21 June 2014 - tombs of kings

21 June 2014 - tombs of kings

Look at the birds in the sky;
they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns,
yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

What do we learn from these birds?

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.
What do we learn from the way the flowers grow?

It isn't there work ethic, necessarily.  People sometimes need to sow and reap and gather, to work and spin. 

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,

Jesus is telling us not to worry, not to be anxious.   We may have to labor for our needs, but, just as with the birds and the flowers, it depends more on God's providence than on us.

Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?

We are worth more to God than many sparrows, after all.  He feeds the birds and clothes the grass.  He knows what we need before we ask as we see when Jesus teaches the Our Father.  Pagan's have nothing to chase but these things.  They don't have treasure in heaven so they are left with treasures of earth.  And the treasures of earth are nothing if not sources of anxiety.

Does Jesus tell us how to put this into practice?  It is one thing to say not to be anxious.  Often this only makes us anxious about being anxious.  But Jesus does give us something concrete.
But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness

Our worries and anxieties are a litmus test of where our treasure is.  Have we really made Jesus the LORD of every aspect of our lives?  Do we really trust him with all of our needs, from the basic to the spiritual?  Are we anxious about what we will eat and what we will wear?  It isn't just about giving that area to God, though that is important.  It is about giving more priority to building his kingdom than to building ourselves.  This is what it means to put him first.  Are we anxious about our prayer, whether it is good enough?  Perhaps we are too concerned with self-image.  Let us surrender that, yes.  But let us change our focus.  When our prayer is consumed with the desire to see the kingdom built it be filled with fire and vibrancy commensurate with our self-forgetfulness.  We will find "all these things" given to us besides.

Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.
Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

The LORD's love is everlasting.  By working hard we don't earn more.  By messing up we don't exclude ourselves.  This is why we can trust him so completely. 

“Forever I will maintain my kindness toward him,
and my covenant with him stands firm.
I will make his posterity endure forever
and his throne as the days of heaven.”

We are anxious and worried when we think things depend on our effort.  We ultimately tend to believe that either A) God's love also depends on our effort or B) something other than God's love which does depend on our effort is more important.  These are the sources of so much pain in our lives.  Let us repent of these beliefs.  We have to work.  We may make mistakes.  Sometimes Israel needs to be defeated when they are trusting too much in themselves.

Though the Aramean force came with few men,
the LORD surrendered a very large force into their power,
because Judah had abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers.

But God's love will never leave us.  When our enemies have victory over us he is waiting with open arms like the Father for the prodigal son.  The doors of the Confessional await whenever we need them.

“I will punish their crime with a rod
and their guilt with stripes.
Yet my mercy I will not take from him,
nor will I belie my faithfulness.”

He wants us ultimately to be buried "in the tombs of the kings" and not just in the City of David.  And we will be, provided we just don't abandon him.  Provided we keep coming back to him when we fall there is nothing that can prevent it.