8th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

 

Readings: Isaiah 49:14-15

     I Corinthians 4:1-5
                Matthew 6:24-34

 

 

"Can any of you, for all his worrying,
add one single cubit of his life span?”

 

 

In a world so heavily laden with the burdens of poverty, to worry about what to eat or what to wear finds for itself a very strong literal meaning. It is no mere rhetoric. It is no false cry over a shadow situation. On the contrary, it is a daily outburst of man's anxiety over a situation where the thinnest distance between hope and despair, between faith and doubt can only be measured by the amount of food one may be able to gather for him and his family: While we know that it is the inordinate worry which Christ is speaking against, we also realize that the cries of the poor are just so ordinate as to simply crave for their daily bread. Theirs are but that legitimate. Thus, in times like this, one feels so awkward to preach about God's goodness and love for them. But even then, it is precisely in this difficult and desperate situation that a Christian must find consolation from the Word of God.

 

Today, we are invited to meditate on Divine Providence. Here we see Matthew’s finest illustration on how Providence takes care over his creation. The gospel situates us to the most elementary lessons of our faith, yet the profoundest. For the truth is that our Christian understanding on providence is not only an inspiration to beginners, but also a source of perseverance to the "old timers" and a reminder to those who might have already forgotten or perhaps willfully abandoned their faith. The meaning of Divine Providence teaches us that there is but a God who, cares, and he cares because he loves.

 

1. What is Providence, by the way? Our Christian understands providence as the unfailing concern of God over the works of his hand. It is the eyes of heaven which sees all things so that not even the slightest thing escapes from his cognizance. It is the mighty of God that abides with what exists and has life. That is why we cannot help but acknowledge that great natural law which the Great Lawgiver puts over his creation so as to preserve the order of things in it and that this order be disturbed. Thus, we observe that the sun rises at the east and sets at the west, and never elsewhere. The trees grow upward the rain falls downward, and not vice-versa. The galaxies in the vast skies have been there for billions or even trillions of years, as science claims. But the stars, the moons, the planets and others don't just go to whatever directions lest they collide. Instead, they seem and indeed they do follow certain paths and thus are preserved in their magnificence. Even granting that this is simply the order of nature, still we ask: who puts that order in nature, or why is there nature on the first place? Either we say nature itself makes nature which is absurd, or say that they simply come in a spur of a moment. But certainly, all these things do not and cannot happen by mere chance. Rather, they will ultimately point to Someone who is just responsible for everything. One atheist scientist used to fall in such great dilemma. Whereas he can hardly believe in the existence of. God, he at the same time cannot hold himself back with the idea of a mighty hand that puts the order in the galaxies: “It is difficult to believe, but every time I look through the telescope and see such wonder, I couldn’t help but think of someone up up there…”

 

2. Not only does Providence put things in order. More so, he cares for them. Thus, nothing comes and nothing goes without his knowledge. This is the more important point the gospel wants to stress. And Matthew illustrates this by facts of experience, by the things around us, by those simple and insignificant ones which usually escape from our ordinary cognizance. Take the birds of the air. They don't go to school, much less worry about schooling. They know not what architecture is nor of any principle of engineering. But by nature's wonder, they have their dwellings with great uniformity, each according to each kind. The sparrows have their "cemented bungalow" in the first class church-top subdivision, while the woodpeckers cave in, in tree trunks and have their house in the silence of the woods. Yet, both are great in splendor and elegance. Besides, only sparrows and perhaps mud daubers can make their cemented dwellings almost completely suspended in the air. No engineer, however brilliant, ever can.

 

The hands of Providence can be seen also in flowers and lilies in the field. And what is more inspiring is how Jesus compares this to the wealth of Solomon. We know of Solomon as the wisest and richest king. But not even this and wealth that once attracted the queen of the south can ever match the beauty of these lilies. And again, they don't work nor spin, yet they grow and are so preserved. They don't visit any beauty parlor, but indeed, the field where they grow becomes a parlor of beauty.

 

3. Providence cares because he loves. This is the bottom point of today's, gospel message. If ever God, in the mighty works of his providence, is understood as the great provider, it is because he is a loving God. And if ever he loves the birds which can be bought by some pennies and the flowers which can just be burned anytime, how much more man who is worth more than a flock of sparrows and a field of flowers. God's love to man is even much much greater than man's love to man. Some parents may forget their children. Mothers may even kill their own unborn. But not God whose love makes him carve our names into his palms (cf Is 49-14-16). Thus, if the sinful man still knows how to feed his child, there is no reason why a loving God cannot give man what he asks for (cf Mt 7:9-11). This is how the love of God abounds that nothing can separate, us from it, not even death (cf Rom 8:38-39). Thus, man ought not to worry. But he worries and continues to worry. There must be a reason.

 

4. "Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on his righteous and all these other things will be given you as well.” --- The highly spiritual understanding we use to have on this passage most often makes us think that the kingdom refers to heaven and his righteousness to heavenly affairs. Nobody goes to hell with such understanding. We have been up brought with that kind, after all. But the wisdom of the gospel seems to go beyond it. We have all the good reasons to believe that the kingdom includes and in fact refers foremost to his creation, and his righteousness to our moral aptitude towards the works of his providence. Thus, to set one's heart on his kingdom and on his righteousness means to love his creation and be a steward of the works of his hands. The reason why man and humanity keeps worrying and cannot just stop worrying is his betrayal to God's call to love his creation. What man did, do and continues to do is to destroy nature and Mother earth. Thus, the other things that will be given as well cannot be given anymore because even those which were supposed to be preserved, man has already taken away. His worrying cannot help him; it cannot add a single cubit of his life’s span. It has even diminished it. This is precisely what Genesis is trying to convey. From the first man up to the modern man, life’s span continues to lessen. Why? Because as sin increases, age decreases. The first generation was closer to creation and thus had longer life and lesser worries. Today, man has terribly set his hands against creation, alas, he gets shorter life and more worries.