Seek ye first

Seek ye first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33)

I have been thinking about this little text - a part of Jesus' sermon on the mount.  It is a familiar one and for a certain generation of Christians evokes an over-sung worship chorus.  It is really solid advice and I am down with it.  But I have a question: How?  How does one seek first the kingdom of God? 

Well, when in doubt, check what the text says - in this case what Jesus says about it in Matthew.  Sadly, in this context, Jesus' focus is not the "how-to".  The above mentioned line comes at the end of Jesus' discussion or rather illustration of God's provision for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.  These illustrations, in turn, come just after his command that we not be anxious about our life, "what you will eat or what you will drink." (Matthew 6:25)  Which, in turn, comes right after this statement:

"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and money" (Matthew 6:24)

So here is how all the dots connect.  You can only serve one master - God or money.  You are anxious and afraid about having "enough".  Anxiety about having enough is a sign that we are serving the money master, not God.  The illustrations of God feeding the birds of the air and clothing the field in beauty are there to remind us that God is quite the provider. That there is no need to worry about having enough, he's always provding enough.  So therefore seek first his kingdom and all these other things will be added.  The "seek ye first" command is the imperative which flows from the "You cannot serve God and money" declarative.

You can't serve God and money, therefore seek first the kingdom of God.  Pick one.  The right one. It is classic God.  Presenting us with options and then telling us which to choose - without coersion I parenthetically add.  We see a similar thing in Deuteronomy: 

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.  Therefore choose life...  (Deuteronomy 30:19)

So in the sermon on the mount, Jesus is making the options clear to us.  Be enslaved to money and worry, or seek the kingdom of God.  I'm down the latter option - seeking the kingdom of God.  But how?

There was a time when I would have confidently said this is it:  Live a morally good life, study the scritpures, and pray.  Sound simple, no?  But I find myself in the place of the rich young ruler who said, "All these I have kept.  What do I still lack?"  (Matthew 19:20) The morality of my life, and my diligence in study and prayer are open to the judgement of God, of course.  I am aware of a number of failings in those departments.  But my point is not how well I have sought the kingdom according those criteria, but rather, "What do I still lack?"  Because I do still lack something - at least it seems that way to me.

In both the sermon on the mount text and in the story of the rich young ruler cited here, God's competitor is wealth, money.  The rich guy went away because Jesus told him to sell his considerable wealth, give to the poor and then to follow him.  I cannot go further in trying to understand what it means to seek his kingdom without starting here.  Money, or preoccupation with it, is in the way.

I cannot serve God and seek his kingdom, and be first concerned with the security of wealth - by wealth I mean reasonable comfort not an island in the Carribean.  This kind of hits me between the eyes right now.  My salary has recently been reduced.  I am developing ways of making up the difference, but find myself a little anxious and fearful about what we shall eat and what we shall wear.  That underlines problem number One in my quest to seek his kingdom.  I am trying to serve two masters.

My immediate defense is that I need to concern myself with the practical realities of housing, feeding and clothing my family.  Mustn't be so heavenly minded that I am no earthly good, as they say.  But Jesus presents us with a relationship to God which actually excludes my "concern" for practical realities.  And by concern I mean worry.  The "no earthly good" critique seems rather out of place.  In Jesus, God is our Father who loves and provides for very earthly realities:

"Therefore do not be anxious saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For the Gentiles (the ones who don't have this relationship with God) seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all." (Matthew 6:31-32)

God knows what I need.  So leave that worry aside.  Until I do that there is no seeking of his kingdom.  That is a beginning place.

Beating a dead horse

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago (Temperance) that the village I grew up in was a tourist attraction - a village restored to its 1860s glory.  Glory is perhaps a large word to describe it - I might be overselling.  In any case, one of the attractions of the village was a ride in a wagon pulled by a team of plodding draught horses.  "Plodding" and "draught horses" will help you understand that this was not a Kentucky Derby nor a Ben Hur chariot race experience.  Exciting it was not.  But it was charming and kids always loved it.  Delightful and uneventful.  Except for one day.

They say you can tell the age of a horse by checking its teeth.  I have never learned that particular interpretive skill, and have no plans to develop it.  But if I had done, and then checked the horses that day, I might have known that for one of them the "best before" date had expired.  Which is what he did on the ride.  Expired.  Sadly I did not witness this village excitement, but the tale spread like only town gossip can.

My source was our neighbor, whose family owned the local garage and the only tow truck in town.  "What's the connection?" you might ask.  How else does one remove the remains of a large (think Budwiser Clydesdale) equine?  The tow truck was called and we were later regaled with details of the said towing.  My neighbor discovered something of which I would not immediately think.   It seems that death reduces a physical body's ability for bladder control.

Why am I telling you this cheaply sensationalist story?  It was the only amusing way I could think of to introduce the idea of beating a dead horse.  I know that no beating occurred. But there was a dead horse. And that's something.*

To beat a dead horse is to waste time and energy on something that is not going to change.  And it is recommended that one does not beat a dead horse.  This bit of pithy advice is in contrast to widely distributed upteenth generation photocopies of a half-swallowed frog gripping the neck of a very hungry egret with the caption, "Never, never, never give up."  Now I admire tenacity, but not all situations call for tenacity.  There is a time, the writer Ecclesiastes tells us, for everything.  And to the point, "a time to search and a time to give up." (Ecclesiates 3:6, NIV)

So why am I so reticent to give up on things?  Because culturally, I think, to give up is to fail.  It has a  negative moral connotation.   Furthermore, if someone were to ask me, "are you going to give up?" or more likely, "are you JUST going to give up?" I would immediately feel ashamed of my failure and lack of stick-to-it-iveness.  (And if the "just" is included in the question the shame comes in the package, free of charge.)  It is just wrong to give up - I think so, as does the one who has asked me.  But, there IS a time to give up.

If you want to continue to think about this biblically, and include another barnyard animal in the bargain, I would direct your attention to Jesus' words, "Do not cast your pearls before swine." (Matthew 7:6)  Or his advice to the disciples as they went out two by two, "and if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town." (Matthew 10:14)  Both of these sound kind of givey-uppy to me.  But in both, Jesus himself tells us that there ARE things that are not a good use of our time and effort. And sometimes those things are particular people - not to put too fine a point on it.  There is a time to call it quits and to spare the poor sad horse.  And not to feel ashamed of it.

The difficulty is, as always, in discerning when is the time to be the half-swallowed frog and when is the time to let the horse alone.  It is beyond the scope of this modest text or my equally modest abilities to suggest a method of discernment.  But the discernment problem does not change the fact that, whatever "people" might say, there really is no point in beating a dead horse.



*My motivating philosophy in life is, "If you can't be good at it, at least be funny."

Afraid. And proud of it

I have a few guilty pleasures.  One example: I hide and hoard milk chocolate when I get it.  The guilty part is that it is MILK chocolate.  In the circles I run with, dark chocolate is the preference of the highbrow, cultivated palate.  I would rather eat nothing than dark chocolate.  It holds zero temptation for me.  But the lowbrow milk chocolate - that’s a horse of a different color.  I have two 100 gram bars of it hidden in my desk this very moment (and will now need to hide it somewhere else in case my children read this).

But I have been thinking about a guilty displeasure recently.  Fear.  You can call it fear or call it anxiety but it is what we feel whenever we find ourselves up against something bigger than ourselves.  Which, if you think about it, is quite a lot of the time.  It’s not pleasurable as a feeling itself. On top of that you aren’t supposed to be afraid.  Or that’s what I hear.

Faith is about trusting in God.  And if I trust in God, well then, I have nothing to feel anxious about.  God is bigger than anything.  In spite of this solid theological assertion I find myself feeling afraid from time to time. Viola, the guilty displeasure.  Clearly I haven’t enough faith because if I did, I wouldn’t feel afraid.  Not only am I anxious I am an anxious infidel. Fail.

I think this way of thinking utterly wrong-headed. Here’s the problem.  Someone, perhaps me, has assumed that having “negative” emotions as somehow morally or spiritually wrong.  I feel sad.  I shouldn’t because God loves me.  I feel afraid.  I shouldn’t because God is bigger than my problem.  My feelings then are evidence of my faithlessness.  That’s the wrong-headed bit.

Here’s a tip for life: Never use “should” or its negation in a sentence containing an emotive state.  Examples: I should feel happy.  I shouldn’t feel angry.  Nonsensical.  And unhelpful because the should statement doesn’t change the feeling - it just seasons it with shame.

Fear, or sadness or anger for that matter, is a fact of life.  There are things that are scary, that seem to be or actually are bigger than me.  There are things that could actually bring me hurt or harm.  Not feeling fear would be a sign that I do not have a firm grasp on the reality of the situation.

I feel all sorts of things that are negative and that does NOT mean I have a defect of faith.  Emotions exist for a reason.  They are part of God’s design in us.  Gifts, actually.  They tell us something.  In the case of fear, that something is looming large and, in some way, threatening.  I then need to ask, “What is that something?”

I am not here advocating a state of cowardly living.  The fear tells me something threatens.  Once I know what the something is I have to decide what to do about that threat. And I do need to face it in some way. Here’s where the faith comes in - trusting to God what I have to do to face that fear.  Trusting in God when I need to step out and take action in faith.  Or trusting by doing nothing, having faith that God will deliver me.    

In that exercise of faith I must be truthful and realistic. I have experienced God’s intervention or empowerment a hundred times in the past I know he will come through.  He does not fail.  But I still tremble a little.  To take away that fear, or a sadness is to make me less human.

I think of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  Threatened with the fate of the fiery furnace they stuck to their guns and refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar. (Daniel 3)  Courageous men they were.  Faithful men.  That does not mean they were not afraid.  They say to Nebuchadnezzar:

“O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. BUT IF NOT, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” Daniel 3:16-18, ESV, emphasis mine.

I want you to pay attention to the BUT IF NOT.  There was a question. And there is always a question in matters of real faith and trust.  And where there is a question, an unknown, there is fear or anxiety.  They were undaunted in their resolve not because of an eradication of fear, but in refusing to let fear be the last word.

So I cling to my guilty pleasures and displeasures.  Afraid and proud of it.