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Do Not Worry (Matthew 4-6)

“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and wealth” (Matthew 6:24). That’s what Jesus taught, and you might think we would have gotten it by now. But we are slow to learn: we go on worrying about whether we will have enough.

So Jesus went on to talk about worry. “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear” (6:25). And yet worry is one of the things we do best, isn’t it?
There are many things in this world that you can not change, Jesus said, no matter how much you worry at them (6:27). And so he gave us this command, which is really quite simple and straightforward: “Do not worry” (6:31). Yet we are reluctant to take that command seriously.

Deciding that we will serve God with full loyalty means that we will no longer worry our lives with the quest for wealth. It means that we will believe that Jesus was right when he said, “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” confident that the Lord who knows what we need will take care of those needs, and all these other things will be taken care of, too (6:32-33).

And we do believe Jesus was right about that, don’t we?

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It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives sleep to his beloved (Psalm 127:2).
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Ah Lord God: we confess that we are worriers. It is hard for us to let go of those worries. Yet our hearts’ desire is to trust in you. You are the one who knows our needs. We set ourselves to follow you, setting aside the worry, setting aside the quest for wealth: confident that you will care for us, each step of the way.

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James Ayers
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2 responses to “Do Not Worry (Matthew 4-6)”

  1. merritt4 Avatar
    merritt4

    I paused before responding because I agree with so much of this. I think helped me when I appreciated your choice of “cares for” rather than protects us. I think of my friend from seminary, a pastor from Malawi, who returned to Malawi even though it was in the midst of turmoil. One night a person came to his door asking for help. Although the pastor knew there were people seeking his life, he went with the person. His body was found days later. I also think of people who die from hunger because others did not share what we have. I think many people read this passage to say God will protect us from all evil, then are disappointed when bad things happen to good people. As you wrote, God cares for us always. We can find comfort and solace in difficult times, knowing God is mourning beside us. God does not protect us from all the wrongs we do to ourselves or that others inflict upon us. I also think Jesus was particularly addressing this teaching to those of us (and of his time) who spend too much time about things which aren’t important (like the clothes we wear, and what we eat when we have choices about what we eat). God provides sufficient sustenance for all to eat, and plenty of clothing for all – we just don’t follow God’s instructions to share with one another so that no one need worry. This was not a teaching meant for those whose cupboards are bare, or who are living under threats of bombs or guns. As you emphasize in your article, the key criticism was of our quest for wealth. Thanks for spurring some thoughts this morning!

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    1. James Ayers Avatar
      James Ayers

      Thanks, Merritt, for these comments.

      I believe that Jesus loves me, through and through, forever: but the love of Jesus did not keep me from getting cancer, and heart disease, and kidney disease. I am blessed that I have been cancer free, post-chemotherapy, for 2 1/2 years now: but the love of Jesus does not mean that everyone who gets cancer will get healed. This world that God has given us is a world where things are allowed to go wrong. Murderers can murder. People with lots of food can hoard it, resulting in people without food dying.

      And I am not well-positioned to complain about that, because I am one of the things that go wrong. Someone like me, with all my goodness and all my badness, would never exist in a perfect world, where nothing ever goes wrong. God has given us a world where cancer exists, and where sinners exist. And where death exists.

      Your seminary friend died too soon. People who starve to death die too soon. In the end, most of us die too soon, trying to hold on to our lives in this world as long as we can. I take refuge in Paul’s admonition to the Romans: “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8). So I will live to the Lord, and sooner or later I will die to the Lord, confident that in life and in death, Jesus holds my life safe in his hands, forever.

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