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NOTES for Mat 6:31-32

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31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
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Let us remember the prophet's words. "Thus says the Lord: What wrong did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me and followed vanity, and became vain, and did not say: 'Where is the Lord, who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, through a land of drought and the shadow of death, through a land that no one passed through and where no one lived?'" (Jer. 2:5-6).

The Lord always nourishes us, and we ungratefully forget this, apparently crediting everything to our own efforts. But the wilderness truly could be an image of our life, if not for what the Lord gives: the generous Lord, the loving Lord. Although why say "could be"? It is, because our life is an exodus from slavery to sin into the promised land, "from which flow milk and honey."

But how then, some may say, can we explain that disorderly and godless people have everything we lack, and have it in abundance? Because that very abundance harms them, depriving them of the priceless thing we have: spiritual joy, perfect joy, the joy of being poor for Christ's sake. And no one can take this joy away, for there is nothing that will separate us from the Lord. Everything earthly can be taken away. But "neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:38, 39)

Other notes

 
For Mat 6:31-34
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
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Perhaps one of the most "frequently asked questions" that arises for many people when they think about God is...  Read more

Perhaps one of the most "frequently asked questions" that arises for many people when they think about God is the complaint that we are so unhappy. "Why does this happen?" Different people, with very different motives, ask God and one another this question. Why are we so unhappy? This question implies not only the incomprehensibility and meaninglessness of the existence of evil and suffering, but also the deep thirst for life built into the human being itself. Why do I have so little of it?

And today's words of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Matthew answer exactly this question, but, as often happens, they answer it in a way that is very unexpected for us. Stereotyped thinking locates the meaning of life in possessing something: goods, time, health, or finally simply happiness. The Lord, by contrast, speaks about belonging. Life is not a matter of possessing the blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven, but of belonging to it. Everything else "will be added" and will be the consequence of this belonging.

These words of Christ can become an amazing source of joy for us if we let them penetrate deeply into our hearts. Incidentally, belonging to the Kingdom of Heaven also satisfies the thirst to belong to something great, a thirst that is also built into us and that we try to drown out with all kinds of murky substitutes, such as personal, social, and national pride.

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For Mat 6:25-34
25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
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We live as though we ourselves provide our own life, although we did not even come into it by ourselves. We spend our time...  Read more

We live as though we ourselves provide our own life, although we did not even come into it by ourselves. We spend our time in constant worries, scraping together life wherever we can. But since we are not eternal beings, we cannot secure eternal life for ourselves.

Jesus offers us a way to build life so as to receive it from the One who is eternal. For this, we must seek His presence and guidance, that is, His Kingdom. And we must also try to "fit into" this Kingdom, to correspond to it, to carry out the will of the Heavenly King; this is the truth, the righteousness of the Kingdom of God.

Again, as throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus turns our attention not to our tasks and worries, but to our relationship with God, to whom we are so precious that He is ready to take all our cares upon Himself, giving us in return a full, eternal life.

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For Mat 6:24-34
24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Hide
Speaking about the care of the Heavenly Father for His creation, Jesus calls His disciples to look at the world that...  Read more

Speaking about the care of the Heavenly Father for His creation, Jesus calls His disciples to look at the world around them. Birds that do not need to worry about stores of food, plants adorned more richly than kings, a person's growth - all this testifies to divine providence. By discovering the beauty of the universe and grasping its laws, a person fulfills the Creator's command. For when the Lord created Adam, He gave him authority over every living thing, entrusted the world to him, and therefore it is so important for a person to learn how this world is arranged. The amazing beauty and harmony placed in nature can become a true source of the knowledge of God. And this knowledge directly concerns us, human beings; it is the knowledge that "your Heavenly Father knows that you need them."

How often we neglect this attentive looking at the world, which gives so many opportunities to give thanks and to understand Him. We prefer to learn all sorts of theological truths instead of simply looking around and seeing a lily, a bird, or just realizing how amazingly precisely your own body works. And is this not one of the ways of seeking the Kingdom of God?

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For Mat 6:22-33
22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Hide
Calling us to trust that God knows all our needs and will not leave us without care, the Lord Jesus Christ opens to us a new, almost unknown dimension of our life. We are so afraid of being left without...  Read more

Calling us to trust that God knows all our needs and will not leave us without care, the Lord Jesus Christ opens to us a new, almost unknown dimension of our life. We are so afraid of being left without necessities, of losing the means of existence, that this fear takes possession of the whole heart, and the poor are in no better position here than the rich. Yet the Lord speaks of a life that is not enclosed only within the material world and not limited only to the short span of earthly life. Christ's astonishing words about how the heavenly Father feeds the birds and clothes the flowers of the field reveal the meaningfulness and beauty of the world in which God has placed us.

And these words of Christ set before us a choice: what exactly constitutes the goal of our life. It is important that, by choosing God and His Kingdom, we lose nothing, because "all these things will be added to you"; but by choosing momentary well-being, we risk losing something infinitely precious and irreplaceable.

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For Mat 6:16-34
16 Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
17 But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face;
18 That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.
19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Hide
The unfamiliar word "mammon" actually means a "stronghold," something one can rely on, a source of hope. Of course, the Lord understands that all of us need to eat, drink, dress, earn a living, and so on, but He says that...  Read more

The unfamiliar word "mammon" actually means a "stronghold," something one can rely on, a source of hope. Of course, the Lord understands that all of us need to eat, drink, dress, earn a living, and so on, but He says that in a person's life there cannot be two hopes, two treasures, two goals. He uses little birds and flowers of the field as examples to show that one can be free, happy, and beautiful while hoping not in "treasure on earth," but in God. Moreover, this beauty is purer, this freedom clearer, than anything the "trouble of the day" can offer us. And this is not about fleeing life, not about irresponsibility or getting something for nothing, but about turning to the most precious and most meaningful content of life - to God, who is absolutely more wondrous than any treasure.

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