Sunday, April 30, 2006

What, me worry?

“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? 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 that they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?”

“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. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own troubles.” Matthew 6:25-27, 31-34


First and foremost on our minds today is the skyrocketing price of fuel and what ‘evil’ the energy companies are up to and how we are forced to endure their “obscene” and record-breaking quarterly profits and what our Congress and our president will choose to do to “punish” these greedy people.

It was not too many months ago when Social Security was the primary concern we had about our government and how President Bush was “deliberately” trying to destroy the elderly and force them to eat more cat food and do without heating and cooling, etc etc. We cried out to our congressional representatives and pleaded with them to “save” us from this evil president who was out to dismantle what is arguably the most successful government program in place today.

Asking a congressman to “save” us from anything in light of what is written in Matthew is sort of like telling the Lord that we will trust Him to save our souls and get us into Heaven tomorrow, but down here we need our congressman today to “save” us from the day-to-day worries. Is it not just possible that, upon that Day when we stand before the Lord, He will ask, “Why didn’t you trust Me with your daily concerns? What did Congressman so-and-so ever do for you that I didn’t already do? What sacrifice did he make for you so that you could actually live a life filled with hope?”

Having genuine concerns for the state of our economy, especially in how it affects the “least of these” is not the same as incessant “worry” about how the price of fuel or the volatility of the stock market is going to affect our retirement funds. The tone of our protests and hateful words against the president and this congress and the energy industry is pure evidence that we are scared to death of what tomorrow will bring. How can we offer hope to non-believers when it is abundantly clear that we are ourselves without hope? How can we encourage non-believers to allow Christ to be Lord of their lives when it is clear that our congressman, senators, and president are co-lords of our lives now; that our faith and trust is clearly in man-made legislation and not in divinely inspired Scripture?

For the life of the faithful, what is happening today is not about social justice or supply-and-demand economics; it is about faith, pure and simple, and how we respond to our society, our economy, and our culture. It is about knowing that tomorrow is firmly in the hands of the Lord God and that believing this to be true goes far beyond what we put into the collection plate on Sunday.

2 comments:

kc bob said...

I think that the price of gas is partly the result of he cheap stuff from China that we buy from Walmart ... we buy more ... China needs to make more ... they need more fuel to produce more cheap stuff for Walmart ... need for fuel increases in China and the USA's share of global fuel is less thn it used to be ... prices go up. Maybe that stuff from China isn't as cheap as we think it is :)

Just a theory.

Michael said...

No doubt China has surpassed Japan as the #2 importer of foreign oil, and India is becoming more industrialized each year. I suppose the cheap stuff has to come from somewhere, and they need fuel to burn.

Not a bad theory at all. The entire world's economy is dependent, at least in part, on contributions from here, there, and yonder. A missing link can create havoc. Like here in the US where it is virtually illegal to drill for and produce our own oil.

Go figure. Thank you for your thoughts.