DO NOT WORRY ABOUT YOUR LIFE

VIII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Matthew 6:24-34

In everybody’s life, there are difficult moments, when suffering and sorrow seems to be one’s lot. It seems then that darkness has overcome the light, and one cannot guess anymore where he is going, feeling abandoned and lonely. If those moments become a long stretch of time, then despair may settle in and one loses the zest of life. In such moments of darkness, one aches with pain, unable to find relief in soothing words. Then, we question God’s care and love, falling into disbelief. Maybe God does not exist. And if he does exist, why is He silent?

The silence of God in face of great suffering or even persecution has been a theme that has accompanied the experience of faith, since the journey of faith of the people of Israel. Job struggled with this problem and was deeply troubled by a suffering that he could not understand. On the cross, Jesus felt loneliness and total abandonment, and he prayed with the Psalm 22: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

The Psalm 22, prayed by Jesus on the cross, is not a psalm of despair, but it is the prayer of someone who, being deeply troubled, opens his heart to the Lord with all his grief and pain, although sure that the Lord will restore him to life and peace. That psalm is a fruit of the experience of the people of Israel, a people who suffered exile, oppression and persecution for their faith. And they could not understand how so much suffering had fallen upon them.

This the theme of the first reading. To those who complained saying: “The Lord has abandoned me, the Lord has forgotten me”, God answered:

Does a woman forget her baby at the breast,

or fail to cherish the son of her womb?

Yet even if these forget,

I will never forget you.

God’s words are reassuring. He will never forget or abandon us, but he stays by out side, walking with us along the road, even when we do not notice him. The words of the prophet call for total confidence in the Lord.

In the Gospel, Jesus counsels us in the same way. We must put our trust in the Lord. If he cares for the birds in the sky and feeds them, how much more he cares for us. We should not worry about tomorrow:

“That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and how you are to clothe it. Surely life means more than food, and the body more than clothing!”

“So do not worry; do not say, “What are we to eat? What are we to drink? How are we to be clothed?” It is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things.”

If we are like those who do not believe (the pagans), worrying about tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, we will not be able to live in peace today - the only day we have. Our worries will be a constant source of troubles and will lead us to store provisions for tomorrow and to struggle to have plenty of money in our coffers.  Money will never be enough. In the end, it will become the purpose of our lives. It will be our god, a false god - an idol that oppresses us. And Jesus puts forward a stern warning:

“You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.”

However, if we look to our capitalist societies, money is the god that is worshipped, peoples and nations only care about money. It is a society based on the procurement of money with their hearts enticed by the allurement of money. Being a false god, Money turns peoples and nations into slaves.