When you’re reading Jesus’s “Sermon on the Mount,” or any of his other teachings, it makes more sense when we remember his audience at the time consisted of poor people. In the United States, “poor” usually means you don’t have a lot of money, and live within a very strict budget. In ancient Israel, “poor” meant you had no money. You were living from harvest to harvest, or from job to job, doing the best you could with what resources you had; and any time you did get money it was taken from you by tax collectors, or connived away from you by the rich.
So when Jesus talks about money or possessions or economics, remember that most of the folks he was talking to—and most of the folks who have heard his teachings since—didn’t have any of these things, and only knew of them secondhand. We are very blessed in the United States.
Now, imagine being in those circumstances, and read what Jesus says next:
That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?
And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?
So don’t worry about these things, saying, “What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?” These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today. —Jesus, Matthew 6.25-34 NLT
Go up to some homeless people sometime and try to teach this to them. Tell someone in a soup kitchen line, “Don’t worry about food and drink.” Tell someone whose paycheck needs to stretch four weeks, yet barely covers one, “Live righteously and God will give you everything you need.” How can you proclaim these things and not sound like an utter jerk?
For that matter, consider how often the well-off and comfortable have used this teaching to justify their their own behavior. In their hands, Jesus has been reinterpreted to say, “Don’t fuss over such things.” The worry no longer refers to a valid concern that there might not be enough to live on, or be clothed by; it now means, “You know that ridiculous argument you and your spouse had over whether to go to the Chinese place or the Mexican place after church? Don’t do that. Jesus says not to worry about food and drink.” Or “Don’t worry about having the greatest, trendiest fashions in your closet; that kind of concern is so superficial when you compare it to the Kingdom of God.” Which, while true, has nothing to do with what Jesus means.
Jesus is not talking about how we spend too much time deciding whether the red blouse or the beige blouse goes with that skirt, or whether to order the chicken or the fish. He’s talking about having no blouse at all, and where the next one’s going to come from; He’s talking about having neither chicken nor fish, nor anything else in the pantry, and figuring the next meal was going to be the result of picking at the neighbor’s fruit trees. Provided the other poor in town hadn’t got to them first.
But in the face of this utter lack, he’s telling the poor, “Don’t worry about everyday life. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Animals don’t worry about these things. Be like them.”
The reason Jesus doesn’t come across as jerk-like when He says such things is because we know that, behind it all, he actually does care, and actually is sympathetic, to the plight of the poor. He’s not saying this so he can get the poor to become content with their lousy lot in life. Instead, He’s pointing out that, despite their lousy lot in life, God is providing. It may not feel like it, ’cause most of us believe that no one should live hand-to-mouth; no one should be deprived of anything less than a full pantry and closet; no one should be short of free time and leisure time and entertainment and vacations. Even the poor in our country have big-screen TVs. And the assumption, far too often, is that if we don’t have those possessions—if we don’t have a certain level of comfort and wealth in our lives—it means God isn’t around, doesn’t provide, doesn’t care, and even hates us for some reason.
Abundance, no matter what the TV preachers might say, is not the same as blessing. Comfortability is not the same as grace. A full belly is not a sign of God’s love. A full bank account is not the same as prosperity. We have to get away from materialist thinking. Sometimes our treasures on earth take some really mundane forms—the petty things that “dominate the thoughts of unbelievers” and pull them away from the Kingdom into something more “real-world” that ultimately isn’t. If you’re eking out a living, God is providing. Our lack of faith comes from thinking that God is obligated to provide both our daily bread and bread for the whole next month, just in case.
For those of us who are comfortable, we need to stop looking at the abundance in our lives as our safety net, and start looking at it as the abundance that God has given us to share with others… the abundance that we’ve been hoarding. Notice how much of it winds up going to waste. We shouldn’t have to throw out as much spoiled food as we do. We shouldn’t have clothes in our closet that we haven’t worn in months. The fact that there is anything in our Dumpsters valuable enough for the poor to consider treasure means we are misusing the resources God has given us. Some of us need to go back on a budget, and start giving away the surplus.
After all, why do we have so little faith? Do the things we eat, drink, and wear contribute towards the Kingdom? Are we seeking the Kingdom before those things? Or do they have nothing to do with it? And if not, why not?