This passage has always been beautiful to me. It is beautiful and simple in its imagery, and so profound in its intent. Jesus’ message here is, in the modern parlance, counter-cultural. It goes against the grain even of our own current culture, which eagerly promotes wealth and power and fame as the highest ideals to be pursued. Jesus is telling us that we are focused on the wrong things in our pursuit of happiness, and this focus is the source of all of our worries and tensions. We look too often at things that merely sparkle and appeal to our immediate desires, rather than the things that give real meaning to our lives. But it is also a call to shape the culture in affirming ways.
I have always been struck by Jesus’ use of imagery here. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you are to eat [or drink], or about your body what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing” (v. 25)? Jesus gets us to look at our own concerns, our own worries, from a different perspective, through a series of pointed rhetorical questions. He uses two beautiful and simple examples that are very recognizable to us even today. He says, “Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more important than they?” Then he asks, “Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span” (vs. 26-27)?
His second example is equally simple and beautiful. “Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them” (vs. 28-29). Then he hits us with the sudden flash of truth: “If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith” (v. 30)? He tells us that to think only at the material level of life is too shallow. It is not the fullness of reality. Thinking in this way is the source of all of our worries and tensions. Jesus challenges us to look at what we put our faith in: the world or God?
He spoke directly to the culture of his time, but his message is even more true to us today in a world that has, in great measure, abandoned God, the Creator and Sustainer of all that exists. Our culture has made material things, the material world itself, into gods of their own. It is truly a counter-cultural challenge to us, then, when Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things will be given you” (v. 33).
How do we seek the Kingdom of God in this world? By prayer, study, and reflecting on Scripture. In other words, we seek the Kingdom of God by seeking to live a righteous life, that is, a life lived in accord with the law of God written in our hearts. In putting the focus of our minds and hearts on God first, we will, through the generous grace of God, be clothed in the power, beauty, and majesty of righteousness. In other words, we will, in faith, love one another, forgive one another, just as he loves and forgives us. That is the culture of the Kingdom of God. The happiness we seek is not to be found in merely material things, but in placing our trust in God, who is the source of all that is really good, true, and beautiful. It is not the things of the world that make us happy, but the things and ways of God.
Jesus is not saying that material things are bad, but that they are not the real source of our desired happiness. In reality, we have a natural need for material things, food, clothing, and shelter, among others. These are natural needs of the body, but God gives each of us gifts with which we can learn and work, and to provide these material needs. But all too often, these can become distorted by undisciplined wants. Becoming consumed by these wants can be the cause of unhealthy, even soul-damaging things like greed or lust or gluttony, the old Seven Deadly Sins. When we turn these material things into ultimate ends, they become the real source of our inordinate worries and tensions. This is what Jesus is calling us to discern in our daily lives. Are our worries connected to the fact that we are placing too much or all of our focus on these finite material desires?
Jesus wants us to develop the virtue of prudence in order to be able to discern the difference between what is really good and true and what is not. We are made for higher things, like friendship and, ultimately, to love and be loved. These are the things of the Kingdom of God. These are the things that are the source of our greatest happiness. In this passage, Jesus is challenging us to focus on what is truly more ‘profitable’ for our eternal souls. God is love, and Jesus, who revealed the Father to us, is the way, the truth, and the life that leads to the Kingdom of God. It is in focusing our hearts and our minds on him first that we find the happiness that only the Kingdom of God can give us.
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