Because There Will Be Plenty of Food and Nice Clothes in Heaven
Gospel Reading: Matthew 6:24-34
For Sunday, February 27, 2011 Year A - Epiphany 8
Ever been in a really foul mood and had someone look at you and say “smile!” Or perhaps you’ve been really despondent at some point when a well-meaning, albeit vapid, person says to you “cheer up!”
When this happens to me it: 1) doesn’t work and 2) makes me feel angry on top of feeling despondent.
Well it’s easy to read this Sunday’s gospel as a pithy little self-help boost from Jesus. “Don’t worry!” he tells us. Does this feel like the messianic equivalent to Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no?” It does to me (snarl).
Jesus is not a very good motivational speaker.
It’s not that I mind him reminding us that worrying is a waste of time and energy, it’s just that I don’t think that he makes a very good case for a worry-free life.
Are birds and flowers really a convincing way to tell us there’s nothing to worry about? Birds live brief lives which usually end by being hunted and eaten by larger beasts. Their lives end violently. And flowers? While beautiful, they either wither soon after they bloom or are trampled underfoot or are destroyed in a storm. Jesus even admits that the grass of the field is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven. Consider that as you ponder the meaning of Matthew 6:24–34.
So if this text is trying to convince us there is nothing to worry about it’s doing a lousy job. The last couple verses “reassure” us by pointing out that today has very real trouble and tomorrow brings very real worry. Considering the examples he gives of birds and flowers and grass, we can perhaps assume that the message isn’t “everything’s going to be OK?”
The Hardest Question
Is there any basis for trust in God which is rooted in the now, and not merely rooted in the future? And if so, what does that have to say about the love of money? What does that have to say about the acquisition and storing away of personal wealth? Historically the Christian faith has tended to ignore the very difficult present realities of humanity while offering something better in the sweet-by-and-by. The church has at times turned a blind eye to sickness, suffering, poverty – offering people without things to wear or things to eat nothing but a promised future when finally God will care about them.
So my hardest question is this: Have we spent so much time and energy and ink telling the world about God’s promised future of heaven that we have failed to embody God’s right now promise of food and clothing?
Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber is the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. She is the author of
Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television
(Seabury, 2008) and blogs at www.sarcasticlutheran.com and Jim Wallis' www.GodsPolitics.com. Nobody really believes she’s an ordained pastor in the ELCA. Maybe it’s the sleeve tattoos or the fact that she swears like a truck driver. Either way…she’s fine with it. Nadia lives in Denver with her family of four.
