“Therefore, I say to you, don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, or about your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t sow seed or harvest grain or gather crops into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth much more than they are? Who among you by worrying can add a single moment to your life? -Matthew 6:25-27
My High School students decided to hone in on Matthew 6 for our youth ministry this school year. It turns out they’re very interested in what Jesus has to say about worry, control, trust and letting go. Jesus telling the disciples not to worry about food and clothing sounds fairly naive and irresponsible…perhaps even foolish. My students pointed out that our culture is all about planning for tomorrow, setting goals, thinking ahead, worrying about our future security. They asked if Jesus is telling us to leave it all behind and join a hippie commune where we just hang out and let God take care of everything. After all, the birds of the air don’t farm, they don’t worry, and God meets their needs!
In the early days of Methodism, John Wesley was deeply moved by the spiritual disciplines of the Moravians in his community. He wanted a faith as deep as the faith he saw in them. Even as he went deeper into Moravian practices and ideology, though, he began to see a difference between himself and a certain strain of thought that troubled him. He was disappointed to discover Philip Henry Molther had taken over and was teaching stillness, the idea that no one could practice the means of grace who had not had a powerful, felt conversion to faith. This was based on the assumption that the means of grace (such as prayer, scripture reading, even worship) were just works righteousness.
Wesley rejected the concept of stillness, of doing nothing, and instead saw the Gospels as leading us to an active faith, a faith filled with practices, work, and ways to experience God’s grace and love. At first glance, Jesus’ teachings around worry may sound an awful lot like Mother’s teaching in the Stillness Movement. Just sit back and wait. God’s got it, right? Look at the birds, man!
But think about what you know of birds. Maybe they don’t farm, but they sure do spent a lot of their time finding food and building their shelters. Maybe they sing pretty songs, but they also certainly guard their nests. And while God meets their needs, it’s clear they can still starve, receive injury, and even die. Jesus may point to the birds regarding the human concerns over the essentials for survival, but he does not pretend the birds have it “easy.”
The larger focus of Matthew 6:25-24 is that we place our full trust in God, regardless of the outcome. The world is full of trouble, and each day has enough to deal with. If to-do lists and therapy help me to let go of certain anxieties about the past or the future, I will absolutely lean into that to help me better seek first the kingdom of God. For me, a check-list helps me focus on what I can do now, and what can wait. That is a planning tool that allows me to focus here and now, to not get carried away with the what-if’s. Seeking God first includes taking intentional steps, using the means of grace, such as prayer, worship, service, etc., to rely on God through the work of daily living.
As you think about your day unfolding, remain in Christ. Settle in the rhythms of God’s great love, and seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.