It is Day 3 of Lent and for the first time in what feels like a long time, I have found a quiet place in which to sit and consider God’s Word. As soon as I thought about the word, “consider,” it reminded me of Jesus’ words in Matthew’s gospel although the TNIV does not use this word. This translation uses, “See.” I do not have my Greek New Testament with me and cannot check the translation of the word in question but nevertheless, thinking on the word, “consider,” has brought me to this passage in Matthew 6:24-34.
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
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 important than food, and the body more important then clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”
Who of us is able to go through a day without worrying? And yet, this is the command that Jesus gives us; “Do not worry.” Do not worry about your life, what you will wear, what you will eat, what you will drink… and I wonder if Jesus has left the rest unsaid: Do not worry about anything because worrying wastes energy that could otherwise be invested into good things. By saying do not worry about your life, Jesus has said it all: do not worry. Worrying is pointless and useless and time consuming and does not give any pleasure to us, or to the people around us watching us worry.
“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to their life?”
There is no point in worrying and I have come to believe that part of why worrying is so destructive and why Jesus commands us not to do so is because worrying is cumulative. We worry about the big things perhaps thinking that if we worry about those, the little things will pale into the background but that is not true. We can train ourselves to worry about the big things and then our minds get so focused on worrying, we become experts at it. Perhaps we think that by worrying, some good will come out of that exercise but all that happens is we find other things to worry about.
“You cannot serve both God and money.”
I believe this previous verse has everything to do with what follows especially as we live in an area of the world where money is being much talked about. One of the headlines this morning was of Lloyds Bank “suffering” a loss of millions of pounds because they mis-sold insurance policies. Hard on the heels of that headline was the next describing the outrage of the general public because senior level bosses are being “awarded” seemingly ridiculous sums of money in bonus payouts. Is the outrage really about the money being handed out to someone else or how unfair it seems that where one person financially gains, another one loses?
Jesus has commanded, “Do no worry,” and “No one can serve two masters…you cannot serve both God and Money.”
In this season of Lent, I am diving into Jesus’ command to not worry and it is not an easy thing to do (perhaps giving up chocolate might have been easier). In deliberately setting aside the very easy thought patterns of worry and to realize that while I can consider that I am fully responsible for figuring out how to pay for my life’s tasks, Jesus is asking me not to worry about how that happens takes some willful action. Do not worry. That is today’s command because tomorrow will worry about itself.
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