Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Do not worry … “ Mt 6:25
I read recently that the first thing that catches your eye when you walk into Facebook’s corporate headquarters is an enormous mural. On it, written in huge letters, is this question:
WHAT WOULD YOUR LIFE BE LIKE IF YOU WERE NOT AFRAID?
Essentially, that’s precisely the point Jesus is making in today’s gospel reading. Only Jesus puts it more directly and succinctly:
“Do not worry.”
Worry, of course, is a form of fear. And a case could be made that all sin, all transgressions of the heart, are ultimately sourced in fear.
The fear that we are all tempted to be overpowered by is this:
I will not get enough – enough money, enough things, enough power, enough fame, enough attention, enough love, enough glory.
Then fear produces a bevy of demons within us: lying, stealing, vengefulness, violence, sexual aggression, bullying, drug abuse – all are a result of the search for “more, and more, and more” – causing us to grab for what will satisfy at the moment; causing us to repeat the story of Adam and Eve in our own lives – the story where they seize the “fruit of the tree” that did not belong to them.
Remember that story? Adam and Eve are surrounded by abundance. They’ve got it all. Everything.
Then the snake whispers:
“You can have more. And even more after that. You can be like God and have infinite power and glory.”
Fear – the kind that ends up causing us all our worrying – is so compelling a force in our lives that the Bible repeats the phrase “Do not be afraid” 365 times – one for each day, for each year in our lives.
Psychiatrist, Edward Hallowell, claims that fear and the worry it produces is a “disease of the imagination.”
Worry, he says, is “insidious and invisible, like a virus. It sets upon you unwanted and unbidden, subtly stealing its way into your consciousness until it dominates your life. As worry infiltrates your mind, it diminishes your ability to enjoy your family, your friends, your physical being, and your achievements because you live in fear of what might go wrong. It then undermines your ability to work, to love, and to play.”
Fear is life’s number one terrorist, its number one “hostage-taker.”
When fear and the worry it produces comes upon us, it’s like we’ve been captured by a demonic force. It’s like being “owned” by fear, possessed by it. That’s the reason that fear is the number one motivator for people to seek counseling. It is also the number one rationale underlying so many people using medications to ease their inner emptiness caused by excessive worry.
All of which Jesus is trying to counter in today’s gospel.
Although it may sound like it, Jesus is not really saying that we shouldn’t be concerned about our families and how they are to eat and dress. He’s not really telling us that we shouldn’t care about obtaining a job that will pay wages sufficient to provide enough of these material goods.
The key word here, though, is “enough.”
All too often, it seems, enough isn’t nearly enough. Instead we’re in a constant and endless pursuit of the “more” – more money, more things, more excitement, more pleasure.
It just never seems to be enough.
That’s why Jesus begins the gospel today with these startling words: “No one can serve two masters.”
By using the word “serve,” Jesus is talking about a form of enslavement. He’s telling us that we too easily become slaves to our desires, slaves who begin to worship false gods.
Jesus is not suggesting that money in itself is evil. What he is questioning is whether money has become an idol. Are we engaging in a form of idolatry?
“No one can serve two masters,” Jesus tells us and calls us each to say “NO” to the idolatry of money; to say “NO” to an economy based on exclusion; to say “No” to the inequality which spawns violence.
What Jesus says “Yes” to is the very same thing that Jesus insists on throughout all the gospels: the abundance of life shared equitably by all.
Such a path, the path of Jesus, will then lead us away from perhaps the greatest of all demons – fear, anxiety, excessive worry.
Listen again to the beautifully tender words of Jesus in today’s gospel as rendered by The Message: The Bible Translated in Contemporary Language:
“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?
If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers … 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.
Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out.
Do not be afraid. You’re my dearest friends.”
And, once again, consider this question:
WHAT WOULD YOUR LIFE BE LIKE IF YOU WERE NOT AFRAID?
