You can view this week’s Revised Common Lectionary texts here: http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=20 (right-click the link to open a separate tab or window).
Isaiah 49:8-16a
This week’s OT text is from the part of Isaiah (chapters 40-55) referred to as “Second Isaiah,” which dates from the period of the Babylonian Exile (J.J.M. Roberts says “probably” between 545 and 539 BC, just before God’s people were allowed to return to their land). These chapters carry an overall tone of comfort, of promise that they will be going home. The thing that most strikes me about this reading is the emphasis on God’s timing – that God will act on behalf of God’s people when the time is right, and in the meantime God’s people should not lose faith and hope.
It starts out referring to a “time of favor” and a “day of salvation” when God will help his people, and it goes on to describe how God will care for the people when that time comes and they journey back home. God will feed them and quench their thirst (vs. 9-10), and God will be bringing home exiles from all over (v. 12). Vs. 14-16 address the question whether God has forgotten Zion (Jerusalem Zion
I’m betting this concept of God acting according to God’s timing is difficult for most of us, who live with the general expectation of being able to get anything-anywhere-anytime. Yet, isn’t it true that the really big and amazing things – like birth, healing, reconciliation - happen in their own time and require faith and patience?
Matthew 6:24-34
This week’s Gospel reading is quite appropriate in the context of Matthew’s gospel: just a little earlier in the story, at least four of the disciples whom Jesus is addressing here quit their jobs in order to hit the road with him (see 4:18-22). And just a couple of chapters after the Sermon on the Mount we see Matthew himself leave his tax booth in the same way (9:9). So it makes sense that his followers might be worried about how they’re going to make ends meet; and it makes sense that this passage would speak to folks who may have lost their jobs, or who live on the edge economically. What’s interesting to me is that even those of us who have plenty to live on can identify with this kind of anxiety. It makes me think Jesus might really be onto something here.
I think we tend to have kind of a duel reaction to this text. On the one hand, we think, “You’re right, Jesus – I shouldn’t worry, everything will be o.k.” On the other hand, we kind of bristle: “But don’t we need jobs?! And is it really a bad idea not to set some extra aside for the worries that tomorrow brings?”
But what is Jesus saying here? He’s not saying, “Don’t work” or “Don’t earn a living,” but rather “Don’t worry.” (Note: in vs. 25-34, the word “worry” appears no less than six times.) I don’t know about you, but it’s the worrying about life more than life itself that always does me in. No sooner have I completed a task at work than I’m worrying about how it’s going to play out. And when things are going well, I can still worry because something might change, in fact everything could unravel! Worrying is my way of trying to control the future, or change the past. “Maybe I should have done x instead of y. What if z happens – what will I do then?” And the real problem with worrying is that it’s completely atheistic: it leaves no room for God.
Which is why Jesus points out the birds and the lilies: because God takes care of them. And doesn’t it stand to reason that God will also take care of us? “Your heavenly Father knows you need all these things,” he says. Jesus is calling us to replace all our worrying with a little faith in God’s providence; and if we need to busy ourselves with something, “strive first for the kingdom of God
Works Consulted:
J.J.M. Roberts’ notes to the Isaiah text in the HarperCollins Study Bible
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