D o not store up for yourselves riches on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves steal. Store up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where there is no destruction or theft. For that which you treasure reflects the character of your heart.

A secular society is built on its ability to market. Money is the commodity of exchange; we bathe in its water and drink of its benefits. We spend our lives generating it, spending it, storing it, counting it. As such, we live consumptive, horribly distorted lives. The ‘haves’ in their palaces, the ‘have nots’ in their gutters with their gutter-snipes. The greatest pressure this society feels is the gnawing, persistent hunger for more money. Caesar’s image on a coin of gold is more to be desired than eternal life. Eternal life lacks the concreteness if coin. We cannot touch it, feel it or comprehend it. It is unformed in our understanding. Hence, we troop about in fine raiment, gold trailing from our pockets, impoverished in spirit and paupers in things that matter.

“As the eye is the lamp of the body, so your values determine your character. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If your values are crippled, everything about you is also crippled. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

My values then, are the eyes through which I perceive the world. If my values allow murder as recompense for a wrong done, then the darkness of taking life is mine also. I can expect nothing else. But if my values give life, regardless of wrongs done, I myself become free and bask in liberated light. What choices he gives us! They do not seem so complex.

“No one can serve two masters who are diametrically opposed. He is destined to hate one and love the other. You cannot serve both God who is eternal, and Money which is temporal. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. These are not issues for which you should concern yourself. Is not life itself more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Do not fall into the trap of believing that life and body are dependent on food and clothing.

“Here is what I mean: See the birds in the air? They do not sow, reap, or store away in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Why do you worry about clothing? See the lilies of the field. They do not labor at surviving. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in his entire splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the flowers of the field, which is here today and tomorrow discarded, will he not much more clothe you? In your concern for these things, you diminish your faith. So don’t worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ These are destructive questions. You only hurt yourself by seeking their answers. Your heavenly Father knows that you need these things. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has trouble enough.

But the struggle I have is this: I wish to serve God. But the way I was raised and the demands of the society in which I live counts me as responsible to support myself. I must take the initiative. Even the sparrow seeks out its food. But Jesus here is addressing the issue of inner character and motive, not the actual provision of necessities. He is speaking of those things that monopolize my attention. Clearly, if one seeks to serve God, then the pursuit of money cannot be one of these things. Instead, one finds peace as he learns to be content with what God provides. It is a matter of whether one is content with the sparrow to hunt and peck or whether one is possessed by it. Sometimes the choice of wood or field dramatically influences the magnitude of provision and those choices are the result of intuitiveness, talent, training, clarity of objective and what may seem to be happenstance; although what may seem to be the consequence of blind fortune is without doubt influenced by conscious and unconscious choices. Still, the priority is intimacy with God and his realm, the rest is routine pecking. Of course, I work with my hands, my heart and my mind. Of course I plan in my hunting and pecking — but my Father provides what I need to live and do his will.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a rock? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Most fathers perhaps, are as the Master suggests. Some are not. Some take perverted delight in giving his son a snake when he asks for a fish. Such fathers are insensible and cloddish. They are not ‘fathers’ at all however wide they spread their biological seed. The father of which Jesus speaks is indeed a reflection of the heavenly Father. When his son asks for bread, he places before him a feast; he places his own gold ring on his finger. And so, my son, come to me and ask. I am eager to give. My inclination is always to say ‘yes’ and never to say ‘no.’ If you learn to trust my wisdom however, you will find that when I do say ‘no;’ that too, is always ‘yes.’

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