Scripture and
I do not always seem to exist in the same reality. The height of this
uneasy co-existence is Matthew 6:25-34. Jesus tells listeners not worry
about what they will eat or wear. Instead, seek the Kingdom. I get
stuck at verses 32 and 33. Jesus says that such worry is not
characteristic for his followers. The Father knows what we need and will
provide it. Is the Father
watching? People starved to death as I tried to craft a readable
opening paragraph. Even for those who do not die, basic needs being met
seems to be an unreasonable dream for many.
I should make
a few pronouncements. I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that he
is a human who stands guiltless before The Father. He is not someone who
speaks untruthfully or irresponsibly. I also believe that The Father is
good rather than evil. Finally, I believe that the accounts in the Bible
– particularly in the Gospels – should be taken seriously.
I hope this essay will help to make sense of this passage. To begin, the essay will expresses my confusion with Matthew 6:25-34 to define a question. The middle portions are data to answer my question; first by looking to writers who consider the problem of evil and second by turning to commentaries and articles about this passage. I will conclude by proposing a dark answer to the question but also include a kick so the darkness will bleed daylight.[1]
First is the
secular truth. Christians in history and today live without adequate
access to the necessities of life. Forget “health-and-wealth”. To
assume that being a Christian automatically leads to enough food is to mock the
suffering faith of Christians today and before us.
Second is the theological truth. Christianity assumes that blessings are for undeserving people. While the primary undeserved blessing is forgiveness, we are told that God created a physical world with the tools for protection to anyone regardless of merit. Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:45) Jesus explains that the sun rises and the rain falls on both the just and unjust (or, to paraphrase it in a troubling way – from Shad in Rose Garden – the rain “falls whether you’re Ghandi or you’re Adolf.”)
“Hunger” is a catchall for need of food,
clothing, shelter, and other necessities of life. I will not comment on
illness or injury, but only the sorts of security associated with work.
The connection between health and work is not as obvious as work and
food. The sharp difference between modern medicine and 1st
Century medicine further complicates the question. I’ll leave it to
someone else.
Was
Jesus wrong to promise that the Father will feed and clothe us? I hope to show
that he wasn’t.
†
I want to
bring the problem of evil to the discussion about Matthew 6:25-34. The
problem, How could an all-good and all-powerful
God allow suffering, evil, and pain in the world? certainly applies.
Not only does an all-good and all-powerful God seem to allow hunger, he seems
to do so after saying he wouldn’t. I turned to three books – The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis; God, Medicine, and Suffering by Stanley
Hauerwas; and, Evil and the Justice of
God by N. T. Wright – with my question – Was Jesus wrong to promise that the Father will feed and clothe
us? – and looked for help to answer it. I will limit myself to two helps from each book.
Lewis’ claim
is not only that Christianity is unable to solve the problem of pain, but also
that it creates the problem. People can readily sense the pain in the
world and Christianity claims that a “righteous and loving” God
exists.
How does
Lewis help? One, to claim that God can do the impossible we need to
understand what “impossible” means. Impossible miracles are possible for
Jesus because there is nothing logically inconsistent about an all-powerful God
having the ability to manipulate what he created. God cannot, however, do
the logically inconsistent. For example, God cannot create a free
creature and then eliminate all elements of choice from creation. Freedom
would not be part of the creature’s attributes.[3] Two, a good deal of pain is caused by human evil.[4] God uses his goodness and power to end human suffering,
though. This began with the death and resurrection of Jesus, which is how
he responded both to evil and to a damaged creation. It is a slow-going
response, but it continues today. Perhaps God sees that this is the only
workable solution.[5]
Hauerwas
contends that we should not try to answer the problem of evil because any
answer we can come up with does nothing to help us know God better.
Instead, Christians should live lives that “manifest God’s glory” so that we
can accept that God is silent in some cases.[6]
What is
Hauerwas’ contribution? One help is in his consideration of Walter
Brueggeman’s The Message of the Psalms.
He suggests that it is impossible to understand evil if we ignore the fact that
it is connected to society’s power structures. Our question, then, should
be What power structure is acting in a
way that makes us question God’s existence?[7] Another help is the clear call for Christians to acknowledge the
existence of pain. If we ignore it, we are acting faithlessly.
Acknowledging pain, however, begins to point to God’s provision of a response
to injustice. We must lament the existence of pain and evil because
lament is a “cry of protest.”[8]
Wright argues
that we will not solve the problem of evil in the present age, nor is it our
responsibility to do so. Instead, we should demonstrate God’s future age
to the world today.[9]
He helps,
first by suggesting that we imagine. We need to imagine what the New
Earth will be like; a world with vibrancy, with freedom, without slavery,
without corruption. We then begin to live as if we live there now.
Imagination guides our journey until the New Earth is here. We are part
of the solution to the problem of evil.[10] Wright also helps by defining
the problem in a slightly different fashion than Lewis or Hauerwas. The
problem includes acknowledging both that evil exists and also that that we do
not know how to respond to it in an absolute way.[11]
†
I want to
note two things about my approach to Matthew 6:25-34 and then highlight four
themes identified by commentaries, books, and articles.
The first
note I want to make is obvious but needed. Matthew 6:25-34 is part of the
Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 5-7. Understand how I see this
larger passage: The Sermon on the Mount
is a call to a radical discipleship that is shaped by absolute submission to
the will of God.
A couple of
writers crystalize my understanding. Martin Goldsmith writes that the
Sermon on the Mount is multi-focused, with thoughts about the Kingdom,
righteousness, reward, mission, authority, and how to teach. Each focus
calls listeners to a “radical and total commitment and trust” in Jesus.
Failure to do this means an incomplete discipleship.[12] David Greenwood writes that Jesus does not propose an abstract
morality in the Sermon on the Mount but rather demonstrates the Father’s plan
for humanity. The sermon is a call both to reflect this plan and to
accept the rule of God.[13]
Second, I
often hear people refer to an understanding about the Sermon on the Mount
summarized as follows: The Sermon on the
Mount is not a call for how we are supposed to live today, but is instead a
description of what the fulfilled Kingdom will look like so we understand how
far away we are from it. I did not encounter any writers make this
argument in what I read, so I am not able to interact with it except in the
above strawman summary. My lack of interaction with the idea is an
accident of the ideas presented in the sources I have available to me, rather
than a scoffing dismissal.
There are
four themes in Matthew 6:25-34. First, Jesus tells listeners to seek the
Kingdom of God while trusting that God will provide for the necessities of
life. Second, Jesus tells listeners that attempts to achieve financial
security in an absolute sense are futile. Third, Jesus is not telling
listeners that work and preparedness are unworthy for disciples. Fourth,
Jesus is calling for a community of generosity among his disciples. These
themes are inseparable.
Seeking the Kingdom while trusting that the Father
will provide is not the same as saying that if we do good
things, God will reward us financially. Instead, it is saying that our
role as disciples is to seek the Kingdom and that God’s role is to provide for
us. The Father cares for fields and birds – good parts of his creation.
People are the very good part of the
Father’s creation. If the good/very good differentiation is indeed true,
then it makes sense that the Father cares for people at least as much as birds.[14] The essence of this passage, then, is trust. If we trust
the Father rather than possessions for security, generous use of our
possessions will be an inevitable demonstration.[15] Our priority should therefore be
the Kingdom. Even good work with noble goals should be secondary to our
commitment to the Kingdom.[16]
Claiming
that absolute financial security is futile means
acknowledging that money is a good tool, but also that it neither can be
trusted to provide everything that we need even when it works properly nor can
be trusted to be an always available resource. Understanding our context
is important if we are going to see what Jesus may be saying. Our context
teaches us to see ourselves as consumers and that spending money makes our
society function properly. The idea that buying more things equals
security is the false prophesy of this teaching.[17] The idea is wrong not only because it flies in the face of the
truth that the Father is our ultimate source of security, but also because it
fails to acknowledge that we have no idea whether we may lose access to our
stuff, whether through robbery, falling stocks, or disaster by the end of the
day tomorrow.[18]
Looking to the Father for security involves seeing work and forethought as valuable tools to accept His offer of security. Matthew 6:25-34 tells us that nothing can negate our value as people. Birds do not eat and lilies do not grow through chance; the birds gather and wildflower seeds are spread.[19] We are not being told to neglect work or effort. We are being told that our work is not the source of our security. God still has to provide for us in order for work to have benefit.[20] Disciples should conduct work with the mindset that it is one of the ways that we rely on the Father. If we do so, the possessions that come from work will be seen as the Father’s provision.[21]
Jesus’ claim includes a call to generosity and
community, rather than a call to hoarding and
individuality. Part of the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount is to
provide a framework for Christian community.[22] Throughout Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus says “you”, but is not talking
to you or me. He says it to you and
me. As a community we are called to be righteous and as a community
we are promised blessings. When a community is righteous, it shares
amongst itself. When there is need in a community, it is untrue to claim
that the Father is failing to provide a promised blessing. It is true to
say that someone else is misappropriating a promised blessing.[23] Generosity and community show that we trust the Father.
Generosity with our possessions marks our discipleship and makes a statement
about where we look for security.[24] Possession-based security will lead us to fight not only for our
share, but also to poaching the shares of others for just-in-case moments.[25] Instead, our focus should be the security of others. As we
continue to see that hunger exists, caring for others in community is our only
solution. This is counter-cultural.[26]
†
Jesus was not
wrong in his promise. He was describing a radical vision for community in
the Sermon on the Mount and describing the high ethical standard expected of
this community. Imagining a world without hunger can only be described as
radical when compared to what Jesus saw around him and what we see around
us. The Father knew that Jesus was making a radical promise. The
Father has an intended tool to fulfill his promise. I propose that
the tool is the community Jesus described, namely The Church.
What can we
say, then, about the (unfortunately) not extraordinary hunger that exists in
our world, country, and city when the church also exists in this same world,
country, and city? The only answer I can suggest is that the church, as a
whole, misses this part of its mission.
It is
impossible to take Matthew 6:25-34 seriously without believing in the reality
and destructiveness of sin. People are created as free and moral agents.
A free and moral creature has the ability to disobey God’s command to love our
neighbour. The church is made of people. Sin in the church,
therefore, should not surprise us (though it should make us weep). Such
sin results in the type of power imbalances that allow for
starvation.
I hesitate to
use the phrase “power imbalance.” It allows us to blame someone
else. After all, I have relatively little power. The CEO, the
religious leaders, the political leaders, and the musicians have legions ready
to act.[27]
Reveling in
my lesser role is arrogance, though. Humility requires considering the
power that I have and take for granted. One way to do this is to
understand purchasing power (i.e. How do I spend my own money?). Whether a
movie is rated R for nudity and scenes of violence or PG for goofy humour
should not be the only determinate in entertainment spending. Buying
Frisbees and crayons purchased at absurdly
low prices for church youth events may not be ministry.[28] There are other taken for granted powers that so-called regular
people should consider, but I will leave these considerations to
others.
I also
hesitate to use the word “sin”. I do not want to leave an avenue for
someone to suggest that a starving person is getting what is coming to him or
her. I also do not want to suggest that above has anything to say about
destructive natural events when there is no apparent guilty party. I only
want to point out that much sin includes culpability and culpability can lead
to someone else’s hunger.[29]
Drawing a
direct line between (my) sin and (your) hunger to end a series that points to
the goodness of the Father is both sad and disingenuous, so I will not do
so.
Do not forget
that Jesus’ story does not only include proposing a high ethical standard, but
also proposes a way to meet this standard and provides redemption when we
fail. If sin is part of the hunger problem, then resurrection is part of
the hunger solution.[30] Redemption, repentance, and discipleship are key to answering our
question.
What does the
resurrection suggest about the church’s co-existence with hunger? To
borrow a phrase from Wendell Berry, we should “Practice resurrection.”[31]
As a body of believers we do no good for the hungry or for God if we do not acknowledge the reality of hunger. If I am correct that hunger is at least partly caused by injustice, we cannot acknowledge hunger without acknowledging sinfulness. Such acknowledgement requires that we lament: cry out for justice, scream that something is wrong, and repent when we are that something.[32]
Grieving
injustice is not enough. We need to learn an alternative, such as
generosity. Is my concern rooted in that I am accustomed to a fairly high
standard of living and that I am judging God’s provision by this
standard? It is not unreasonable to assume that some of the extraordinary
hunger that exists is the result of my living too “well”. If this is
true, learning a new worldview and world-approach is key.
Good ideas
are a good place to start but a bad place to end. Brunner points out that
how difficult hunger is apologetically. All he can suggest is for
Christians to try to be more “economically-concerned-for-others-disciple(s)”.[33] If we do not actually work to alleviate hunger, it is hard to say
that we are concerned for the needs of others or that we are oriented towards
generosity instead of consumerism.
We are a
Kingdom people. The church claims (among other things) that Jesus offers
a new way to live. Perhaps when we read Matthew 6:25-34, the question
should not be, “Is Jesus right?” but instead, “Do we believe him?”
Believing brings privilege and responsibility. Imagine what
it would be like to live in the fulfilled Kingdom and use this as our starting
point when serving those who are hungry. Shall we live as if hunger can
be eliminated? I think it is worth the attempt.
[1] If you aren’t already, hopefully you will
become acquainted with “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” by Bruce Cockburn (or its
cover by the Barenaked Ladies). Also, please forgive the occasional music
reference.
[2] I follow Oliver O’Donovan’s use of the word secular in The Desire of the Nations.
It is a morally neutral term referring to things of Earth, rather than a term
that claims that something that is sinful or separated from God.
[3] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, page 16-17.
[4] For the sake of easy discussion, let us not
look for one-to-one causal links of evil to pain, which are not always
appropriate or always present. Lewis gives no indication that such a link
is possible.
[5] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, page 72-73.
[6] Stanley Hauerwas, God, Medicine & Suffering,
xii-xiii.
[7] Stanley Hauerwas, God, Medicine & Suffering, 44.
[8] Stanley Hauerwas, God, Medicine & Suffering, 83.
[9] N. T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God, 11.
[10] N. T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God, 118,
128.
[11] N. T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God, 30.
[12] Martin
Goldsmith, Matthew & Mission: The
Gospel Through Jewish Eyes, 68-69.
[13] David
Greenwood, “Moral Obligation in the Sermon on the Mount,” Theological
Studies (June, 1970), 307.
[14] Craig S.
Keener, The IVP Bible Background
Commentary: New Testament, 63-64.
[15] Thomas G.
Long, Matthew, 73-76.
[16] Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, 164-168.
[17] Frederick
Dale Brunner, Matthew: A Commentary – The
Christbook Matthew 1-12, 329.
[18] Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, 164-168.
[19] Thomas G.
Long, Matthew, 73-76.
[20] Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, 164-168.
[21] R. T.
France, Tyndale New Testament
Commentaries: Matthew, 137-142.
[22] James L.
Bailey, “Sermon on the Mount: Model for Community,” Currents in Theology and
Mission (20, 1993), 94.
[23] Craig L.
Blomberg, “The Most Often Abused Verses in the Sermon on the Mount,” Southwestern
Journal of Theology (Summer, 2004), 13.
[24] Thomas G.
Long, Matthew, 73-76.
[25] John
Calvin, Matthew. (Kindle).
[26] Frederick
Dale Brunner, Matthew: A Commentary – The
Christbook Matthew 1-12, 329-330.
[27] I am intentional in grouping these
together. I’ve been a willing audience member at concerts, political
rallies, and religious gatherings that all required the same behaviour from the
crowd in order to be successful.
[28] I am borrowing here from a paper I wrote in
seminary about the church and the working poor. I am also being very
careful to single out purchasing mistakes I have made.
[29] It is also possible that not ministering to
people who experience the inexplicable natural events should be considered
“sin”, but I am not confident enough to say this with much force.
[30] Dewi Hughes, Power and Poverty, 11-14.
[31] Wendell
Berry, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”,
http://ag.arizona.edu/~steidl/Liberation.html.
[32] The
following lines from the U2’s “Crumbs from your Table” help me to cry out: You speak of signs and wonders, but I need
something other. I would believe, if I was able. But I’m waiting
for the crumbs from your table.”
[33] Frederick
Dale Brunner, Matthew: A Commentary – The
Christbook Matthew 1-12, 330.
This post originally appeared on my former blog ajdickinson.blogspot.ca. The date stamp is for the date of the original posting.
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