Matthew 6:24-34
The times in which we live are times of worry and anxiety. We are concerned about our safety. Assaults, murders, and social chaos in general are on the rise in many cities.
We are also worried about the economy. Prices are going up, while the buying power of our money is going down.
Will we and our families have enough to eat? Can we adequately house and clothe ourselves and our loved ones?
Our generation does indeed have some unique problems and concerns, about which we worry. But all people, of all times and places – in their natural condition – are anxious about those things that pose a potential threat to them in this world, but that they personally cannot control.
The words that Jesus speaks about worry and anxiety in today’s Gospel from St. Matthew, are addressed to believers. He speaks to those who know God as their “heavenly Father.”
He reminds us, then, that Christians are not immune from the temptation to worry. For as long as the old nature still clings to us – which will be until the day we die – we will continually be tempted by the uncertainties of our future, to be anxious about our future.
But Jesus says: “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?”
These words pinpoint the source of the sin of worry. It is, fundamentally, an act of unbelief, to define your life in this world, only on the basis of the things of this world. Worry is, ultimately, a violation of the First Commandment, which obligates us to fear, love, and trust in God above all things.
Jesus is not making a big division here between physical things and spiritual things. When we become believers in Christ, we do not become disconnected from our physicality and begin floating up to a higher plane of pure spirituality.
Jesus does not say that the kind of life that is sustained by ordinary food is not a component of who you really are, as God made you. He does not say that your body, which in this world is in need of covering and protection from the elements, is not an important part of who and what you are as a human being.
God created your body. This bodily life is a gift from God.
The things that sustain and protect this life – especially food and clothing – are likewise gifts from him. But Jesus’ point is that life is more than natural food and that the body is more than natural clothing.
In the saving gospel of his Son, God gives to his people also a new kind of life, that does indeed begin in this lifetime, and that is experienced during this lifetime, but that also extends beyond this lifetime. In another place, Jesus said:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.”
And in the gospel of his Son, God makes a sacramental “connection” even with our bodies, so that we would have a resurrection hope, for a future in Christ beyond the grave. Again, Jesus says elsewhere:
“Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.”
We do pray for daily bread, and ask our Father in heaven to give us what we need for our earthly existence. Worrying and fretting on our part will not make God more willing to give us daily bread than he otherwise would be.
Anxiety about these things will not give us a greater confidence that we will receive what we need, than the confidence we would have if we simply trusted God to take care of us according to his good and gracious will.
During our lifetime in this world, while we are trusting God for daily bread, we can indeed be encouraged and inspired by the examples that the Lord gives us in today’s text: concerning God’s care for the birds of the air, and concerning the provision God makes for the lilies of the field.
But you know, whether our worries about the future are small or great, and even if we were to rely faithfully on the daily provision of our heavenly Father without ever worrying, the day will come when our life and bodily activity in this world will come to an end. At the time that is appointed for each of us, we will die.
We will cease eating natural food, and we will cease putting natural clothes on our bodies. Our allotted share of daily bread will have been fulfilled, and our life here will be over.
But when that happens, our life with God will not be over – if we have received his divine, supernatural life during this time of grace, while we still live on earth. And that’s why Jesus says to us now, while we are still in this world: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.”
God does give us food for our life here, for as long as our life here lasts. But he also gives us a food of righteousness, which nurtures within us a life that extends beyond this world.
Jesus feeds us with his own body and blood, in his Holy Supper, to which he explicitly attaches the promise of remission of sins. This is the daily bread that he gives for our soul.
And in faith, we receive him who is the Bread of Life, who comes down from heaven to save us from the guilt and divine punishment of sin, and from the corrosive and destructive power of sin.
The Sacrament of the Altar is a supernatural supper. That doesn’t mean it’s not real, or that it’s just a picture of something that is not actually there.
The real body and blood of the Lord are truly offered to us when the blessed bread and wine are offered to us. But the presence of Christ’s body and blood is real in a supernatural and miraculous way, and not in a natural way.
When you commune, you do not eat just a small piece of the body of Christ. You eat the whole body of Christ, which was given into death for you.
You do not drink just a small portion of the blood of Christ. You drink all of the blood of Christ, which was shed for the forgiveness of your sins.
This miracle happens over and over again, whenever and wherever people are partaking of this sacrament – simultaneously, all around the world. Martin Luther speaks to this in one of his treatises:
“When you receive the bread from the altar you are not tearing an arm from the body of the Lord or biting off his nose or a finger; rather, you are receiving the entire body of the Lord; the person who comes after you also receives the same entire body, as does the third and the thousandth after the thousandth one forever and ever.”
“In the same way, when you drink the wine from the chalice you are not drinking a drop of blood from his finger or foot, but you are drinking his entire blood; so, too, does the one who follows you even to the thousand times thousandth one, as the words of Christ clearly say: ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’”
And this miracle unites each of us, not only to the death of our Savior, and to the blessings of his death; but also to his resurrection, and to the blessings of his resurrection.
The Savior who supernaturally comes to us in this supernatural Supper is a living, resurrected Savior. And when he gives himself to us in his now resurrected body and blood, he thereby gives us a pledge and a “down payment” of our own resurrection.
In this sacrament, Jesus gives us food that is more than food, to sustain a life from God – a new, regenerated life – that will remain, when our bodily life comes to an end. And the death of our bodies is itself only temporary, because on the last day we will be called forth from the grave.
In our baptism, Jesus also clothes us with a garment of righteousness – a garment that is more than a garment, and that will never wear out. In his Epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul reminds us: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”
This is an image of your justification, which is essentially the same as your forgiveness before God, but as seen from a different direction.
In forgiveness, the sin of which you have repented, and the guilt of you sin, are removed from you by God, for Jesus’ sake, so that he will no longer see that sin, and will not punish you for it.
In justification, the righteousness of Christ is credited and given to you, so that what God does see when he looks upon you – as one who trusts in his Son – is his Son’s goodness and perfection: covering over the scars and flaws of your transgressions.
In regard to your literal clothing, you sometimes wear a certain garment more than once before you wash it. So the first time you wore a new shirt or blouse, it probably didn’t get dirty enough to need to be put into the laundry hamper – or, if you are a guy, to be dropped on the bedroom floor. And so you wore it again, another time, before it was laundered.
But the garment of Christ’s righteousness never gets dirty. It remains ever pure and clean, as Jesus is pure and clean. And it makes you pure and clear before God whenever you wear it, by faith.
God graciously placed that garment on you, for the first time, in your baptism. By a daily repentance of your sins, and by a daily return to Christ in faith, you put it on again, daily, throughout your life in this world.
On the day of your bodily death, there will be no more use for the many natural garments that you had worn throughout your earthly life. Your survivors will probably bring most of them to Goodwill. But the supernatural garment of Christ will remain upon you.
The righteousness of Christ, who forgives your sins, will protect you from the eternal condemnation of the divine law. And the righteousness of Christ will bring you to the bodily resurrection of those who are righteous in Christ.
In eternity, you will shine with the brilliance of Jesus’ righteousness – a righteousness that he gave to you through his Word and sacrament, already in this world. In that respect, the Book of Revelation gives us a marvelous account of St. John’s vision of heaven:
“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, …and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’”
When we in faith seek the food of Christ’s righteousness that lasts forever, and the garment of Christ’s righteousness that will never wear out, we know that God will provide for us also the things that we do still need for this earthly life.
As we trust in God and in his goodness, we will not worry about those things. For as long as we need such daily bread, we will receive it.
But when the day comes when we will no longer need it – the day of our passing from this world into the next – we will not worry then, either. Because God, in this life, has prepared us for the next life. And by his grace we will enter that life.
God has fed us, not only with earthly food, but also with the body and blood of his Son. God has clothed us, not only with literal garments, but also with the righteousness of his Son.
“Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” Amen.