for ourselves. After all, the birds devote a fair amount of time and effort to the collecting of food, don’t they?
This is the perspective that most commentators have on this passage. Its worry, not work that is forbidden. They point out that, instead of unworldly idealism, or slothful idleness, Jesus is inviting us to trust and gratitude. He is inviting us to have confidence that in and through our efforts, God will ultimately make sure that we have enough. It is not that we need not labour to provide for ourselves, but that we ought to recognize that the fruits of our labors are gifts from God to be received with gratitude.
I must admit that I find myself a bit torn between these two perspectives. The realist perspective seem, well, more reasonable. And yet I hesitate.
Part of my hesitation arises from within the text itself. If the realist is right, then why did Jesus specifically describe the birds as not sowing, reaping and gathering? Would there not have been a better way to describe the birds if Jesus wanted to get across the idea that birds expend much time and energy in gathering food, but do so without worrying about whether there will be enough for them? And why include the bit about the lilies at all, since not only do they not have anxiety, but neither do they actively work. The commentators, who, as I mentioned, tend to lean towards the realist side of this, suggest that this would be pressing the reference to birds and flowers too far. Jesus is simply arguing from the lesser to the greater. We are to consider the birds and flowers, not try to emulate them.
And this seems to make some sense.
But I think another thing that makes me cautious about accepting a realist interpretation too quickly is that it appears to be an “easier” reading. I sometimes get a bit nervous when people try to make what Jesus teaches sound too much like “common sense”. I think there is a real danger that in explaining Jesus words, sometimes we explain them away.
Here I’m reminded of Jesus telling his disciples that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matt 19) There is a long tradition of “explaining” this saying by suggesting that there was a gate called “the Needles Eye” that was not big enough for a loaded camel to go through. Instead, the story goes, the camel had to be unloaded, and in some versions, crawl through on its knees, in order to fit through the gate.
The appeal of this explanation is that it provides a convenient explanation of how it is that a wealthy person can enter the kingdom of heaven: They must give away their wealth, and humble themselves. That is, they must cease to be wealthy.
However, besides the fact that there is no historical evidence that such a gate ever existed, such an explanation of the saying contradicts Jesus’ own explanation of it. This interpretation explains how it is possible for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, and so for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, while Jesus suggest that it is, in fact, impossible for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. The way Jesus explains it, the only hope of the wealthy person is the God who does impossible things.
But how does this relate to Jesus words in Matthew 6?
I suppose the question is whether the Realist interpretation, that it is through our efforts to provide for our food and clothing that God will provide for our material necessities, approximates too closely “God helps those who help themselves.” Is there a danger that, by interpreting the text this way, we end up explaining that Jesus is not really asking us to change the way we live, but only how we think. Might there not at least be a danger that we will use this interpretation to give ourselves permission to continue to spend our time and energy trying to provide food and clothing for ourselves, while only giving lip-service to God’s provision for us?
Sometimes I wonder if it might not actually be more difficult to trust in God’s provision, and to be thankful for what we have as God’s gifts, if we have worked to attain them simply because it often appears that we have provided these things for ourselves.
And a further danger with the Realist interpretation, is that it might make us unable to see where and how God might call us in ways that don’t approximate “common sense” as much. Does not God sometimes ask us to do things that appear downright foolish to most people? That appear, in fact, impossible.
Indeed, the saying about the camel and the needle comes immediately after the story of the rich young man who asked Jesus what to do to have eternal life. In response to hearing that the man had kept the commandments not to murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, dishonour his parents, and had loved his neighbours as himself, Jesus tells him to sell his possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and then to come and follow Jesus: Then, says Jesus, you will have treasures in heaven.
Then you will have treasures in heaven.
So is this what storing up treasures in heaven looks like?
Today’s reading begins: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” (Matt 6.19-21) Does this mean that we, like the wealthy young man, are to sell our possessions and give the proceeds away? Does this not leave us without resources to provide for ourselves? How will our basic needs for food and clothing be met? We would be as vulnerable and dependent on God as… well… as the birds of the air or the grass of the field. Is this what we must do if we wish to strive first for the kingdom of heaven?
Perhaps not. The point of the story of the wealthy young man is probably not that all who want to follow Jesus need to give everything away. The issue is not his possessions as such, but his attachment to them; as one commentator puts it, “it is discipleship, not just charity, which is the issue.”
That the wealthy young man was unwilling to give away his possessions revealed that his heart was set on earthly rather than heavenly things. He may have wanted eternal life, but he wanted it in addition to material abundance. Perhaps he told himself that he could store up treasures both on earth and in heaven. But Jesus’ demand revealed that he could not serve both God and Mammon. His true heart was revealed because, when push came to shove, he choose material possessions over God.
Perhaps striving first for the kingdom of God does not necessarily mean that we need to liquidate our assets and give the proceeds away.
But, on the other hand, maybe sometimes. Maybe many of us need sometimes to be pushed beyond seeing God at work in subtle ways. Perhaps there are times in each of our lives when God’s provision for us comes in subtle ways, in the form of Gods blessing of our labours; and perhaps there are other times when God invites us to trust that he will provide for us in more obvious ways, apart from our efforts to provide for ourselves; even in the face of the impossible.
And when these times come, if we are too committed to a realist interpretation of how God works in the world, might we, like the rich young ruler, go away sad?
And here finally, Ill get to Abraham.
As I prepared to talk about this text, it occurred to me that whether God is providing for us in subtle or obvious ways, I think we all find ourselves worried at times.
And what if we only manage to muster little faith, faith that is not strong enough to free us from our anxieties about providing for the basic necessities of our lives? Are we then excluded from the kingdom and righteousness of God?
Does the phrase, “O you of little faith,” come as a threat or accusation? If so, does this not just add one more thing for us to be anxious about? I think there would be a certain irony, if, when we found ourselves worrying about material necessities, there was added further anxiety about whether our faith was too little.
We, like the rich young man, might go away sad because we encounter Jesus’ instruction to us not to worry as a demand that we cannot meet; because we find ourselves as those with little faith; because we fear that we are not striving hard enough for the kingdom and righteousness of God.
While I was thinking about this, I was reminded of the story of Abraham. In the book of Romans, Abraham is held up as a prime exemplar of faith; as one whose faith was reckoned to him as righteousness: Here we read that when God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations; that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of the sky, Abraham was a childless, hundred year old man with a post-menopausal wife. And yet, Abraham “did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body”, or “when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.” Indeed, “No distrust made him waver but he grew strong in his faith being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore his faith ‘was reckoned to him as righteousness’.”
Is this the kind of faith that we are called to? Is this the kind of faith that is required to strive after the kingdom and righteousness of God; the kind of faith that will be reckoned as righteousness? If we have come away from Matthew 6 unsure of our faith, the description of Abraham’s faith in Romans 4 will just lead us further into anxiety and despair. For who of us measures up to this kind of faith? A different picture emerges, however, if we consider the story of Abraham and see what Abraham’s faith actually looked like.
Abraham’s story is of obedience, and disobedience; of faith and disbelief. This is perhaps most vividly demonstrated in Abraham’s response to Gods message that his wife Sarah would bear a child.
In Genesis 17, we read, “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?'” And having laughed at God’s suggestion that he and Sarah would have a child together, Abraham suggests that a more reasonable course of action would be for God to fulfill the promise of descendants through Ishmael, Abraham’s child through Hagar, one of Sarah’s servants.
Sarah’s response to the news that she would bear a child is similar: In Genesis 18 we read that “Sarah laughed to herself, saying ‘After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have this pleasure?'” Yahweh then asks Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old
?’ Is anything too wonderful for the LORD?”
God promised to do the impossible.
Abraham laughed in disbelief.
And it was reckoned to him as righteousness?
I’m not quite sure how to square Paul’s account of Abraham’s faith in Romans with the story of Abraham as narrated in the book of Genesis. Perhaps it is the benefit of a few thousand years of hindsight. But I think Ill leave that problem for another day.
For now, I think it is enough to note that the Genesis narrative certainly suggests that there was more to Abraham’s faith than unwavering belief. Perhaps the faith of Abraham, the faith that was reckoned to him as righteousness, is not so different from our own small faith after all.
In the sermon on the mount, Jesus addresses us as those of little faith. He calls us to greater faith; to faith that is free from worry about the basic necessities of life, but is able to trust that God will provide for all of our needs—whether in obvious or more subtle ways. But this call greets us, not as a threatening demand, but as an invitation to freedom freedom arising from trust. Jesus invites us to lay aside the worry that accompanies our work; and perhaps even to lay aside some of the things we think we need to do to provide for our material needs; Inviting us, instead, to trust the Lord who is our shepherd; who leads us beside quiet waters, but also remains with us even in the valley of the shadow of death. We are called not to worry, but to be happy. Because happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.