How much of your life is curtailed because of fear? How many things do you avoid, or risks you refuse to take, because the fear of the loss that might come to pass, is just too great for you? The thing we call life, the way we define our existence, is so often ravaged by our fears. We construct a box for ourselves to live within, hoping that if we stay confined to our box, we will be safe. But inevitably life has a way of knocking down the walls of any box, and when the reality of those challenges present, its most devastating side effect, is to deepen the fear that governs how we live at all. Imagine for a moment if you had taken every risk you were ever presented with, but imagine that they all worked out positively. It is as if your brain won’t let you imagine that outcome. Surely the nature of a risk, is that not all of them work out the way we want, so imagining they do is nearly impossible. It presents a “too good to be true” scenario. And yet, your mind is much more comfortable imagining every risk would have worked out badly. And that kind of imagination, governs what you have done, and what you will do.
That kind of risk avoidance, that is so easy to imagine going badly, and so difficult to imagine working out the way we want, leaves a footprint in how we live. It confines our actions, and stunts our imaginations. It pushes us to want a life we can define, and predict, with relative certainty will go the way we want. You call that common sense. An outside observer would call it moved-by-fear. So to get you to look beyond. To get you to examine what life may have to offer beyond the limits and history of your fear, you must ignore your fears. This is especially true in matters of religion. Nearly every time an Angel is commissioned to communicate with mankind, the first few words are generally, “fear not”. There is a reason for this. Confronted with the supernatural, with the out-of-bounds, something beyond the limits you set for yourself and your ideas about life … the first human response is one of fear. Not joy, not rejoicing (imagine it, most of the news they have to say is usually always good, sometimes really good), not even curiosity. The first human response is fear.
Having an Angel appear in your real world, knocks the wall down of the nice little box you construct for yourself. Thus, the message of the good news they bring must wait, while first they re-assure our fears. And these messages are most often reserved for believers, for people who have chosen to believe in our God, in His Word, and the history of communication between God and man it has presented. Even behind the lives steeped in belief, remain human fear, human uncertainty. And this condition is not meant to be permanent. It is not even meant to be how we live today. Consider as an example, the slightly misplaced argument that toddlers have on the playground about “my dad is bigger than your dad”. The real notion behind it, is that the toddler is asserting his/her own security based on the idea that their dad is big enough to ward off any threat. The toddler is comfortable looking to daddy to protect them, care for them, and generally be a fence between themselves and evil. While slightly misplaced, the basis of this argument is sound, if we were to apply it to God instead. Even daddies need that analogy.
Security enables us to feel better. Certainty, a hedge against the downside of risk, allows us to live life in a completely different way. When you are not scared about eating, about making a living, about God taking care of the things, the burdens, you usually take upon yourself; something wonderful happens. You begin to let go of the fear, and start to really live, outside of the box, outside of the boundaries you used to place upon yourself. Your existence begins to change because the way you think about your existence begins to change. It is in a sense self-fulfilling, but it cannot begin or be effective, without an outside assurance that will cover the fears we face, and hedge the risks we no longer fear to take. What our “Daddy” can do for us in this regard, is something He longs to do. It is how we live in the eternity of heaven. And it can begin right here and right now, if we will only let Him do it for us.
Jesus Himself gives us the roadmap for this. Matthew continues recording His Sermon on the Mount in chapter six of his gospel. Jesus has just concluded a snippet about true currency valuation, and what relevance money has in the light of eternal things. But before humans can let go the fear of using our money differently, we need assurances too many of us ignore. Yet here they are. Picking up in verse 25 Jesus continues saying … “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” This is radical reprioritization. We spend our lives working to feed our families, put a roof over their heads, and clothes on their back. From the extreme rich, to the very poor, the mechanics remain the same. Yet here is Jesus putting an abrupt halt on everything we value, on our entire economic structure, and furthermore saying “take no thought” for it.
This is beyond a general admonition not to have fear regarding it. This is nothing even remotely related to having balance between responsibility and spirituality. This is a one-sided, completely weighted statement, that passes up any boundary we are comfortable with. “Take no thought” means past not worrying or stressing, don’t even think about it. We can be that certain in how we live, that God Himself is looking after our lives, that we need not even think about what we eat, or wear. The question is not whether I shop at Saks Fifth Avenue, or Walmart, for my clothing. The proposition Jesus makes, is that my body is the important thing to God, and God will take care of clothing it.
Jesus continues in verse 26 saying … “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” Jesus has a point. Birds wake up every day, and go eat. The bird never has to worry that they will not find food. They simply look, and there it is. God does the worrying. God provides for the feeding. The bird is just living his life, he is not obsessing about whether he has a full pantry of food at home, or whether his canned goods supply are adequate to withstand the next hurricane disaster. The bird just wakes up and eats. Mom’s bring home food for their little birds. There is never a worry about this kind of thing. If you took the evil of predatory creatures out of the equation, birds would thrive. You don’t see them going extinct because of lack of food. Even though they still have to contend with what man does to their natural habitats, with pollution, with weather events just like we do. Yet after a hurricane, when the storms roll away, there are the birds. They just wake up and eat and live without a thought about it.
Jesus drives home the point in verse 27 saying … “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” This is not just a frustration the shorter population faces. It equally applies to health issues you have almost no control over. Think about it, as you read this, your local hospital is filled with people in varying degrees of need. This is true all over the city, country, and world in general. Wealth is no barrier against being there. Youth isn’t either. Fitness despite all its other benefits does not shield you against cancer. And our thoughts about what we want, and our fears about what we want to avoid, do nothing from keeping any one of us from becoming the patient in the bed right next door. If we cannot control our bodies by sheer force of will, why do we take on the fear and stress over them as if we could. The stress does not fix the problems, it only makes them worse. There is a better solution.
Jesus continues in verse 28 saying … “And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: [verse 29] And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. [verse 30] Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” Ok Macy’s, your entire value proposition has just been cut to the ground. And so has yours Walmart. Jesus asks us to simply look at the beauty He has created around us in nature. Beauty that occurs whether we encourage it or not. If God offers us the beauty of Roses, and Lillies, and Tulips and Trees; He takes care of things that have a short span of time here in the world, and things that last. Flowers cannot just transplant themselves to find better foods. Nor has a tree ever been given this kind of option. The Sequoias have been there for quite some time, and yet still they grow, their beauty a remarkable thing. If God so takes care of the transient things, why would He not take care of you?
Jesus summarizes His thoughts picking up in verse 31 saying … “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? [verse 32] (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. [verse 33] But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Your thoughts, your worries, your pursuits are either wasted in the temporary things of this world, or founded in the eternal things of God that matter. Jesus tells us here that what we eat is not worth thinking about, food will be there. He tells us what we wear is not our concern, God will make sure we have something, and that it lasts. Following this advice may not offer us a wealth of new clothing every season, but it will meet our needs. Following this advice may not have us eating at Morton’s every night, but it will have us eating to meet our needs. And trusting God, to provide these things, is to just test what He provides. His gifts are amazing.
What should be our focus is seeking His kingdom, the thing that lasts and matters. The rest of the temporary needs will be met. Jesus concludes this line of thinking with a more realistic and somber thought continuing in verse 34 saying … “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” The problem is not our food, or clothes. It is our priorities. It is our faith or trust in God. It is our inclination to focus upon ourselves and begin to indulge the evil that lays in wait all around us. THAT is the real problem. That is something we can have a little stress about. Because the problem there is not half so much about what surrounds us as what lies inside of us. Our refusal to trust. Our refusal to change how we live, and who we rely upon to support us. We take on burdens that do not belong to us, and in so doing continue to entertain fear, and uncertainty, that otherwise could die a permanent death.
How great could be our Christian lives and experience if we could think differently about who takes care of us, and who is there to meet the risks, and solve the challenges. A sense of self-reliance is our biggest handicap. Atheists must rely upon this as it is all they have. But Christians should be able to rely upon something more, to a point where we literally … take no thought.
And the Sermon was far from over …
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