Stress, the great bane of our
time.
If we are kids in grade school, we
stress about where we’re going to sit in class, who we’ll be friends with, and
maybe, just maybe, about our grades. If we are teens, in High School, we are
still stressing about if we are wearing the “right” clothes, who we are hanging
out with, what team we try out for, who thinks we are hot, and maybe, just
maybe, our grades. If we are in our
twenties, we’re stressing about which school we’ll get accepted into, what job
we’ll get, or who we’ll marry… You get the picture.
I’m well past 50, and I’m
still stressing, about my job, about bills, about my children, about my
health. Is the stress helping me or
hurting me? Let’s take a look at today’s readings and see what we can learn
from the Lord this week.
In the first reading, from
the Prophet Isaiah, Zion (in other words, Israel) is lamenting that the Lord
has forsaken them. They’ve been
conquered, dispossessed. The Lord,
through the Prophet, tells them “Can a mother forget her infant?... Even if she
would, I will never forget you.”
In Paul’s letter to the
Corinthians, he is reflecting on the need to be good stewards, to be
trustworthy. Then, in the same breath,
he says that he is not concerned about being judged by anyone else, and not
even by himself. Paul tells us that if
we are doing what the Lord asks of us, doing the Lord’s work, then we’ll be
judged positively at the appointed time, and receive our praise from God.
Finally, we come to today’s
Gospel, a very familiar passage from Matthew. We’ve all heard it many times
before, sometimes referred to as “the Lilies of the Field”.
“Therefore I tell you, do not
worry about your life,
what you will eat or drink,
or about your body, what you will wear.”
So, really, what is the Lord
telling us here, that we should all become Dead Heads, begging for food and
rides to the next concert two hundred miles away? That we should all quit our jobs and live the
rest of our lives in communal bliss on an ashram in Oregon? That we should all
become slackers? NO.
When the Lord tells us that
we should not give into stress, I would suggest that the real message is about
Priorities. First, and foremost, our
main priority should always be the Lord, our relationship with the Lord, our
doing the Lord’s work.
“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 we are to:
“Seek first the Kingdom of
God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you besides.”
And so, yes, it is ok to
think about where we are to sleep, and yes, it is ok to worry about what we are
to eat, and yes, it is ok to stress about what we are to wear. These things, however, must never become our
priority, our Mammon, the thing that consumes our every waking thought.
As we approach the Altar of
Sacrifice and Thanksgiving, as we approach the coming Lenten season, let’s all
resolve to examine our priorities.
Seek first the Kingdom of
God!
