Here’s a reflection on Covid-19, change, and uncertainty.
When we are anxious or worried our mind is squeezed into a tighter and more narrow view of ourselves and the world. It’s not a comforting hug. It’s a death grip.
You may be feeling squeezed right now by a constant barrage of information and uncertainty. Such anxiety squeezes God out.
Jesus spoke to a crowd of folks who were used to being squeezed by anxiety. He knew he was speaking to many who counted on each day’s work and each day’s decisions in order to make it into the next. The poor make multitudes of decisions everyday, asking themselves questions designed for survival. They are constantly working out opportunity cost. This is how scarcity works.
If I buy this I won’t be able to purchase that.
If I buy this will I have enough at the end of the month?
If I don’t buy this who in my family will miss it?
If we don’t get enough work in this day,
what else will we have to miss out on?
If I don’t get this now it won’t be here for me latter.
What’s going to make me feel better?
The answer to that last question is so important.
When anxiety runs deep it makes all of us poor.
Some of us have become masters of managing scarcity in order to make aspects of our lives work. Students are masters of this with time and their own energy. However, as I also discovered, students are masters of scarcity until they are not! We cannot be in control of everything all the time!
Jesus offers another way through His presence and the promise of His peace. To the anxious His words must have sounded outrageous.
Matthew 6:24-34, NIV
24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Jesus is brilliant.
Jesus knows that when we worry we have settled for a different master than our Heavenly Father. He knows that when we worry we have set our hearts and the issue of our security on other matters. He knows that when we worry we can settle for shortsighted acts of unrighteousness (like hoarding) in order to secure the future for ourselves. He knows that when we worry we are not able to see the opportunity of His Kingdom in each and every day.
Ugh! I write this with compassion for you and for me.
When the world worries are we going to act with love?
When the world worries are we going to live open to Jesus and His Kingdom?
When the world worries will we make adjustments with them and find the opportunity in this moment to love?
You and I can love by taking the advisable precautions.
You and I can love by reaching out to another and listening.
You and I can love by sharing resources from what we have.
You and I can love by praying with another and setting our hearts and lives together before our Heavenly Father.
You and I can love by reading the Word of God together.
You and I can love by setting our hope on Jesus.
The danger before us is not just a matter of what we run out of. The danger before us is a matter of believing we are alone.
Pause. Watch a bird. Look at flower. Locate yourself in this world.
Pray. Enter the embrace of God in His communion — The communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Locate yourself in His Communion.
Pastor. Reach out to someone else and invite them into the realities of Jesus’ Kingdom with you. Locate yourself in relation with others.