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“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

The point of this passage here is not the “and all these things shall be added to you.” This leads to that “Jedi mind trick” way of looking at things we mentioned in the previous devotion. The idea is, “just focus the mind and your faith on today, and watch as the Lord gives you all those things you wanted in the first place – woops! you took the focus off of God, that’s why you’re not getting that new car!”

At a certain level, there’s some truth here. Looking at the bird and lily should enrich us – that’s why Jesus introduces these creatures – but that enrichment is not earthly treasures at all. And we have to say “at all” because of the evidence at hand. Many Christians get the shaft and go to bed naked and hungry; meanwhile many rotten people live in luxury. If anything, this fact teaches Jesus’ teaching from the sermon on the mount, that God blesses the good and evil alike. Again, as I said the previous devotion, be careful if you are “blessed” – it may mean nothing more than that God is loving His enemies.

But just because Jesus isn’t talking about “earthly” treasures doesn’t mean He’s not talking about material, physical, or yes, earthly (new earthly) treasures. Didn’t Jesus say that the body is “more than” clothing? And life is “more than” food and drink? So, the body and its life are still part of the equation! We have to affirm this to avoid the Gnostic pitfall and think Jesus is making a body-spirit contrast here.

No, the food we eat is “food indeed” and the drink we drink is “drink indeed” (John 6). Likewise, the clothes we wear is like being “further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.” This is talking about the transfigured body, a physical but glorified body.

And that seems to be how the “and all these things shall be added to you” should best be interpreted. Again, because of the evidence, that has to be the only way to interpret it. Consider also, this is why Karl Marx hated Christians and the Gospel, because for the naked, poor, hungry, and thirsty, the Gospel did not say, “Join the revolution” but rather “Don’t worry about it, you’ll get a greater clothing, a greater food, and a greater drink in the world to come.”

But the American Capitalist interpretation is to be avoided just as well, which is, “Apply Christian principles to personal finance, and give your first fruits to the Lord – seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness – and watch as your portfolio gets bigger, because the Lord promises, ‘And all these [other] things will be added to you.’ ”

So again, the evidence is that there are naked, hungry, and thirsty Christians and wealthy non-Christians. Interpreting the “added unto you” as fulfilled in this world can trouble the consciences of the poor, who wonder when their “added” is coming, or worse, who wonder if their lack of an “added” windfall is proof that they must not have faith.

No, that for which we hunger, thirst, and desire to be clothed will certainly be “added unto” us, but by faith. Note, Jesus has already talked about hunger and thirst in the sermon, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. He’s also talked about seeking, when He said, “Seek and you will find.” Both teachings, coupled with our passage today, round out the teaching: Those who hunger and thirst not just for food and drink, but for the righteousness of God, will most certainly find what they seek, and they will be filled. That’s how the Lord will “add unto” them.

Note also, Jesus has already taught about clothing, how little we really need it. “If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also.” The whole tone here is that we can be naked in this world, because we have it all in the next world. When you’re clothed with the righteousness of God in Christ, what need is there for earthly clothing? And if we need to get to the heart of the matter, isn’t that how the Lord created us? And wasn’t clothing something needed to cover up shame? But what shame is there when your sins are forgiven, as you are clothed in Christ’s righteousness?

Interesting how the Sacraments nicely sum up Jesus’ teaching here. Non-believers (gentiles) worry about food, drink, and clothes.

Believers hunger and thirst for a different food and drink, the righteousness of God fulfilled in Christ, which is given to them through food and drink, bread and wine, His body and blood – the whole Gospel of Matthew draws this out beautifully, in the account of the Canaanite woman, in the feedings of the four and five thousand, and in the last supper.

Believers also see a different clothing, when they “put on” Christ in baptism, and as they seek the transfigured body of the resurrection. The Gospel of Matthew teaches this as well, perhaps not as subtly as it teaches communion. In the last chapter of Matthew, having risen from the dead and having attained His glorified body, Jesus claims His victory over death and His authority over all things in heaven and on earth. How are others (new disciples) to be embraced into this victory? By baptism “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And by teaching.

Baptism in water, in the name of the Lord, is certainly a clothing. Again, from St. Paul, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on [clothed himself in] Christ.”

The sacraments also work in the fact that Jesus isn’t spiritualizing here. He’s not just talking about spiritual food and drink, or spiritual clothing, as opposed to material stuff. We get that from His “more than” comments: the body is “more than” clothing; life is “more than” food and drink. “More than” parallels St. Paul’s talk of being “further clothed.” The idea is Jesus takes our bodies, and makes them to be something greater than what they are in their fallen condition. We still eat, but we eat the body and blood of the Lord. We’re still clothed, but we’re clothed in the waters of baptism and the teachings of Christ.

Both are fulfilled in the Church. Church is where those who seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness find their food and drink, and are clothed in their baptismal garments. It’s a liturgical garment, a feast indeed, not some non-material drifting of our spirits into never-never land.

“So why do you worry about clothing? 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?”

The clothing Jesus is talking about here has to be something more than simply the clothes on our back. When we look at this passage, our takeaway very often is something like, “We don’t have to worry about anything, because God will take care of us, meaning, He will make sure we have food and clothing. He’ll make sure our life here is relatively secure.”

Yet, look at what He compares us to in this passage – the grass of the field, “which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven.” He compares us to something whose life span is a day! It would be like Jesus saying, “Hey, don’t worry! Look at the man on death row, sentenced to death tomorrow. He’s well provided for…today.” Yikes!

What this does, of course, is keep us focused on today, which is Jesus’ ultimate point: “Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” He narrows down our focus to just the day. Worry, of course, is about the future, about what life has in store for us. We worry about retirement. We worry about how our health will turn out. We worry about our children. Nonsense, says Jesus, today is all we have. And if we use the lilies as an example of one creature, on any given day we have it actually pretty well.

How much of the past ten years has been spent on worry, and yet, here we are. The sin of worry is directly related to the view that the future is in our hands, in our control; therefore, we have power to make the future what we want it to be. I don’t want to throw cold water on those good ole American, pragmatic, empowerment quotes – what would the walls of gyms and locker rooms be without them – but Jesus is not talking about empowerment in this world. Sure, the future is in your hands, and your life can be as big as the dreams you have about it.

So what? You’ll still die. That’s Jesus’ bigger point. You’ll still die, therefore set your heart on other things than the things of this world. The grasses live for a day and then die, and are we not like the grass, says several Psalms? “As for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.” They’re one day; we’re ninety or so years. Is it not ultimately the same?

The typical focus on this passage often still misses the point. People almost look at it like a mental game, or like Luke Skywalker trying to harness the force. “Just take the focus off of the worries of tomorrow, and the Lord will give you what you want in this world today.” As if Jesus is teaching some get-rich scheme. This is a very American interpretation.

The reality is, there are a whole lot of people who in fact are not clothed and who are not fed, but who “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” What then? Does that prove Jesus’ words wrong?

Of course not. That’s why I began saying Jesus is talking about something more than the clothes on our back. There’s another clue in the text that He’s talking about something more.

It’s the comparison He uses. He says, “Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like [a lily].” The pattern of Jesus’ teaching is “If God does X to a lesser creature, how much more will He do Y to the greatest creature?” X in this formula is less than Y. But in Jesus’ teaching on clothing – understood in the typical manner – X is greater than Y. The best clothed man in the Bible, Solomon, was not as well dressed as a lily.

Jesus cannot be talking about clothing as we men design and manufacture it. Again, many go to bed without clothes, sleeping naked in the streets. Many are naked in prison. Did not Jesus say, “I was naked, and you did not clothe me”? Where were the lilies then, for the poor fellow whose nakedness Jesus filled?

Hmmm. Maybe we get a clue there what Jesus is really talking about.

Because if in fact Jesus is teaching a clothing from the Lord, in a manner similar to the way He clothes the lilies of the field, we have to surmise He’s talking about the clothing of Jesus Christ, or, being clothed in His righteousness.

Twice St. Paul talks about “putting on” Christ, using the verb normally used for “putting on” clothes. The first verse from Romans has good parallels to what Jesus is teaching about clothing in our passage: “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” The second one is from Galatians and talks about when we are clothed with Christ: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Finally, the book of Revelation several times introduces the image of saints clothed in white robes.

That’s the clothing Jesus is talking about. So, the emphasis of Jesus is not so much, “Don’t worry about clothing in this world; the Lord will make sure you have clothing in this world.” That cannot be the focus because in fact many are naked, including Christ Himself. But the fact that Jesus says “I was naked” means He fills nakedness with His presence, and that’s the true clothing we’re given. His emphasis, therefore, is more like, “Don’t worry about clothing in this world, because the clothing God will give you is far greater.”

Does Jesus care whether we’re clothed? Sure, and for most Christians, they are. But that’s because the sun shines on the good and evil alike. It’s not the result of some faith-trick we’re playing with spiritual powers. In fact, as I often like to tell people: be careful; you getting some earthly benefit may be nothing other than evidence that God is loving His enemies.

Jesus doesn’t teach not to worry as some form of earthly wisdom, a formula for living right in this world. In a way He does. The way to live right is to not set your mind on life and its worries, because the we await from the Lord. As St. Paul says, “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven.”

 

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? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

Look at the birds. That’s a command. Look at the birds. The Lord calls them as ministers of the Gospel. He’s used animals before to proclaim His Word, most notably a donkey. But all creation is incorporated into His praise, and even the stones can praise Him, Jesus teaches. If Jesus fills all things, then there is not a corner of the universe that isn’t filled with Jesus, His body, and therefore a candidate for proclamation of the Gospel.

But with the birds of the air, we get a part of the universe singled out specifically for a specifically beautiful teaching. They don’t farm, but yet they eat. The Father feeds them.

The Lord isn’t directing us to emulate the birds how they are fed. We don’t have beaks and talons. Likewise, it would be foolish to draw some sort of Rousseauian point about “going back to nature” or how man’s technology is a rape of the pure and pristine creation. The moment the Lord gave man the gift of speech, He gave the potential for technological growth, for control and manipulation of the creation for good. And indeed, it’s because of new discoveries in agricultural engineering – that combined with the decline of communism – that food production has kept up with and exceeded the growth in population, so that way fewer people are hungry today than forty years ago.

That’s how the Father feeds us. He gave the birds their beaks, talons, and wings, so that they can quickly pluck worms out of the ground and locate berries. What does He give us? Clearly not much in terms of physical attributes – we’re slower, weaker, and less vicious than predators. But we have one thing that makes us the crown of creation in terms of food production. We speak. We converse. We communicate, which requires the voiced projection of mutually communicable ideas rooted in real elements of creation. Who knows, perhaps birds have to the ability to voice, “Berries over here!” in some squawk. But only humans can communicate, “Hey, save some of those berries to plant into the ground, they’ll grow more berries you can harvest, and so we can yield greater produce. Now, let’s review what we’ve learned so far about planting so far…”

Use of speech and reason is the Father feeding us. We reflect the Father in using speech, for He Himself used speech when He said, “Let there be.” Through that word the creation came into being. That Word is Christ, the Word proceeding from His mouth which became flesh and dwelt among us, the projection of His love into Whom we are invited to commune, and communicate.

When we look at the birds, and see the gifts God gives them so that they may eat, we ought to look at the gifts God gives us so that we might eat, and thank Him as the birds praise Him. How do birds praise Him? That’s a mystery, but one wonders if it’s simply them doing as the Lord has given them. That is their glory, glory understood as that which uniquely belongs to a being. The glory of a bird is to fly – notice Jesus said “look at the birds of the air” not “the birds walking on the ground” – and as they live in their glory, they praise the Lord…perhaps.

For man, we praise the Lord with the voice, with speech. Speech directs and focuses our mind on the object of our faith, or our heart, mind, and soul, and so worship is always rooted in the words of the mouth. It’s what makes up confession, thanksgiving, and praise. So, if birds respond to what the Lord has given them by joyfully receiving these gives and doing so in their glory – flying and plucking – man does similarly by trusting in the Lord to provide for all needs of body and soul, and doing so in our glory, which is speech, which is worship.

The understanding that this teaching of Jesus begins with birds, but transcends what they do and what their glory is centers on Jesus’ word that we are of more value than they. We are substantially different than the birds. God is their Creator; God is our Father, and we are made in His image. It’s speech that separates us from them.

Which leads to an interesting conclusion. Proper use of speech – just as proper use of beaks and talons – is how the Father feeds us as He feeds the birds. Like the birds, we don’t passively sit around waiting for the Father to drop worms in our mouths. No, as we use what the Lord has given us, that is how He feeds us.

We meditated how this works with the production of agricultural knowledge, and how that keeps us in pace with the rise in population. But there’s another way this works, and that’s in that worship sense we also came across.

It’s almost as if we can speak our way out of worry, as we speak holy things, as we comfort one another, as we redirect each other’s hearts and minds to the birds and lilies. Isn’t there something to that? Isn’t there something to the role of community in alleviating anxiety and depression? And isn’t one of the rising concerns associated with anxiety and depression the lack of community and increasing isolation?

Community means communication. Communication utilizes the single thing that makes us different from the animals – our beaks and talons, so to speak. We get an echo of the divine use of speech as we alleviate anxiety simply by being with others. But in holy conversation, we get even more, heavenly conversation with brothers and sisters in the faith, in church, in bible study, in fellowship, that fills our bellies in a sublime way and takes our minds off the beachfront property we don’t have.

“Therefore I say to you, 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?”

Last devotion we contemplated how the Lord has created a world of abundance, and a simple faith-filled sight of a bird or lily has the capacity – like the potential in five loaves of bread – has the potential for unlimited abundance.

As the passage continues, however, we realize that part of that faith means recognizing that life is “more than food” and the body is “more than clothing.” That’s interesting. It means that part of Mammon’s religion is the opposite, that life is in fact just about food, and the body in fact is about clothing. And here, we can typify food and clothing. Food typifies all the inward fleshy desires – bodily pleasures, lust, drunkenness, and so on. Clothing typifies the more outward desires – properties, lands, awards, status symbols, and so on.

The religion of the Lord is “more than” that. Our temptation, of course, is to see “less than” that. Between a lily and a beachfront property, who wouldn’t want to take the beachfront property. Yet, what a great joy to realize that we can have unfathomable riches at the sight of a lily, that faith offers that possibility, or that when hungry or desirous of some earthly, bodily pleasure, we merely need to look at a bird and relax, at total peace.

Conversely, who really thinks that if they embrace the sort of attitude that sees beachfront property as an awesome upgrade in life, that this will end their quest for more?

It’s really such a simple, and awesome, point. Mammon’s demands never end and lead to worry. The Lord’s teaching can fill bellies and eradicate poverty with a bird and a lily, when that teaching goes hand in hand with faith. Yet, where is the person who declares piously after losing everything but the birds in the air and the flower in his yard, “The Lord has just blessed me so much.”

So, that all being said, if life is “more than” food and the body “more than” clothing, what is life for, and what is the body for? Again, interesting questions.

“Life more than food” is easy to understand. We get a host of teaching to this effect from, for instance, Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness: “Man does not live by bread along, but by every word proceeding out of the mouth of God.” The Word proceeding from the Father, of course, is Jesus, the Word made flesh, the bread of life. And this leads to the other teaching on life being more than food, in John 6, where Jesus teaches “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead.” If there be true life, it must be beyond bread. And what is that life? Jesus says, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

So, Jesus’ statement that “life is more than food” is related to the true hunger that we have, for righteousness, a righteousness He fulfills, a righteousness we should seek, a righteousness He feeds us with, His body and blood, His fervent love and mercy for us.

This is why we fast before communion.

Now the second statement requires a bit more probing. How is the “body more than clothing”? What is the body for? How did the body get involved in this discussion in the first place?

Well, it got involved in the discussion because the body is essential to life. Adam didn’t get life until God breathed it into his body, and life ends when the body turns becomes a lump of dust again. And unlike the Gnostics, we don’t see faith as simply a matter of the spirit, or an aspect of life that transcends the body. The Gnostics deprecated the body and treated it poorly, because nothing in it was to be redeemed.

But Jesus teaches something different. The body is just as much a part of what Jesus redeems as our life is. He teaches it clearly: “The body is more than clothing.” Meaning, “I’ve appointed the body for something “more than” what you might think it out to be for.

Where things get a bit murky is what that “more than” is. Jesus has already, in the Sermon on the Mount, in His teaching on adultery, taught how the body can go to hell – so, better to cut off an offending hand or eye than have the whole body go to hell (just send the hand or eye there).

But is Jesus talking about the body here? Or, as the fathers of the lectionary seemed to sense as they selected a Gospel for the feast of St. Michael, is He talking about something more like “humanity” or the “son of man”? And the offending element of the creation is the prideful Satan, who “causes the body to fall (stumble)”? Or, in the context of Jesus’ teaching on adultery, is the Lord talking about how an element of the body of believers can lead the whole body astray toward idolatry (adultery), and so should be excommunicated, the way Satan is/was excommunicated from heaven?

If this is the case, than the “more than” use of the body is for humility, the ultimate humility being death, as Jesus showed us, and as Jesus did with His own body. Yet, it’s humility preceding exaltation and ascension, when Jesus’ body arose and ascended at God’s right hand in a transfigured mode. That truly is a “more than” use of the body, that the growing and flowering lily certainly teaches.

Interesting, but this actually leads to another area where Jesus teaches some stuff about the body, also when He teaches about riches and Mammon, when He speaks of the eye being the light of the body. This connects last devotion with this one. The one whose eyes are on Mammon will always be darkened by what he doesn’t have, by the principle of limitation and scarcity. But the one whose eyes are a lamp will be full of light…like Jesus, the light, at His transfiguration. “The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light.”

Having your body transfigured with “clothes white like the sun” is certainly a “more than” instance of the body. And indeed, at the second coming, we will be revealed as “sons of light.”

The remaining uses of “body” in the Gospel of Matthew have to do with bodies being buried – Jesus and John the Baptist – and Jesus’ body being given out at Holy Communion.

Altogether, we get a full picture of the what the body is “more than” for. It’s to be humbled unto death, so that it might be raised, glorified, and transfigured. The person of faith, dying and alone with the lily, sees in that lily his own exaltation and transfiguration, something way more than he ever could have gotten in this world.

No wonder we have lilies full the sanctuary on Easter. They are a sermon unto themselves.

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

What is it about Mammon that makes it so antithetical to God? We touched on this a bit when meditating on the parable of the shrewd steward. Mammon, as Clint Eastwood informed us when he played a preacher in Pale Rider, is money.

What is money? If you think about it, money is simply the physical manifestation of limit. It’s the economic version of the Lord’s statement to Job that in the creation He commanded of the waves, “This far you may come, but no farther.” It arises from the law of scarcity. If somehow we were able to take advantage of the total land and water territory in the entire universe – so that everyone could have as much territory as they wanted – and have machines that could materialize every want, food, or item we could possibly want, machines that, unlike the machines in Matrix and Terminator, remain as servants of man, repairing themselves, replicating themselves, and even improving themselves – basically if we created what in peoples’ minds would be heaven on earth, there would be no need for money.

Alas, there is scarcity of goods and services, scarcity of land and resources, scarcity of labor to work the earth’s resources into usable goods and services. Money has evolved as the most fair way to govern the reality of limitation.

Now, our Lord created a world of limitations, precisely in the spirit of that Job passage quoted above – not everyone can have ocean front property where those waves go no farther. So money in itself is not evil. But Jesus doesn’t talk about Mammon in itself, but serving Mammon. “Serve” here is not as in “divine service,” but the serving a slave does for a master. It’s to be a slave for, to humbly meet the demands of the one for whom you are a slave.

So, think of the worship of Mammon not so much as the sin of greed – Jesus must mean something more fundamental than that given the strength of His either/or statement on Mammon – but as offering yourself as a slave so as to meet the demands of the principle of limitation. It’s not just greed, but greed, miserliness, lack of generosity, fear, worry, paranoia about others “out to get you,” cynicism about the needs of others, all rooted in the belief that this world is all you got, so you’d better “get yours.” And that’s just the way of the world, or as the smart ones all say, “It is what it is.” The world is about limit, and the winner is the one who can leverage those limits.

That sort of person denies a God who shatters limits – has anyone looked at the universe before? All those worlds out there, what’s their purpose? (It makes you wonder.) But less philosophically and more biblically, it denies a Lord who takes five loaves and two fishes and feeds as much as He needs to, who uses parables about kings who forgive the ridiculous equivalent of the GNP of small countries, ten thousand talents.

A theology founded on limitation limits forgiveness and love, and that’s a no-go for Jesus. It leads people to believe, yes, God is loving and forgiving, but not that much, not enough for that sin of mine – it must be limited at some point. This makes me contract my own liberality toward others.

A theology founded on the Lord God, the one described by Jesus precisely in this text for this week, is a theology which looks at the world and sees not limitation, but goodness, the goodness of the Lord throughout nature, a Father who provides for us daily.

Adam was created with a faith that looked around and saw this goodness – he knew only goodness and could have been content with it, rejoicing in the Lord’s abundance. He was directed to the non-creation, to that one part of the creation which was not under the umbrella of “and it was good,” and that was the mysterious “evil” connected with the tree. Satan tempted him to seek “something more” beyond the abundance of God’s gifts – beyond the limits of God’s creation – and ironically, Adam fell into a world of limitation.

Which is to say, seeing limit even in the world as given is really a fallen aspect of our minds. The one of faith can see limitless abundance even in the small things of nature, such things as the bird in the heavens, or the lily in the fields. Consider what Jesus gives us in this Gospel. For the one who learns His teaching, a simple sight of a bird erases all fear of hunger and poverty, and a simple sight of a flower erases all fear of nakedness.

There are true riches in that.

Matthew 18: 1-11:
At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, 3 and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me. 6 “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. 7 Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes! 8 “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire. 10 “Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven. 11 For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.

This past Sunday was the feast of St. Michael and All Angels. My goal this year is to do meditations on the historic lectionary, so whenever an ordinary Sunday conflicts with a feast day – and the feast day “trumps” it, which it liturgically speaking should – I will still continue with the ordinary reading. Nevertheless, this beautiful feast day deserves at least one meditation.

Especially given the somewhat odd Gospel selected for it.

I’m not a scholar of the historic lectionary by any means, but I’m always curious (if not suspect) when two Gospels come up for a week – what’s the point of a historic lectionary if there are two Gospels? Where did the second one come from? But I have a sort of hermeneutic whenever two Gospels come up for a Sunday: whichever Gospel least fits the theme of the day, the more likely that one was the more historic Gospel.

Two Gospels come up for St. Michael and All Angels. One makes sense; the other does not. One Gospel is Luke’s account of the devil falling like lightning – makes perfect sense when coupled with the epistle for this feast day, the battle scene in Revelation between Michael and the dragon. We have devils falling from heaven in both texts.

But the alternative Gospel makes no sense. It mentions the passage which lays the foundation for the belief in guardian angels, but the rest of it – about children and millstones – doesn’t seem to make sense.

The second part of my personal hermeneutic regarding these Gospels is, the more difficult it is, the more interesting and more true to the deeper themes it is. Simply put, they’re more fun. Again, I may be totally wrong on my hermeneutic, but why did the fathers of the historic lectionary see fit to put the Gospel about little children, about cutting hands off and plucking eyes out, about millstones, and finally about guardian angels, as the Gospel for St. Michael and All Angels?

I think it becomes if not obvious, more clear, when you look at the opening question in the Gospel: “At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, ‘Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ ”

Being the greatest in heaven was exactly what Satan, the devil, wanted to be. It was his pride, to be the position of God. And interestingly enough, he wanted to share that philosophy with Adam and Eve: “You can be like God.” That is the essence of Satan’s mission, to claim the top spot in heaven.

Jesus fights against that view. Like Michael fighting against Satan.

Satan’s first temptation was a temptation of pride: “You can be like God.” Meanwhile, what does Michael’s name mean? “Who can be like God?” The implied answer is one of humility. No one can be like God. The name itself counsels humility, and that is the battle.

Now, there’s a subtlety here, because in fact, there is one who can be like God, Christ. And if you look at Jesus’ words to the disciples, there is a pathway to greatness in the kingdom of heaven, and that’s the humble example of the child.

The child, the “son of man,” should be born in humility, completely dependent on God. That’s what Adam could have been. By doing so, living in a childlike state of pure dependence, he could have retained his place at the top of God’s creation. Instead, he lost his childishness, seeking new knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil, and so sought to be God. And that led to his fall.

Any person, idea, or spiritual being who would cause a child to stumble (or fall), must be cast into the sea, or cast out of heaven, or severed off the body of God, that is, cut out of the creation, abandoned from God. Or, “cast into the hell fire,” like Satan.

The placement of the Matthew text as the Gospel for St. Michael’s feast day is illuminating. You have all the pieces there: humility vs. pride, being cast into hellfire, the “battle” for the hightest point in heaven. But for me at least, I never put this chapter together with the battle in heaven between Satan and Michael.

Satan is the eye or hand cut out of the people (body) of God, for he is the one who caused the “little ones,” God’s children, to fall. The battle between the “You can be like God” devil, and the “Who can be like God? Michael, or Jesus, or the humble child, is a battle not so much of power but of, well, a battle not unlike what happened on the cross, when total weakness and death became the pathway to victory, life, and ascent to God’s right hand.

The way of the child is the way of Christ, the child of God. It leads to the “greatest in the kingdom of God.” It strikes down all pride of “You can be like God.” And only one makes that path, for only one is “like God.” But many follow Him on that path.

Matthew 6: 24-34

24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
25 “Therefore I say to you, 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? 26 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? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 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?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Love of Mammon goes hand in hand with worry. We love Mammon because we believe it will relieve us of worry. Worry, in turn, is rooted in survival in this world and is triggered by fear of hunger, thirst, and the cold.

In contrast Jesus establishes teaching, the teaching that God is our Father. Now, God has an only-begotten Son, so for Jesus to teach God as our Father is for Him to share what He possesses. This is a supremely spiritual activity, insofar as Jesus said of the Holy Spirit that He would take what is His and declare it to us. Hence, again, teaching. Jesus teaches us by the Holy Spirit to pray “Abba Father,” or “Our Father.” This testifies to our status as God’s dear children. If that is the case, why would we worry about hunger, thirst, and the cold?

Our Father and Mammon are either/or. To pursue one is to drive away the other, and that’s how it works. The less we believe God is our Father through Christ, the more we believe our lot in this world is up to us, that this is our one shot at salvation, or success, or whatever. The more we worship Mammon. The more we believe God is our Father through Christ, the less we see this world as our end all and be all – the more we realize we’re pilgrims just passing through.

Jesus uses nature to teach us. “All Your works shall praise You, O LORD,” says the Psalm. To praise is to confess, and such is the witness of all creation. Each creation is held in place, sustained by the Father. The birds of the air, the lilies, each of them are fed and clothed by the Father. One of the great joys of faith – and one we often forget about – is that through Christ all creation becomes a proclamation, because He fills all things. Also, because He fills all things the Psalm is true, that “The earth is full of the goodness of the LORD.”

The Gnostic vision is cast in shades of darkness and grey, for all the creation is under the tyranny of the Demiurge, Yaltabaoth. The only light is from within, from the Self’s connection to an otherworldly Light. Not so the Christian. God became part of this creation, filled all creation, so that He might redeem the creation. Consequently all the world is a proclamation.

Yes, all of it. Even the evil. Look at the birds of the air…just before they hit the grille of the car while on the highway, and they get stuck there by their beaks all the way home – that happened to me recently. And look at the lilies…just before the lawn mower mulches them. Ah yes, the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord!

Absolutely! Because whatever ugliness we see in this world, it’s not as ugly as the Son of God hanging in a bloody mass on a cross outside the city gates on a cloudy, thundery afternoon. The ugliness here is not so much of sight – although that was bad; yet, there have been far worse ugly situations on earth (like the poor soul recently who had his face cut off by a Mexican cartel) – but of what it represents. It represents humanity’s murder of God, physically, psychologically, philosophically, and spiritually.

And yet, as ugly as that was, God filled it. And by that act, He fills all ugliness, redeems it, even sanctifies it. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was known as the pessimistic philosopher. He became a Gnostic (sympathetic to eastern spirituality) partly because he once saw a poor rabbit bloody and mangled, having been ripped apart by some predator. The God of this world is too cruel, he believed.

And yes, it is a challenge, to accept Jesus’ premise that looking at nature can reveal the goodness of the Lord. And not only the premise, but the conclusion is suspect. Christians never have to hunger? Christians are always clothed?

Obviously not. And yet Jesus teaches it. But like God growing Abraham into his name – “father of many” when at the time he was the father of none – the Lord has to grow us into His teachings. Isn’t His teaching like a seed? Of course, and the nature of the seed is, it must endure or it dies by rock, by weed, or by path. It must take up its cross daily and follow Christ. It must “wait on the Lord.” David wrote these words knowing well what it meant to wait on the Lord – he waited several decades for his throne after having been anointed.

The Father knows what we need. He knows what throne He will give us, whatever that means. And it may mean camping out in caves for several years. But our task is to worry not about hunger and thirst, but to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Or, as Jesus puts it, to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Those who seek will find; those who hunger and thirst will be filled.

To seek, to hunger, and to thirst – when coupled with the promises of Christ – is to have faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. It’s the possession of things not yet attained. Filled with such things, by faith, ends worry. We need not worry about food or drink; nor do we need to worry about righteousness. Both things our Lord fills us with.

It’s a daily challenge – sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Christ limits our horizons to the day, just as He did with Israel in the wilderness. Our bread comes day by day. How wonderful. How wonderful our Lord is a day by day Lord, for whom “now is the day of salvation” and because of whom St. Paul could “forget those things which are behind and reach forward to those things which are ahead.”

Still, interesting that Jesus describes the day as “its own trouble.” It is a cross. It’s a cross we take up daily. Yet, how wonderful we’re freed from long term implications of our daily crosses – “I dropped the cross today in this area of my life, it must mean I’m destined for failure in this area!” Nope. We live day by day. Each new day is a day with our heavenly Father, Him providing us with what we need, Him sustaining us with His righteousness.

And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.”

Jesus telling the man to “arise” is his exaltation. Jesus exalts the humble. The man’s humility came on several levels. First, he prayed the Kyrie. Second, he confessed Jesus as God in human flesh. Third, He thanked God in Christ. Third, He glorified God in Christ. To such as these, Jesus exalts and sends “his way.” Like the tax collector, he “went home justified.” He was made well.

Now, lets look at this a bit, because it’s interesting. Clearly, all ten lepers were “made well,” and all ten lepers had faith to a certain extent as well. Did they not all cry out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”? Of course they did. And to do so, were they not humbling themselves before Him? Were they not acknowledging Jesus as divine at least? Didn’t they have some sort of faith?

So, when Jesus was saying, “Your faith has made you well,” could this have been meant as a general statement for all ten lepers? Again, all ten were made well, and all ten did exhibit some sort of faith.

If we go with this interpretation, we’d be making a statement about what the essence of faith is. It’s humbling oneself before God, acknowledging our weakness and turning to Christ for help and healing. All ten lepers did that, which is why all ten were “made well.”

But somehow, this doesn’t seem right, does it. Jesus clearly singles out the Samaritan among the others. And Jesus didn’t tell the others they were “made well.” They too were healed, and they had someone declaring to them that they were made well, or clean, but it wasn’t Jesus doing so. It was a priest.

Which leads us to wonder if Jesus gave the Samaritan leper an extra grace by saying “Your faith has made you well.” And was his faith of a different quality than that of the others? We know this is true, because the Samaritan’s faith also had worship, confession, and thanksgiving involved with it.

We should run with that, because there’s good application there. How many people are quick to turn to God, or even Jesus, in times of trouble, but they don’t confess Him, glorify Him, and thank His name? That is, they don’t go to church. Such were the nine lepers, and shame on them, obviously, which is a big theme of the Gospel.

But the worst shame is what they miss out on in the Lord’s declaration that they are made well. We suspect Jesus is bestowing a greater healing here, not just the declaration of clean skin, but something more. The Samaritan has been “made well” in the soul, due to his acknowledgment that Jesus is God in flesh deserving of confession, glory, and thanksgiving.

There’s another dimension here. Part of the priest’s task was to receive the cleaned leper back into the community. The community, as we’ve meditated on before, was a type of Eden, a type of the people of God. The Church is its New Testament counterpart, and not priests, but Jesus, receives the cleansed ones into this community, through baptism and absolution.

One wonders if the Samaritan found a place to live as he went on “his way.” The Jewish lepers were received back into their communities by the priests. The Samaritan was not. Would Jewish communities make an issue of this? Would priests say, “Hey, you haven’t been received back into the community, because you went to Jesus rather than to us.” (Recall, Jesus told the man to go “his way,” and not “to the priests,” so the man likely didn’t go to the priest…unless he disobeyed Jesus again.)

Or, perhaps, being a Samaritan, his Samaritan community didn’t make an issue of his not going to a priest, because they worshiped at a different “mountain” so to speak. These are answers we cannot know the answer to.

One thing we do know, is that our Lord Jesus receives sinners cleansed of their sins in His community, and this because of their faith. And that faith, we must conclude (against the first interpretation) means more than just what all ten lepers did. It includes kyrie, but also confession of the incarnation, glory, and thanksgiving.

Some bristle at the statement that “faith makes you well.” They say, “No! Jesus makes you well!” But Jesus doesn’t say, “Go your way. I have made you well.” There is no Jesus for anyone without faith; therefore, faith makes you well.

But it is true, faith without an object is not faith, and that object is Jesus. But again, it’s not just Jesus, as all ten lepers looked to Jesus for healing. No, the faith which made the one leper truly well was a faith set to the liturgical pattern we’ve been talking about.

So, here, it would be more appropriate to say something like, “The liturgy has made you well.” Jesus makes a lot of people well this week, but only one out of ten engage in the liturgy which makes truly well. And consider, there is church for the nine lepers. There is church that’s nothing more than a place for the troubled and distressed to bellyache to God and get some sort of earthly grace. And when they hear a command from Jesus, off they go in blind obedience, thinking Jesus is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Law.

But there’s no confession of Him as the incarnate God; there’s no glorifying the Triune God; there’s no Eucharist. Jesus gave them an earthly grace; but they aren’t made truly well. Only a liturgical faith does that.

That’s quite a concept to contemplate: there’s Jesus, and then there’s the liturgy. Of those two, which makes you truly well? The account of the ten lepers gives a clear answer to this question.

So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?”

We spent some time contemplating how the leper’s worship sets up beautifully what proper worship looks like, and in fact sets the basic contours of the liturgy: Lord have mercy, Healing, Glory to God, Thanksgiving. This parallels Gloria Patri, Kyrie, Gloria in Excelsis, Creed, Thanksgiving (Eucharist).

But our passage for today needs some emphasis. It so clearly teaches several central Gospel truths.

It teaches, for instance, the incarnation. Notice, Jesus grants no possibility that giving glory to God could happen in a way other than “returning” to Him. Do we really imagine the nine lepers were not grateful? They had leprosy, a horrible skin disease, and get healed. The next thing they did was a religious act, going to the priest. Do we really think gratitude of the heart toward God was nowhere involved in their acts of religious duty? But they didn’t “return” to God, in the end, because they didn’t go where Jesus was. To give Glory to God was to return to Jesus, give thanks to Him, and worship Him. That’s a powerful statement of the incarnation, that Jesus is God in human flesh, and there is no true faith or worship of God except through Jesus Christ.

Second, this little passage teaches the centrality of giving glory to God in worship. Here again, there’s a cornerstone part of the historic liturgy that so easily gets tossed aside as so much useless filler. The Gloria Patri caps off each Psalm with an acknowledgment that the Triune God is the God driving the Psalms. The Gloria in Excelsis is a hymn of praise to the Lord, giving Him glory. We confess the Triune God is “worshiped and glorified” in the Nicene Creed. We give glory for the Holy Gospel. We pray “thine is the glory.”

What’s with all the glory?

On one hand, giving God glory is an extremely powerful fulfillment of a prophecy: “All nations whom You have made Shall come and worship before You, O Lord, And shall glorify Your name.”

Glorify your name. What name? The name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. All nations shall glorify the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So, when we say, “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,” it’s not useless filler that we can cut out to make more room for the skit the worship team has in store for us. No, it’s an ongoing statement that we are among that throng of “all nations,” including gentiles, who are now included in God’s promises and among God’s people. As I find myself asking so often when it comes to elements of the liturgy, why would anyone cut that out?

On the other hand, something even more sublime is going on. We get this from another use of the word “glory” in the liturgy, in the Sanctus. “Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.”

When we give glory to God, we’re not just saying words. We’re testifying. To testify is to mirror, to bear witness, of happenings in which we are participating. We are witnessing heaven and earth full of God’s glory, the glory of the Triune God (“Holy, Holy, Holy”).

Very cool. But here’s the interesting thing. When we sing the Sanctus, we’re singing the combination of a heavenly and earthly song, the song of angels combined with the song of children on Palm Sunday. The song of angels we get from the prophet Isaiah, when Isaiah was called a prophet and lifted up in the temple, and he witnessed heaven opened up and saw the throne of God surrounded by Seraphim. They were singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy, the whole earth is full of your glory.”

Do you see the slight difference between those words and those of the liturgy? In the liturgy we bear witness that heaven and earth are full of God’s glory, whereas in Isaiah, we only hear that the earth is full of God’s glory. The question is, why is the new testament church able to bear witness of heaven full of God’s glory?

We know the answer to this question. Heaven was closed to us. It wasn’t opened until Jesus’ birth (leading to another Gloria hymn, the Gloria in Excelsis); and it wasn’t publically reopened until Jesus’ baptism. Jesus’ ministry, in a sense, was bearing witness to the glories of a reopened heaven, spreading that good news of the reopened heaven.

When Jesus met with the lepers, of course, He was doing some of that spreading of good news, the good news of their healing. It all centered on Him. The one leper recognized this, and therefore testified of the heavenly glories going on where God was present on earth, in the person of Jesus Christ.

Today, the Church is the same dynamic. The Church is the body of Christ, where heaven and earth come together, and where His healed and saved people testify of the glory going on in Him. The historic liturgy is full of God’s glory for a reason. It’s because through it we bear witness of our heavenly citizenship.

“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body.” Glorious indeed.

And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.

We can’t ignore the ethnic dimension of both this week’s Gospel and last week’s. It’s simply there and there in a strong way. The Samaritan showed mercy to the wounded man, and a Samaritan returns thanks to Jesus. But I caution reading the wrong thing, usually from a Marxist or Gnostic perspective, into issues of race or ethnicity in the Bible.

What does that mean? Due to Marxism and Gnosticism, funneled to us by Hollywood, there’s a temptation to ascribe numinousness to racial minorities, particularly if they are poorer. Because they’re a minority “other,” so it is believed, they are excluded from the dominant structures of power managed by the racial, religious, or political majority. Excluded from the “system,” they have no loyalty to it, and recognize it as a false construct set in place only to keep power for the majority members. They see things more clearly; they’re more “woke.”

We see this trope constantly in movies. The moral compass of a movie is often represented by an ethnic minority, someone poor, someone crippled in some way, or someone who’s simply “other” relative to the “structures of power,” whatever that means.

Such would be the Samaritans, as evidenced by the good Samaritan, for instance. The priest and Levite were blinded by their system, and so weren’t freed from the constructs created by their interpretation of the Law. But the Samaritan was not so bound, so he was “woke” enough to show the true love.

The Gospel recognizes no numinousness in race, poverty, or minority status. What it does recognize is the expansion of God’s mission to non-Jews. And here, the Samaritans – the first gentiles, you might say – represent something huge in the Gospel. Jesus simply didn’t have a lot of Greeks at hand with which to make His point. Samaritans were the non-Jews available.

In both Luke’s uses of Samaritans, the Samaritan was less bound by the Law, but in both cases, the Samaritan represented someone recognizing a greater fulfillment of the Law. Like the Samaritan woman at the well, to whom Jesus taught a new Trinitarian worship not centered in Jerusalem, the Samaritans in Luke represented a faith not trapped in a bad theology which couldn’t see in Christ the fulfillment of the Law.

The priest and Levite mindlessly abandoned someone out of a misreading of the Law; the nine lepers mindlessly went on to the priest, ignoring the amazing cleansing they just received and what this meant. Not so the Samaritans. It wasn’t because they were granted special powers, being ethnically different, but because they represented the expansion of God’s mission to gentiles.

Interestingly, but there’s a parallel between this week’s Gospel and Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman, as far as gentile worship goes. To the Samaritan woman, Jesus taught that, while in the past worship centered in the Jerusalem according to the Law, the time is coming when people will worship God “in spirit and in truth,” in a Trinitarian way, and that this would bring together peoples away from their particular “mountains.” (Note, also, that Jesus basically tells the woman the Samaritans are wrong about their theology and their particular mountain; “for salvation is of the Jews.”) To worship God in truth is to worship Him in Christ, to whom the Spirit testifies, and whose possessions the Spirit delivers to us.

Now lets look at the Samaritan leper. Like the Samaritan woman, he didn’t have such loyalty to Jerusalem and its laws, so to speak. But if we take Jesus’ conversation with the woman as a guide, Jesus wasn’t necessarily endorsing why the Samaritan leper perhaps had no loyalty to the Law. “Salvation is of the Jews” means nothing if the Law isn’t driving that statement. So, no numinousness!

However, the leper acted out what Jesus was teaching the Samaritan, that is, worshiping God in spirit and in truth. As it says, he “glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks.” He glorified God through Jesus Christ, giving thanks. Thanks is an offering offered by the Spirit. And of course, the healing itself was mediated by the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who was delivering what Jesus would provide once He sat down at God’s right hand, the restoration of the Tree of Life.

And the “truth” is Jesus. He was at Jesus’ feet, recognizing the borders of God in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. Truth as far as God is concerned is recognized from non-truth, and in Jesus’ case, non-truth is wherever Jesus is not. Positioning oneself lower than God is an act of humility leading to exaltation, and if the truth is that God is bordered by the flesh and blood of Jesus, there cannot be anything of God-in-Christ higher than me, which means I drive myself as low as I can relative to Jesus, which means being at His feet.

Glorifying God and giving thanks. Those, again, are spiritual offerings, the offerings of the liturgy. You could even say glorifying God is the cornerstone of worship in the first half of the liturgy – Gloria Patri, Gloria in Excelsis, Creed – where giving thanks (Eucharist) is the cornerstone of worship in the second half.

In any event, Luke’s Samaritan here puts some meat on what John’s Samaritan talks to Jesus about, worshiping in spirit and in truth, not bound by Jerusalem. What begins in Kyrie is followed by absolved healing, glorifying God through Christ, confession of Christ as God, and thanksgiving. (If only this could have segued into one of those meals Luke’s so often willing to include!) But this is what worshiping God in spirit and in truth looks like. The Samaritans lead the way for all us gentiles.