Mt 6: 24-34
“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
“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 can any of you by worrying 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 strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for 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.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Do What You Can in God’s Service
I imagine today’s Gospel being the bane of many a financial advisor.
“No, no – you have to save! How else will you retire? Gather the proverbial grain into the proverbial barn; we aren’t birds, after all!”
And of course, that’s true. We each have responsibilities, people we care for, communities of which we are a part. That’s foundational to Catholic social teaching, no? Rights and responsibilities. We put ourselves and our stuff at the service of the common good.
But that approach, that desire to give of self and stuff to others, can’t be the service of mammon, can it? If I have what I need and give what I can, aren’t I following Christ?
I think the anxiety, the worry, the preoccupation with status and comfort and the what-comes-next of it all is where Christ cautions us. That path easily tempts us to riches, honor and pride; look at me and all my stuff, all my generosity.
And we worry about maintaining that appearance. We hold on to it too tightly. There’s the mammon.
So, relax. Let go. Let God be God, and you do what you can – what God desires – in God’s service. Nothing more. Nothing less.
—Eric A. Clayton is the author of Cannonball Moments: Telling Your Story, Deepening Your Faith, and the deputy director of communications at the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.
Prayer
Good and gracious God, we try to offer you the best of what we have, without holding anything back. Help us to be open to sharing what we have, for your greater glory. We pray this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.
—Jesuit Prayer team