Saturday in the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time, June q8, 2022

Matthew 6, 24-34

Jesus said to his disciples: “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

“No one can serve two masters.”  In our modern world many different masters make demands on us.  Often these conflict with one another.  Men and women engage in demanding careers and then try to still be a spouse and parent.  Many people work more than one job, perhaps a main job and then a side gig that they hope will turn into the main job.  Those with dual citizenships are sometimes cast into difficult situations.  We may pride ourselves on our ability to multi-task, too.  In the end, we have to choose because it is unsustainable to have multiple masters.  Portable phones and computers have aggravated the situation because now we can work or communicate with others in places where our attention ought to be focused on higher priorities. 

The Lord begins to speak on this subject in what seems to us a general way: “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.”  We ought to consider the societal context to gain understanding.  When we say “master” today we mean something very different from what the Lord  meant when he used the term.  In the Lord’s day, a “master” was someone who owned slaves.  The slave was dependent on the master for his life, and to disregard his master’s command for another’s was to put his life in jeopardy.  Only if he deeply despised his master could he risk obeying the other man, otherwise the other man represented a threat to his existence and so he would be despised.

“You cannot serve God and mammon.”  The Lord here gives a prime example of what he means by two masters.  The Greek word translated as “serve” here means “to be subject to”, or “to be a slave to”.  Here we see another word that means something entirely different now than it did two thousand years ago.  The Lord is telling us that we are either God’s slaves or mammon’s, that is, the pursuit of wealth.   We can either slave for God or slave for money.  If we slave for God we will enjoy his presence here on earth during our lifetimes, and will enter its ecstasy in heaven.  If we slave for mammon. We may or may not become wealthy, and we will not live long  after we obtain wealth.  Then, because we have rejected God, we will suffer forever.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear.”  The Lord now turns back to explain what it means to accept God as one’s Master.  Because the slave belongs to the master, it is the master’s responsibility to shelter, clothe, and feed him.  Thus, the slave did not have to worry about finding shelter, clothes, or food.  They were provided.  Therefore, the slave need not “worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear.”  The one who belongs to the Lord Jesus has even less worry in this regard, for Jesus is not a harsh master who thinks little of his slaves, but a tender Master who thinks only of his slaves.  In fact, he even calls us “friends” (cf. John 15, 15) though we remain in bondage to him.  “Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?”  That is, we ought to pay little attention to these things.  The Lord will see to them so that we can devote ourselves to our life of serving him.

“Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?”  This brings to mind these lovely verses from the Psalms: “You have made [man] a little less than the angels, you have crowned him with glory and honor and have set him over the works of your hands. You have subjected all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, moreover, the beasts also of the fields, the birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea” (Psalm 8, 6-9).  

“Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?”  This line in the lectionary does not translate very well the Greek, which says, “Can any of you, being anxious, add one cubit to your stature?”  One of the differences between the two translations is the participle I have translated as “being anxious”.  That is, “being anxious” is a persistent state for someone — he or she is an anxious person.  The lectionary reading implies that “worry” is used as a tool in order to gain a moment of life.  The anxious person is in a worse state than one who can utilize worry.  This is anxious one is Martha, to whom the Lord said, “You are worried and upset about many things” (Luke 10, 41).  He counsels her to follow her sister’s example: to sit at his feet and to listen to his word.  That is, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.”  The “cubit” mentioned in the text would measure between two and three feet, so this would make a substantial increase in height for someone.  It could make a person of average height a giant.  A person can become a giant, but, as the Lord says, an anxious person cannot achieve this.  The one who is the “greatest” will be the servant of all, in the servitude of Jesus Christ, for “whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled: and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted” (Matthew 23, 12) by Almighty God.