God, my daily bread and my anxieties
Matthew 6.7-13, 6.25-34
Introduction
We are currently in a series of sermons on the book of Exodus, and today's message is not really a break from that series, but rather a focus on a particular topic that came up during these messages on the Exodus.
In this series on the Exodus, we have seen how God freed the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, and a few weeks ago we saw, in Exodus 16 and 17, how God revealed his providence in the people of Israel - how God revealed that He provides for the needs of His people.
In fact, the people had been freed from slavery in Egypt but afterwards they would have to cross a desert, and in this desert certain fairly basic needs manifested themselves. Like having something to eat and having something to drink.
When they encountered these needs, the people's first reaction was to murmur, to complain.
God therefore showed them that he was actively and constantly engaged in providing for their necessities. He provided them with a source of food in the desert, Manna, a rather amazing kind of seed that was nicknamed the “bread of heaven.”
But it is not only a food that God gave them, but above all a lesson, a way to know their God better.
In Exodus 16 we read:
The Lord said to Moses, “I will rain bread for you from heaven. The people will go out and collect the necessary quantity each day. So I will test him and see whether he will follow my law or not. On the sixth day they will prepare what they have brought, that is, twice the portion collected each day.”
(Ex 16:4-5)
Through these episodes, where they had to depend on a miracle - or several miracles - from God, God taught them that he is the one who provides. And, consistent with Jason's message a few weeks ago, he showed that his provision is:
Necessary: the people needed their provision;
Limited: the people had what they needed daily, not all at once;
Abundant: God provides even beyond their requests;
And assured : its supply lasts as long as the need lasts.
Today's text comes much later. Jesus is teaching a large number of gathered disciples, and he is also going to teach about God's provision.
Just as the people of Israel should learn about God's provision, and then shape their behavior according to it, the disciples of Jesus should learn about God's provision, and shape their behavior and thoughts according to it. .
It is a text where the application is quite explicit: Jesus says three times "do not worry", or "do not be anxious". This is the application, I tell you in advance - and you have probably already understood it.
Don't worry. We will especially see the arguments that Jesus gives for this commandment. We will look at three points together:
My anxieties about God's provision
The alternative to following this commandment
God's Provision and his Kingdom
God's provision and my anxieties
Why don't zebras have ulcers?
This may seem like an absurd question, but it's the title of a book by Professor Robert Sapolsky, professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University. In this book - which I haven't read, but I read the summary - Professor Sapolsky answers why zebras don't have ulcers: because zebras don't have anxiety.
Be careful: they don't have anxiety, but they do have stress. The life of a zebra is not easy: there are lions that represent a real danger. But the zebra doesn't think about the lion all the time when he's not there. The future possibility of danger is something that does not cause insomnia in zebras... So we can say that they are not anxious. And that's why zebras don't have ulcers - or at least very rarely.
On the contrary, anxiety seems to be a universal human experience, and more present each time. We have an incredible capacity to imagine everything that can happen to us and everything that we can lack. And even if this danger is not present there, now, we still stress because we are aware of the possibility of danger. And that’s anxiety. Some people have more difficulty with it, others less, but I think it's safe to say that it's a universal experience.
And that’s precisely what Jesus tells us not to do: be anxious. “Don’t worry” – this could be translated as “don’t be anxious”.
At first glance, one might imagine that Jesus encourages us in this text to be like zebras. “Don’t think about it.” Be like birds, or flowers, who do not think about danger... Happiness in ignorance... Is this what Jesus recommends?
No, Jesus does not encourage us to imitate birds or wild flowers. He does not encourage us to ignore our needs, to be idle, or not to think. On the contrary, he says: look, study!
He invites us to study how God takes care of these unconscious, perhaps even ephemeral, beings. It’s a “who can do more, can do less” argument.
If God provides for birds, for flowers, which, compared to human beings, have less value, then he will take care of his children who are more important.
If God provides for birds and flowers who do not have a particularly organized job of getting their food, then God will provide for his children, who are capable of working in an organized way.
This is not an invitation to imitate birds and flowers, but to reflect on God's ability to care for his creation and, in particular, for us.
God can do it And God will do it - because we are more valuable to Him than birds, and surprisingly, we are more important than daisies.
The question we often want to ask after hearing this is… “and what can we say about people (or even Christians) who suffer from hunger, poverty, persecution?”
Jesus is not talking about this subject here. And I remind you that Jesus is not someone naive about human suffering. He spoke at a time when hunger, poverty and persecution were much closer and more concrete realities than for us.
Later in the New Testament we still see a "who can do more can do less" argument about this. When Paul speaks in his letter to the Romans that God uses even suffering to provide for our needs, he says:
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him for us all, how could he not also grant us everything with him?
(Rm 8:32)
This God who gave us his Son to give us eternal life, why would he deny us a simpler need? He bought us at a price, only to lose us because of some need? No, the Bible tells us that even after physical death, God provides life for his children.
It is a difficult reality that God provides for us also through lack and suffering, but it is a reality that we will have to struggle with at certain times in our Christian life. And God promises us that in those times he will give us the strength we need to cope.
What is certain is that we cannot avoid these moments of trial through our concerns, through our anxieties.“Who among you, by his worries, can add a moment to the length of his life?” (v. 27)
We cannot escape death through our anxieties. We cannot escape future trials through our anxieties.
Instead of ruminating about our future needs and trials, Jesus encourages us to look to God, the creator, Our Father, and surrender our present needs to Him in prayer.
I invite you to think: Do you feel like there is an area of your life that is really important, even necessary, about which you have the habit of thinking "how am I going to do this"?
“What am I going to do about this health problem that is starting to appear and is likely to get complicated?”
“What am I going to do for the rest of my career, now that my CV has more holes than a block of Emmental cheese?”
“How am I going to deal with this debt which will handicap my family’s finances for several years?”
“How am I going to not be alone, seeing as I’m single and getting older every year?”
I'm not saying these aren't legitimate concerns. But when we think in this way, with a "how am I going to do it", we try to find in ourselves the capacity to manage an entire hypothetical future of our problem, instead of finding in God the capacity to manage the current, present size, of the problem.
Pagans and their anxieties
Okay, Jesus tells us that our anxieties, in short, aren't very helpful, so he encourages us to turn our eyes to God, who cares for all creation, and turn our needs over to Him in prayer.
But what is the alternative? The alternative to this, Jesus tells us, is to be like a pagan. Like someone who serves an idol, another god.
Already by the context of this speech of Jesus on anxiety: it is connected to verse 24, which says that:“No one can serve two masters (...) You cannot serve God and Mammon”. Mammon is the god of money - the personification of the power of money.
If we do not have faith that our Heavenly Father will care for our future needs, then we must find another power that promises to care for our future. A god.
We do this when we think that an area of our life does not belong to God. Regarding my material needs, I go to the god of money, who has his own laws, his own rules. Regarding my emotional needs, I go to the god of attraction, who has his own laws, his own rules. And so on.
The problem is that those gods don't love us. They're not going to provide for us because we're their children, or something like that. No. They can bargain with us. They will offer us exchanges.
For example: you orient your life so as to have the job that pays the most, you dedicate a maximum of time to this job, you invest your money well and you optimize your taxes as much as possible; do this and, if you succeed, perhaps, you will have your future guaranteed.
I'm not saying that these things are bad in themselves, but if they are the ones that direct your life, that systematically shape your choices, then it has become the idol that you have chosen to take care of your needs.
And what is typical with an idol: you depend on it, but it also depends on you, on your actions. And so it doesn't help much to reduce anxieties, it concentrates them in a particular area. If it is the money god who will take care of everything, your anxieties will be concentrated in the financial area.
Jesus shows a dependent relationship with the Father that functions in a completely different way. It is not a commercial relationship. It is not a relationship of symmetrical dependence, because God does not depend on you and God's faithfulness does not depend on ours.
Even in prayer, Jesus tells us to avoid this commercial logic where more prayers or longer prayers would yield more results. The answer does not depend on our ability to pray well, or to pray exactly the right things because, as he says, “your Father knows what you need” (v. 8).
So Jesus invites us not to be like pagans, to trust God fully instead of trying to secure our future needs through our strengths, through our worries or through our idols - it amounts to the same thing.
And freed from these concerns, we can aspire to more...
God's Provision and His Kingdom
(...) Isn't life more than food and the body more than clothing? (v. 25)- Jesus asks.
Don't you have other things to occupy your mind? You have no other needs?
This is a theme that appears often in Scripture: God, in his provision for a need that we know well, shows that he also provides for a need that we did not know, or that we knew wrong.
When Moses, at the end of his stay in the desert, reflected on this episode where the people were hungry and God gave Manna, he said the following:
He humbled you, made you hungry and fed you with manna, which you did not know and which your ancestors did not know either, in order to teach you that man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.
(Dt 8:3)
In the same way, Jesus invites us to trust God with our material needs, to remove worries, to make room in our schedule today and, first of all, to seek the Kingdom of God.
You may know this verse, it is well known: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
It is often misunderstood, and in different ways. Well, there are some who attribute a little too much to the "all these things" of this verse, when it refers to our primary needs - the necessities, not great wealth.
Another error, perhaps more subtle, is to think that it is an exchange: we serve the Kingdom of God and its justice, and as a reward, we have our needs met (which is what we really wanted).
There are several problems with this interpretation...
The first is that the Kingdom of God and its justice is always, or at least often, presented as a desire, an aspiration. “Thy kingdom come” (v. 10), in Jesus’ prayer, and Jesus speaks of those who “hunger and thirst for Righteousness” (Mt 5:6).
Secondly, Jesus tells us that our material needs will be given to us "in addition" - it is not in return. That's a bonus.
It’s a need that we have, and of which we are not always aware. And Jesus tells us that if we give priority to this need, the others will come with it.
So, what exactly is this “Kingdom of God and His righteousness,” and how can we seek it? Throughout the Sermon on the Mount Jesus describes the culture of the Kingdom of God. He gives commandments that are a picture of his character. As he is the Son, he reveals God as Father, and attached to him we can know God as Father too.
To seek the Kingdom of God is to proclaim this Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed to us. It is to proclaim the work of Jesus, his victory over sin and death on the cross. And to decide to live for him, as citizens of this Kingdom.
As human beings, this is our true path to fulfillment. As Christians, this is what our new nature calls us to do.
So, this verse means that we have to leave everything, stop working at our respective jobs, be all full time for the church, and God will manage to find us something to eat?
No. This means that we must work on what is given to us each day as citizens of the Kingdom who seek the will of the Father first.
And we must especially watch out for adversarial thoughts – an external or internal thought, concern, or speech that says the opposite of what Jesus is telling us here. Thoughts that say that if I seek the Kingdom of God today, then I will be missing something essential in the future.
Let's say,
If I talk about Jesus today, then the people around me will look down on me and I won't have the social support I need.
If I am generous with my money today, as Jesus encourages me to do, I will not be rewarded for it when I need it in the future.
If today I decide to follow what God teaches me about relationships, then I will lack experience in the future.
If I'm honest with my tax return today - quick reminder - then I'm going to fail financially in the future.
In these adversarial thoughts, the Father's provision is doubted, or forgotten, so anxieties come, and the future paralyzes what I could do today.
In the face of these opposing thoughts, we must remember what Jesus said: that we do not need to choose between the Kingdom of God and our true needs, that we have the freedom to choose the Kingdom of God today in the confidence that God our Father takes care of our future.
He knows what we need. And our main need is to live his Kingdom with him, daily, every day.
So… in summary:
Don't worry ;
Do not be like pagans;
Seek His Kingdom today, and the rest will come.