Saturday, September 28, 2013

9th September Trinity 2007, Tender Seed Bed

9th August Trinity
Matthew 6:19-34

“Do not save up your treasures on the earth, where moths and rust eat away at them and thieves tunnel in and steal. Save up your treasures in heaven, where no moth and no rust consumes and thieves do not tunnel in and steal. Because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

“The lamp of the body is the eye. So if your eye is wholesome, your whole body is lighted; whereas if your eye is bad, your whole body is in darkness. So if the light inside you is dark…what great darkness!

“No one can serve two masters: either he will hate one and love the other, or he will  put up with one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and greed’s demon of riches [mammon].

“That is why I tell you, do not trouble your heart about what you will eat and drink or with what you will clothe your body. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky: they do not plant, do not harvest, and do not fill barns, and your heavenly Father still feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Can any of you, by being vastly concerned, add one moment to the span of your life?

And why do you worry about clothing? Study how the lilies of the field grow: they do not work, and they do not spin cloth. But I am telling you that not even Solomon in all his glory was ever arrayed as one of these. If that is how God clothes the wild grass of the field, here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will He not do much more for you, o small in faith?

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we drink? What will we wear?’ It is the nations who ask for all these things, and indeed, your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Ask first for God’s kingdom and its harmonious order, and these other things will be delivered to you as well.


So do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow can worry about itself. Today’s trouble is enough for today."

9th August Trinity
September 16, 2007
Matthew 6: 19-34

Sometimes an outwardly lovely rose blossom opens, and one can see that its center has been eaten away. The tender seed bed, the source of continuing life, is gone.

Our heart is the center, the core of our being. It is the treasure house of our soul, wherein we store everything that is important to us, everything we have connected ourselves with and worked on in our lives. All the people and things we love are treasured in our hearts. Our hearts contain the seed bed for continuing life.      
Today, on our 9th step toward our encounter with Michael at the threshold, Christ encourages us to look inward and to assess what it is that we treasure. Do we love to shop for and prepare elaborate meals? Do we work long hours so that we can afford to have lots of great clothes, a great home, a terrific car? Then clothes and food and cars are the treasures of our heart. In and of themselves these are not bad things. It is the subtle edge of anxiety that creeps into the treasure house, the worry and concern that eats away at our heart when these things form a large portion of our treasure store. For deep down we know that these treasures cannot cross the threshold with us. Fear of their loss then eats away at the core of our being.
           
Christ encourages us first of all to store up the treasures of His kingdom in our hearts. Its treasures are interconnected, alive with the life that will cross over with us. What are these treasures? They are His words, His deeds, His continuing presence. We can treasure them up in our hearts by reading and contemplating them, even a little bit, daily. We treasure Him by taking in His words in the sacraments, by searching for Him in other people, by finding His works in the world.
           
Christ further encourages us to concentrate on today, to spend time in His eternal Now; for living in trust of the spirit, moment by moment, will show us the most important things to love and treasure. Then the rose of the heart, instead of being eaten away by fear, grows strong and beautiful, full of the seeds of new, vital and everlasting life.

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