Sunday 08-09-19 Ascend part 17 How many birds?
Matt 6:25-34 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[e]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matt 6:25-34 MsgB 25-26 “If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds. 27-29 “Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. 30-33 “If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. 34 “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.
There is not a rational person alive who would not admit that everything we see is temporary. It may apparently be a billion years until the sun burns out, but it will eventually indeed burn out. Yet here we are breathing a cultural atmosphere of consumerism and living our best life now….and then are shocked to find the rates of anxiety rising instead of falling. Dallas Willard notes: “If we do invest in the physical and temporary as we are often told that we should, then our fate is fixed. Our fate is anxiety.”[1]
The Greek words for ‘anxious and worry’ have behind them the picture of being choked or struggling for breath. It’s interesting that a common expression I am hearing in my conversations with people at the moment is that they are struggling to quote: ‘keep their head above the water.’ Who said Jesus’ wasn’t relevant to today?
- How many birds?
5 “Therefore I tell you, (Jesus has of course been addressing what we invest ourselves in during the previous verses, hence the ‘therefore’) do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
Many people within and outside of the church’s walls are, or have at some time struggled with what Henri Nouwen calls the ‘illusion of immortality’. That is giving eternal value to the things we own, the relationships we have and the successes we collect.[2] We arrive at the inevitable question, just like Jesus’ audience did knowing full-well that for many of his listeners; two doves or two pigeons would have been sacrificed by their parents upon their birth as the minimal thank offering to God: (Luke 2:24).
The question of course is this: How many birds are you worth? Ok, fine you may not be asking that specifically, but someone gave up something for you to be here. Was it a career? How are you going to pay that back? How are you going to justify your existence? How much respect do you need to earn? How many likes do you need to have on social? How right do you have to be? Everyone’s got their price. What’s yours?
How many birds are you worth? Write it on your bedroom mirror at home if you need to because no sacrifice you can make will justify your existence. No matter how much we spiritualise it. Nothing we can do as a church will justify us being here. It’s all grace and grace alone.
So I was listening to a podcast[3] and J.D. Greer, Pastor of Summit Church was talking about a time when he was praying about revival in his city and I’m thinking ‘Amen, I’m into this’ and he was talking about a word in his soul that stopped him in the tracks of his prayer: Ok, James, what if I did do something amazing and I did bring revival in your city and answered all that you are praying for….but I used the other church down the road, would you still rejoice as much?” Boom. It’s so easy to coat our illusions that are driving our anxiety with spiritual language, so Jesus interrupts our daydreaming with the concrete examples of the natural world. (Rom 1)
But the truth is, the more you locate you treasure in the earthly and try to live for the ‘now’ the more that effort will damage your mental health. Conversely, the more you locate your treasure in heaven the more free you become to receive and live in the present as a gift.
- So let’s not put rhetorical questions in Jesus’ mouth.
I want to pull out and then pause on the questions that Jesus asks that we so easily read past at Mach 5. What if Jesus actually means the questions he is asking? I ask this because as Willard points out, Eternity is in part, what we are now living.[4] Aside from, ‘how many birds are you worth’ here are the questions:
- Is not life more than food?
- and the body more than clothes?
- Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? (change what’s coming?)
- And why do you worry about clothes?
- Will he (God) not much more clothe you—you of little faith?
Keep in mind that for his original hearers, they may have been some who spent their lives wondering where their next meal was coming from. Some might have been in the same clothes for a month. Moreover, some may have had relatives who had been killed by Roman brutality. So is Jesus making light of the situation? No, he is simultaneously attacking the values of the Roman empire and thereby pointing his hearers back to the great acts of God’s provision in the past.
Whilst senators and Caesars oppress the people one minute and throw them bread in the colosseum the next, the God of Israel, fed everyone in equal measure in the middle of a desert for 40 years. As purple cloth covered the corruption and duplicity of Pilate at Jesus’ trial, God fulfilled the visual prophecy of his clothing of Adam and Eve in the garden by making a way for us to be clothed in Christ’s righteousness. As people died agonising deaths on crosses at the entrances of towns signifying the empire’s power to take life, Jesus points to the one who is both mighty to save and has also set the hour to judge the powers of this world.
He’s saying to anyone who’s listening; “don’t be fooled: God doesn’t change. He’s still interested in you, and (here’s the gospel) God is King and Father.” So therefore if you are consumed with any of this stuff it is because the reality of the kingdom of God has not actually struck you yet. Hence: 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
Once when I was feeling really exhausted the thought occurred to me; we tend to run after idols, but we walk with God. Are you running? Or are you walking?
- But seek first.
Only now, assuming that we have taken the time to reflect on all that Jesus has said up to this point, are we ready to really hear what I believe is the centrepiece of the Jesus’ sermon: But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Here’s why we are only now ready to hear it. This is one of the most abuses verses of scripture in all of the fridge magnets, sentimental greeting cards and social media soundbites. The idolatry of Christendom is perhaps never more laid bare than when this verse is thrown around without any reference whatsoever to what the words ‘all these things’ actually means.
I would suggest that when Jesus say’s ‘all these things’ that he actually means; all those things that he has been talking about. Anything less would leave open the possibility for this to be taken how it so often is, a way to ‘get’ something out of God. But all these things includes right back at the very beginning in chapter when Jesus talks about weakness, persecution, those who mourn and people who falsely gossip about as a direct result of your efforts to sow the kingdom. This and more will be added unto us as well because, when we accept that, then, then we know the greatest blessing: freedom.
We’re not really participating in the kingdom until knowing God, is more important to us than feeling better, getting better or doing better.[5] Anything less than that isn’t Christianity. If we seek the Kingdom to attain peace, it’s evaporated. If we seek the kingdom to get joy or meaning, we’ll get frustration. But what if we come to a place where we finally can say: “who cares about my personal fulfilment! I’m sick of my self-salvation program! I just want to be know God and be known by him.” That’s the deepest cry of the human soul.
- What this means
To drop the language of empire, of power and embrace the space of need and vulnerability. Over and over again in the biblical narrative, the institutionalised church runs into an inconvenient truth, God keeps choosing the second born, not the first. He chooses the ‘runt of the family litter, not the pride of the parents. He chooses the overlooked, not those in the centre. He chooses the voices on the margins, not those in the halls of power. He chooses the broken, not the sure of themselves. The victims over the perpetrators and he dwells among the small, weak and vulnerable community of slaves in the desert, in preference to the great empires of the age because, because friends his power is perfected in weakness. (2 Cor 12:9) or to translate it another way; where your power ends, mine begins.
God first spoke to me through those wondrous passages of 1 Cor 1. And yet, I confess that this has been a hard lesson for me to learn; but I have become convinced that if we are to seek first the kingdom of God, our first step is to seek our own brokenness embrace our own weakness and allow our own vulnerability.
Here’s how I
know, God’s going to do something in this place; at Waratah…people cry. This is
a place where you can shed tears. (I can’t think of a more compelling thing to
stick on a church sign.) Here, you can admit weakness. Seek first his
kingdom…..not your own delusions of grandure and his
righteousness, not your own need to win the argument and all these things (the
whole kingdom life) will be added unto you. You can measure how much this has
become a reality in your life, but the level of anxious regarding tomorrow.
[1] Willard, Dallas: The Divine Conspiracy (London: William Collins, 1998) p230
[2] Nouwen, Henri J.M. Reaching Out; The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (New York: Doubleday, 1975) p116
[3] Carey Neuhoff Leadership Podcast Episode 300
[4] Willard, Dallas: The Divine Conspiracy (London: William Collins, 1998) p231
[5] Crabb, Larry. Finding God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993)