Second Sunday before Lent
“seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you ”
Summary
No worries! Who is Jesus kidding when he tells us not to worry in Matthew 6:25-34. Worry is, after all, an essential part of life, it helps us to focus on what matters. And that is the point Jesus is making, what are we worried about and what does it reveal about what is important to us?
When we focus on ourselves, our own survival, success and security, we focus what we lack, what we have not got, what we might lose. Instead, Jesus asks us to shift focus and concentrate on the kingdom of God. At first this might appear to increase the number of things to worry about: no longer do we worry just about our own health and well-being but that of the whole planet and all the people in it. Indeed, the letter to the Romans, 8:18-25, compares the work of encouraging the kingdom of God to the pains of labour. Yet, the pains of labour are bearable because we know that we are bringing new life to birth.
The door to happiness opens outwards and involves a certain level of self-forgetfulness; an ability to look beyond our own lives and see how they are intimately connected with lives of others and with the whole of creation. To the extent that we can lay aside our own concerns and look to the concerns of the Kingdom, we learn to focus, not on what we don’t have but what we do and, more importantly, how we can use it.
FIRST READING
Romans 8: 18-25
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
GOSPEL
Matthew 6: 25-34
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will 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 of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the gentiles who seek all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
