Jesus isn't exactly helpful here for our angst ridden society. 'Don't worry'?... get real! We're born to worry. I'm genetically designed to seek out everything that will cause me to worry and instead of choosing one, I go for the whole lot.
It would be great not to worry about where my food will come from and what will happen to my pension and my family and mortgage (the list is pretty long) and just live the sheer poetry of the lilies of the field and birds of the air who seem to have enough to eat supplied by God (not sure that's exactly accurate either).
If we believe in a God who in interventionist, who moves into the world to set it right every so often, then perhaps we can give up worrying because God will sort if all out. (Major problems with that concept of God because I see precious little evidence of it ever happenng). On the other and if we have a more progressive model where we don't hold to 'God' being some divine monarch who intervenes and feeds us when we are hungry or supply a home for us when we are homeless then these words seem to have very little to offer us. It's as if Jesus is saying 'cheer up, it will be alright in the end.' And when you are down and worried, you just want to throw words like that back in the face of the one who uttered them.
Are these words redeemable? I don't know. I really don't. Except to say that Jesus goes on to say: seek first the reign of God, then all these things will be added unto you. Choose what you worry about, perhaps? Or stop spending time worrying about those things you can do nothing about and act for those things you can do something about? But even then... And the bit that says 'all these things added unto us', I've still to see the evidence of that too, where are the rich Ghandi's and the wealth Mother Theressa's?
I don't know how to handle this text. Did Jesus hear himself speaking these words in the garden of Gethsemene? I'm away to ponder and if anyone can help, please chip in.
Recent Comments