Can we trust God to provide for us in Matt 6?
This Lord's day's lectionary gospel reading, for the Second Sun before Lent in Year A, is Matthew 6.25–34, a section of the and then-called Sermon on the Mountain. It appears to fence that the followers of Jesus should live a carefree life as they seek the kingdom of God, not being concerned with futurity provision, but living mean solar day to solar day in simple trust. It thus raises significant questions about whether this is realistic educational activity, or an unrealistic aspiration—since fifty-fifty Jesus' first listeners needed to program ahead if they were to live and thrive, in the seasons of planting, growth and harvesting of an agricultural economic system, still more for us in a mail service-industrial context. And the illustrations Jesus uses might seem to lack credibility; should we really seek to learn from the birds, who die by the grand in the winter because of shortage of food? A careful reading of the text might help us answer some of these questions.
This section of the Sermon consists of a number of sayings, some of which appear to have only a loose connection with each other, though the pedagogy from Matt half-dozen.25–33 appears to function as a coherent unit, with a logical shape and flow to it. Effectually it we have sayings about not laying up treasures (5 nineteen), the middle equally the lamp of the torso (v 22), the two masters, God and mammon (v 24), on not being broken-hearted (5 34), and on not judging (Matt 7.i). Their discontinuity, and the fact that they come in different places in Luke (Luke 12.33, 11.34, 16.13, 12.22, and 6.37) demonstrate that Matthew has brought these teachings together in one identify, only that they were not necessarily taught together by Jesus originally.
However, Jesus is probable to have repeated these pithy apothegms, summarising primal spiritual principle, more than than once, and the 'Therefore…' that begins our reading links what follows, for Matthew or Jesus or both, with the teaching almost the 'ii masters' of God and 'mammon', a personified term for wealth and riches equally a spiritual force. Thus the whole word about trust in God for provision is set up in the context of the worship of our lives: do we really trust in God, or practice we actually, in do, trust for our security in fabric wealth?
It quickly becomes articulate that the focus of Jesus' didactics here isn't sensible planning for the time to come, but 'anxiety' or 'worry' about our provision. The word translated 'be anxious', μεριμνάω,merimnao, occurs six times in this passage out of the seven times that it comes in Matthew in total (the seventh is in Matt 10.19, in the didactics to trust that the Spirit will supply our words when we are on trial for existence followers of Jesus). A similar business organization non be broken-hearted is expressed past Paul, using the same word, in Phil 4.6:
Do not be anxious nearly annihilation, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, nowadays your requests to God.
Jesus uses dual language ofpsyche andsoma, 'soul' or 'life, and 'trunk', in contrast to food and drinkable, and clothing, to highlight what really matters. This pair has found its mode into our language as 'body and soul' to describe the whole person, and is often consider to represent a kind of dualistic anthropology, referring to the inner and outer reality of human existence. Merely it is hit that Jesus hither uses the human relationship between nutrient/drinkable and thepsyche, and habiliment and thesoma, in parallel, and then that both the terms actually refer to the whole person. This is in keeping with outlook of both Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Christianity that the person consists of a body-soul unity, rather than a duality. The emphasis here is the importance of human life being so much 'more' than mere material preoccupations.
The emphatic termemblepo 'look at', 'consider', refers to a careful and deliberate study of what we might learn from the 'birds of the air', leading to evangelical leader John Stott (with whom I once went bird-spotting in Attenborough Nature Reserve) to write his bookThe Birds Our Teachers. The description of God as 'your heavenly Male parent' is characteristic of Matthew's business relationship of Jesus' teaching, emphasising every bit information technology does both God's sovereignty in his heavenly rule alongside his personal intendance for us, who equally members of the kingdom are his precious children. Although a dissimilarity is fatigued with the birds 'who neither sow, reap nor get together into barns', Jesus is not here saying that we should do none of these things. Despite not doing this, God nevertheless 'feeds them', though (as Luther notes) he does not drop it into their beaks! Just as the creation narrative in Genesis i places humanity as the crown and climax of God's artistic activity (to treat, non to exploit, the rest of cosmos), and then Jesus hither emphasises, with another 'how much more' the importance of humanity before God within creation. As far every bit he is concerned, and contrary tosome climate activists, it would matter very much if humanity became extinct!
There is some ambiguity in Jesus proverb about extending our lives by worrying, since the term of extension he uses is literally a 'cubit' (πῆχυς), the distance from the elbow to the tips of the fingers. To add such a half-meter to our height would not exist piffling—in fact, information technology would be both alarming and absurd! But using a mensurate of distance to refer to time, in this case the length of our life, is no different from the English language expression 'the span of life', where 'span' is literally the distance across the hand from thumb to pinkie. Linking anxiety to length of life has a abrupt relevance to contemporary life and its pressures; the latest edition of the BBC show 'Trust Me, I'thousand a Doctor' demonstrated scientifically that reducing feet through the use of relaxing mediations exercises really reduced claret force per unit area every bit much as doing regular exercise—and so would prolong life!
In verse 28, Jesus over again returns to examples from the natural earth. In doing so, he locates his teaching inside the genre of Wisdom literature, and we can come across parallels in, for instance, Job 12.7–10, as well as the long 'answer from the whirlwind' almost the stop of the volume, Prov half-dozen.6–11 and elsewhere in Proverbs, too as parallels in other 2d Temple Jewish literature. The difference is that, where elsewhere 'wisdom' is contrasted with eschatological linguistic communication of the kingdom of God, Jesus combines them.
The analogy of the beauty of wild flowers (traditionally 'lily', though the discussionkrinon used is uncertain) contrast with the illustration of the birds. The first emphasises God's sustaining provision, just the second emphasises how temporary is the passing beauty of flowers. For the proverbial splendour of Solomon and his court, see 1 Kings 10.i–15; for the proverbial passing of wild flowers and grass, see Ps 103.15–sixteen and especially Is twoscore.6–viii. But the spiritual lesson is the same; if God provides for the birds, how much more than… and if God adorns the passing flowers with beauty, how much more… In this case (and contrast to other examples), the burning of the flowers in the oven has no metaphorical sense of judgement, merely is but a reference to domestic reality.
The language of 'y'all of little faith' (oligopistoi) is characteristically Matthean in his rendering of Jesus' teaching, and really amounts to no faith at all; in Matt 17.xx 'fiddling faith' means less faith even than the tiny mustard seed. Just every bit 'righteousness' in Matthew has a different sense from its use in Paul, so 'religion' in Matthew has a more than direct and applied sense. It is the simply and practical trust that God will deed and will provide for his people, in all sorts of circumstances, and is the antithesis of the 'worry' that is mentioned here. For Jesus in Matthew, information technology is perfectly possible to both empathise and clear theological truths nigh God, but yet lack 'religion'.
The dissimilarity between the trust of organized religion and the anxiety that otherwise grips u.s. is summarised past the Jewish Matthew equally the contrast betwixt the Israel of God in their proper vocation and the 'Gentiles' (ethne,'peoples'). Reading from a post-resurrection perspective, we need to see ourselves as incorporated into Israel, and though ethnically Gentiles (pun intended!) we are now spiritual part of those who know God's loving provision. Over again we encounter the emphasis on God equally 'your heavenly Father, who knows what you need'. Simply there is a second dissimilarity as well, which takes u.s. back to the beginning. And anxious, worried, restlessness of the 'Gentiles', those who do not however know the Father'due south loving care and provision, is described equally 'seeking'; since they have no confidence in a loving one who provides for them, they must devote their energy, their priorities, and curve their forcefulness to providing for themselves. by contrast, those who know God personally as Father are set gratis from the demand to make this kind of devotion. They no longer serve Mammon, merely serve this loving God. So they are free to 'seek first', that is, as their showtime priority, 'the kingdom of God'. It is striking that this is 1 of the few occasions where Matthew describes the kingdom as 'of God' and not 'of heaven'; our seeking springs from personal noesis of a personal God, and it is his reign and rule that is our number one priority, but has his provision for us is his priority. As part of that we seek 'his righteousness', in Matthew the 7 occurrences of this term denoting the righteous action and living that signifies submission and obedience to God's rule in our lives.
The terminal saying in this passage appears to stand up separately, though connected in its though and thus collected hither by Matthew. It's pithy essence, in a vivid personalised metaphor, is captured well in the word-for-word emphasis of the Authorised Version:
Accept therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall have thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
We don't need to worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow is already sitting there doing its own worrying!
Far from being the unrealistic and unhelpful, idealistic aspirations that we first thought, information technology turns out that Jesus' instruction here both connects with his teaching elsewhere, and speaks into contemporary aspects of civilisation also as our own personal concerns. A few examples behave noting.
'Worry' is ane of the three things that prevents fruitful growth for the discussion of God in the lives of those who hear it in the Parable of the Sower in Matt 13.22. 'The deceitfulness of wealth chokes the discussion, making it unfruitful'; is it a coincidence that Church omnipresence and discipleship is declining most in the wealthy, neo-liberal West?
The themes of seeking the kingdom first, and trusting God in simple organized religion for our provision are plant together in the Lord's Prayer, where nosotros get-go pray 'Your kingdom come' and just so petition 'Give us today our daily breadstuff…'
Refusing to worry is not the same as refusing to plan and to work; Paul is ruthlessly clear that 'those who don't work should non consume' (2 Thess 3.10) and that failure to make provision for member of the family unit is a grave sin (i Tim v.8).
Jesus' teaching here is a clarion call to a simplicity of life for his disciples, in stark contrast to the acquisitiveness of our consumer culture. It offers a straight challenge both to the mode we shop and consume, and the destruction and superficiality of much of the style industry.
There is as well much to learn here for preachers and other communicators. Jesus' education hither uses concrete metaphors, vivid, everyday examples that can exist understood by anyone (since they require no exclusive or specialist experience), and is drawn together with pithy and memorable summary sayings. Truly, Jesus is our teacher at every level.
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