Matthew 6:25-34:

“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

“And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

"Yeah, but you're Jesus"
I read this stuff and I can't help but think "That's easy for you to say - you only had three years to live!" and then I grumble about not being able to blow thousands of dollars on a 58-inch widescreen plasma TV without a guilty conscience. But as I've thought about that time span - three years - I realized that not only did Jesus live this way, but His disciples did too, only they didn't know their fate from day one. After His resurrection, they threw caution to the wind, commonly putting themselves in dangerous situations in order to spread the message of Jesus. According to Church history, all of the apostles but John died a martyr's death, often gruesome, and John only avoided this fate because when they boiled him in oil, he miraculously survived so they sent him into exile on the Island of Patmos where he had his Revelations).

I think that when you live as if you could die tomorrow, all of these things - clothes, food, money - they just sort of fade into the background. They're unnecessary because, like Jesus, your mission is defining your choices - demonstrate and proclaim the Kingdom of God and try to ensure the message will continue to spread after you're gone - and all of those things are sort of irrelevant to that aim.

I wonder if the message has become so neutered and the lifestyle so safe, that we simply aren't living the way the Apostles did, which forces me to ask the questions:

Should we be?
Is that what Jesus intended?
What does this have to do with the abundant life Jesus came to give?
What does a life devastated by the Gospel look like?

How do I live it in a neighborhood in Chicago?
This isn't a call to go put your life in harm's way, but instead a call to proclaim and demonstrate with abandon. To let Jesus be the Lord of your life in a meaningful way. To not just not worry about where your food and clothes will come from, but to have an entire lifestyle that makes those choices irrelevant. How can we simplify our lives? What small things could we do right now that would change our priorities? Maybe it's a simple as getting involved in The Harvest or the refugee ministries at the Evanston Vineyard, or the equivalent at your churches. Maybe it's working with kids who don't have a dad around, or giving up your Friday night so that a single Mom can have her's back. Or perhaps it's as simple as diving so deep into your community that your first instinct is "What can I sell, what can I give, how can I help so that we can keep this going?" Let's talk.

Labels: Favorites, Jesus