February 27, 2011 - The 8th Sunday in Ordinary Time
First Reading - Isaiah 49: 14-15
Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; my LORD has forgotten me.”
Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget, I will never forget you.
Psalm 62: 2-3, 6-7, 8-9
R. (6a) Rest in God alone, my soul.
Only in God is my soul at rest; from him comes my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be disturbed at all.
R. Rest in God alone, my soul.
Only in God be at rest, my soul, for from him comes my hope.
He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be disturbed.
R. Rest in God alone, my soul.
With God is my safety and my glory, he is the rock of my strength; my refuge is in God.
Trust in him at all times, O my people! Pour out your hearts before him.
R. Rest in God alone, my soul.
Second Reading - 1 Corinthians 4: 1-5
Brothers and sisters: Thus should one regard us: as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Now it is of course required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.
It does not concern me in the least that I be judged by you or any human tribunal; I do not even pass judgment on myself; I am not conscious of anything against me, but I do not thereby stand acquitted; the one who judges me is the Lord. Therefore do not make any judgment before the appointed time, until the Lord comes, for he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will manifest the motives of our hearts, and then everyone will receive praise from God.
Gospel - Matthew 6: 24-34
Jesus said to his disciples: “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. “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 clothing? 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 not you more important than they?
Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? 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.
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? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.
Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.
Reflection
Running over 80 plays per game (that’s a lot) and with an average of only 23 seconds between them (that’s not very long), the Oregon offense under Head Coach Chip Kelly garnered a ton of national attention this past college football season. The Ducks made it all the way to the National Championship Game with this unusually fast-paced no-huddle offensive approach, averaging more points per game than any other team in the country. Their conference foes in the PAC-10 were completely overwhelmed by this potent assault, and opposing coaches no doubt have spent long hours in the film room trying to identify weaknesses in the attack and brainstorming with conditioning staff to devise ways to better prepare their players to face the Ducks this coming season.Imagine the Head Coach at UCLA had come up with what he thought was a surefire plan to stifle the mighty Oregon offense. Then imagine that he shared his confidence with the team at the beginning of off-season practice, but insisted that the key to success would be the players focusing on their daily workouts with all their energy and not worrying about the game itself.
And yet, human nature being what it is, the UCLA players constantly are going up to the Coach, all throughout spring training and summer workouts, asking, “How are we going to account for the tempo in the 4th quarter of games? How are we going to substitute our defensive tackles quickly enough that we can get set in time for the next snap?” After all, Oregon pasted UCLA 60-13 last year, and the Bruins are eager to find out the strategy for victory this time around. And the Coach continually reminds the players that it’s his job to worry about all of that; their job is to keep doing the tackling drills and running the wind sprints at daily workouts that the coaching staff asks them to do. “Don’t worry about the Oregon game,” you could imagine the Coach saying, “Just focus on today’s practice.”
Today, we hear Jesus saying something similar to the disciples. They are excited. Jittery. Full of energy. Eager to be thrown into the game. And they keep asking him, “When are we gonna go to Jerusalem?” “When will we confront the Pharisees?” “That whole multiplication of the loaves thing was great; when are we gonna do that again?” If the first disciples are anything like we are today, they were anxious to know what was coming next; they wanted to hear the long-term plan.
And Jesus turns to them and quashes all of that. “Do not worry about tomorrow,” he tells them. “Tomorrow will take care of itself.” You could imagine how frustrating that must have been for the disciples to hear! Should they be preparing for a long journey? Should they expect to stay in the current village another month? Were they going to be going out and performing healings? What was coming next?
So why was Jesus pushing back at them and insisting they not worry about tomorrow? After all, it seems somewhat foolish to tell them not to plan ahead. And his words about God feeding the birds of the air and clothing the flowers of the field--what is that all about? Is God supposed to just leave a package of food and clothing on our doorstep each morning? How are we to understand his words?
In order to comprehend what Jesus is saying here, it is essential to understand what he is NOT saying, namely that we should just live for the moment and never worry about anything coming up in the future. He is not telling us we should shrug our shoulders and say, “Eh... the final exam isn’t until next week; let tomorrow take care of tomorrow, and God will provide.” He is not telling us that we don’t have to look for a job, pursue a relationship, or go about the business of daily life. Quite the opposite. His example of the flowers and birds is telling us that we should precisely go about taking care of our daily business.
What Jesus is saying is that, the bird doesn’t rack itself with anxiety about its long-term future. It merely does what birds do--it flies around, looks for food, builds a nest, and does all of the things that give it its daily purpose as a bird. And it is precisely in focusing on these bird-ly tasks that it finds it is fulfilled in all of its bird-ness. In doing what birds do, it discovers that it is fed, it has supplies for a home, and it has the opportunity to raise a family. Too, a plant is focused simply on growing and doing all of the things a plant does, i.e. using photosynthesis to convert the sunlight to energy and drawing water from the soil to grow, and precisely in doing those things, the plant discovers that, because of the way it was designed by God, it flowers and reaches its fulfillment as a plant.
Jesus is saying the same thing to us. He is not calling us to inactivity or passivity; he is emphatically not advocating that we just languish in life and wait for God to feed us or clothe us. Rather, he is saying that, if, like the bird and plant, we go about carrying out the daily tasks that are in keeping with our design and trust in that approach, we will realize we have all that we need and that we are flourishing and fulfilled. Precisely in going to school, interacting with others, cultivating our health and musical interests, we will discover that we are “blossoming,” and that God puts things in our lives to bring us fulfillment, not as a bird, but as a human being.
One could imagine the UCLA coach saying to his players, “Don’t worry about how we’ll substitute in the 4th quarter; just do your conditioning drills now, and you’re going to find when the game rolls around, that precisely in doing the day-to-day workouts I’ve given you, you are ready for this game, without even realizing it.”
Jesus said to the disciples, stop working yourself into a ball of stress over when we’ll go into Jerusalem, and how that’ll all work out. Just do the task of today--talk to the people of this village, listen to the stories they share--and you’re going to realize that all of this stuff right now I am asking you to do is preparing you for what’s coming next. Let me worry about long-term plans--your job is just to do the very best you can with the current assignment.
God says the same thing to us today. Don’t worry about where you’ll meet your future husband or wife; stop working yourself into a ball of anxiety over whether you’ll get into law school or if you’ll find a job--for right now, just focus on the tasks in front of you today. Cultivate the relationships you currently have--and be open to the ones God puts in your life (just as the bird keeps its eyes open and is prepared to spot a meal it sees in the grass below that it did not expect to be there)--and you will find that God “feeds” you, that God “clothes” you. That if we focus on being a good friend and being open to human relationship around us, God will place the “right” person in our lives.
And that, rather than stress about whether we will get into law school or if we will find a job, that precisely in studying for this final or focusing on our LSAT class today, that that very activity will be what results in us getting into law school or being offered a job. Perhaps we put aside the worry about where we’ll be hired, and we throw so much energy into our current paper, that, once our professor reads it, she comes to us and says, “I’ve just finished your paper, and a friend of mine at Princeton has asked me to identify someone for this fellowship she has to offer... and based on your research, I see here, I think you would be a great fit.”
Precisely in taking notes in class--rather than worrying about the final, we will find ourselves learning the material and thus preparing ourselves for the final. Precisely in running the drills--and not worrying about the Oregon game--the players will discover that they have been prepared for the game. Precisely in doing what it is God is asking us to do right now in our lives--instead of racking ourselves with anxiety over what’s coming next-- we trust that we will come to see, in retrospect, that it was part of God’s plan precisely to get us ready for what is to come. “Tomorrow will take care of itself,” is not a call to passivity--it is a call to great activity. And a trust that that activity will yield precisely the sort of fulfillment and happiness that we’re trying to attain.
Reflection Questions
1. Are there any areas of your life that you are currently very stressed about? School? Dating? Jobs? What do you think Jesus in today’s Gospel has to say to you about those areas?
2. Do you find it difficult to trust in God’s plan and to give that anxiety for the future over to God? How have you tried to deal with that stress or anxiety?
3. In your past experience, when you have focused on the tasks in front of you and trusted in God to take care of the big picture, have you found that it worked out? If not, what do you think was going on? If so, how did it feel when things all came together?
4. Moving forward, how might you do a better job of letting “tomorrow take care of tomorrow?” What concrete steps can you take to worry less about the future?
