Late Reflection

Good Evening Gentle Readers

This reflection is well a day or two late because I got too caught up in what I was doing…..

Doesn’t that just fit perfectly?

Good Enough

Jesus said to his disciples:
"No one can serve two masters.
He will either hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,
what you will eat or 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 in the sky;
they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns,
yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are not you more important than they?

Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?
Why are you anxious about clothes?
Learn from the way the wild flowers grow.
They do not work or spin.
But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor
was clothed like one of them.
If God so clothes the grass of the field,
which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow,
will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?

So do not worry and say, 'What are we to eat?'
or 'What are we to drink?'or 'What are we to wear?'
All these things the pagans seek.
Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given you besides.
Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.
Sufficient for a day is its own evil."

This Sunday's Gospel reading comes from the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus gives advice on how to live in the holiness that he has been teaching and modeling. Interestingly, it follows the same guidelines that Jesus set forth in the "Our Father" prayer, starting with "give us this day our daily bread".

Both the prayer and the sermon focus our attention on trusting God for our daily needs.

In every temptation, in every challenge, and in every difficulty, either we choose to trust God or else we trust our limited understanding of the situation and choose the ways of the world. We cannot do both at the same time, although we might fool ourselves into believing that we can keep one foot in heaven while the other foot walks the paths of the world. (Try picturing that!)

The word "mammon" comes from the Aramaic word for "wealth" or "property." It's been said that someone once prayed, "Give us this day our daily bread" and God replied, "You already have your bread and other people's bread, too." What do we have in storage that someone else needs? We store up for the future while others barely survive as they lack what we have in abundance. It feels dangerous to give away what we've stored up; someday we might need it more than they do!

If that's our thinking, we're not trusting God to take care of us. We are living under the assumption that he won't be as generous with us as we are with others.

That's why Jesus went on to say, "You worry too much!" We should focus not on what worries us but on how good God is.

Jesus said, "God loves you so much, he will take care of you! If you seek first God's kingdom and handle daily life God's way, you'll have everything you need."

Worry is a sin when it takes our eyes off of Jesus. Worry is evil when it restrains us from giving to others what Jesus wants to give them through us.