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
“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
Matthew 6: 19 -34
In the agricultural world, it
is the time of harvest, of storing in barns. We ourselves are buying boots and
warm sweaters. There is a strong return to the earthly as we prepare for
winter.
The gospel reading encourages
us, along with these preparations, to awaken our self-awareness. We are to
notice the soul mood that now creeps in. For there is a tendency toward a darkening
of the soul’s inner light through worry; there is a fear that spreads beyond
the moment to poison the future; there is an anxiety that causes us to enslave
ourselves to the monetary.
He encourages us instead to
notice that we do not have to do everything for and by ourselves. We belong to
a large community of living beings. This community consists of the light, the
birds, the plants. They, and we, are all carried in the Father’s warm living
hand. Though the outer light is starting to withdraw, and nature is dying back,
this is no cause for over-concern. There is an orderliness to this process, a larger
rhythm that allows us to know that this is not permanent. We can see beyond
today and know that what the future brings is part of a greater plan.
And so at any moment, in-self
awareness, we can remind ourselves to welcome the future: may the events, the
people, the spiritual beings that are approaching us, come. May they find in us
quiet minds, understanding hearts and clear souls. We can achieve this inner
state by ever and again calling to mind that we are grounded in the Father’s
peaceful life, embedded in the Christ’s creative love, surrounded by the
Spirit’s healing light.[1]
“So do not
worry, saying, ‘What will we drink? What will we wear?’ …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.” Matthew 6: 32, 33.
[1]
Against Fear
Adam Bittleston, in Meditative Prayers for Today
May the events that seek me
Come unto me;
May I receive them
With a quiet mind
Through the Father’s ground of
peace
On which we walk.
May the people who seek me
Come unto me;
May I receive them
With an understanding heart
Through the Christ’s stream of
love
In which we live.
May the spirits which seek me
Come unto me;
May I receive them
With a clear soul
Through the healing Spirit’s
Light
By which we see.
