Relying Upon a God Who Provides

Jan Luyken, Sermon on the Mount engraving (c. 1712), Philip Medhurst Collection

Philosophers have long debated how exactly humans are different from animals. Through the centuries they have arrived at numerous ways that we are different than the rest of creation, most of them related to the fact that we have eternal souls. This is expressed in many of our positive qualities: introspection, reason, love for the other. But there are also some ways we are different from animals that are more negative. One of the most common is the fact that we worry.

Outside of immediate physical danger, animals don’t worry about very much. Jesus points that out in the Gospel today when he draws his listeners’ attention to the birds of the air. They exist without any assurance of tomorrow, without any plans for living beyond the present moment; and yet, as Jesus says, God provides for them. Contrast that to us humans. We seemingly never stop planning and preparing, ordering and reordering our lives, and above all else worrying about how we are going to meet all that is demanded of us.

We do this because we know we have to. And yet as we heard, Jesus tells us: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear… Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will take care of itself.” That is a strange command, perhaps even unreasonable. Of course, we have to contextualize what Jesus is really saying. He is certainly not telling parents to not plan for the future of their children, or students to not prepare for tomorrow’s exam. Instead, he’s encouraging us to not let ourselves be so consumed by anxiety such that we forget what the birds of the air know: that God will provide.

There are certainly things in life that cause us anxiety. We need only watch the news, read the headlines, or think about whatever personal or family struggle we might have currently to remember that: a child diagnosed with cancer, a wife who has lost her husband, a friend who is suffering in a profound way. These things not only create anxiety – they hurt, we suffer because of them. In light of them, Jesus’s message of “Don’t worry, God will provide” can ring hollow. 

But remember who is speaking – Jesus speaks to us not just from his human nature, but from his divine one as well. That is, he is speaking to us as God, telling us that he will care for us. Even more, Jesus backs up his words with action. The Sermon on the Mount from which we’ve been hearing the last several weeks is the master plan for the kingdom of God, but it is the ministry of Jesus that ushers that kingdom in. In his encounters with people, Jesus brought to them the presence of God, giving them a tangible experience of how God does provide – with accompaniment, with healing, with mercy. On Calvary, Jesus proved the depth of God’s desire to provide for us in an eternal way, by taking upon himself the weight of our sin and death so that we can share in his abundant life. And Christ continues to encounter you and me, as well, assisting us each day with his own strength, especially through the sacraments.

The knowledge that God does indeed provide for us – that, as Isaiah says, he could no more forget us than a mother could forget her child – does not of course take away our problems. The things that cause us anxiety are still there, whether it’s that upcoming exam or the family strife or the personal struggle. But Jesus assures us, with word and action, that God walks with us in these challenges, aiding us with his strength and guiding us in his paths. We need only seek him first – seek his kingdom and its righteousness, in the words of Christ – then the heavenly Father provides the rest.

Friends, God has indeed made us different than the rest of creation in many ways – but the most important of them is our ability to come to know him, to have a relationship with our Creator, to trust in the one who has redeemed us in Christ, and the one who cares for us through the Spirit each day. On the Cross, Jesus showed us the depth of God’s desire to enter into even the most terrible part of our reality so that he might redeem it from within. As Christians, that redemption should allow us to be different than the rest of the world, allowing us to labor for today and leave tomorrow to God. Though challenges and anxieties remain, we have a foundation of hope underneath, believing that God has provided and will provide for our every need. He has promised that, and God is true to his promises.