22nd June >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Matthew 6:24-34 for Saturday, Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time: ‘You cannot be the slave both of God and of money’. (2024)

22nd June >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies onMatthew 6:24-34 forSaturday, Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time: ‘You cannot be the slave both of God and of money’.

Saturday, Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada)

Matthew 6:24-34

Do not worry about tomorrow: your holy Father knows your needs

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or treat the first with respect and the second with scorn. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.

‘That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and how you are to clothe it. Surely life means more than food, and the body more than clothing! Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are? Can any of you, for all his worrying, add one single cubit to his span of life? And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his regalia was robed like one of these. Now if that is how God clothes the grass in the field which is there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you men of little faith? So do not worry; do not say, “What are we to eat? What are we to drink? How are we to be clothed?” It is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on his righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.’

Gospel (USA)

Matthew 6:24-34

Do not worry about tomorrow.

Jesus said to his disciples: “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

Reflections (5)

(i) Saturday, Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

The Jesus who calls on us in today’s gospel reading not to be overly anxious about food or clothing is the same Jesus who towards the end of this gospel of Matthew calls on us to cloth the naked and to feed the hungry and who declares that whatever we do or fail to do for the naked and hungry we do or fail to do for him. Jesus was very aware that we all have a responsibility to ensure that everyone can enjoy the basic necessities of life. Yet, he was also aware that we can be overly anxious about food and clothing in our own regard. He is inviting us in that gospel reading to reflect on what it is we set our hearts on. What drives us? Is it the desire for more food or clothing or money than we need? At the end of the gospel reading, Jesus identifies what it is we are to set our hearts on, ‘Set your hearts on the kingdom first, and on his (God’s) righteousness’, God’s righteousness being God’s will for our lives. This corresponds to the opening petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. It is further into that prayer that we pray, ‘Give us this day our daily bread’. The fundamental question that Jesus wants us to ask ourselves is, ‘What is God’s will for my life, for the life of the church, for our world? How can I, how can we, live in such a way that the kingdom of God, the reign of God, becomes more of a concrete reality in our world?’ This is to be our primary desire which is to shape all the other desires of our lives. This is to be our basic prayer which informs all our other prayers.

And/Or

(ii)Saturday, Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

In this morning’s first reading Saint Paul speaks of a thorn that was given to him in the flesh, which he considered to be a messenger of Satan. In other words, as far as he was concerned it was detrimental to his spiritual well-being. Whatever Paul is referring to, he had an expectation that the Lord would take it from him, in response to his persistent prayer. ‘Three times, I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it would leave me’. Paul’s prayer was answered but not in the way he expected, not in the way he wanted it to be answered. Paul was not delivered from his thorn in the flesh. Instead the Lord assured him that this negative experience provided an opportunity for the Lord to work powerfully in Paul’s life. The Lord’s grace would see Paul through. Sometimes our greatest personal struggles can be the means through which we grow in our relationship with the Lord. Our most painful experiences can open us up to a power that is greater than any merely human strength within ourselves. If we turn to the Lord in the midst of such experiences, like Paul, our prayer will always be answered, even if the thorn in the flesh does not leave us.

And/Or

(iii) Saturday, Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

We all worry from time to time. Worrying is part of the human condition. Parents worry about their children. Family members worry about each other. Young people worry about their future. Jesus must have worried about his disciples, about the lack of response on the part of some of his contemporaries to his message, about where his mission was leading him. In the gospel reading this morning Jesus is not saying ‘don’t ever worry about anything’. The focus of worry in that gospel reading is food, drink and clothing, and the worry in question is excessive worry or preoccupation. Jesus makes reference in that reading to ‘the pagans who set their hearts on all these things’. The issue is setting our hearts on what is not of ultimate importance. The gospel reading invites us to ask, ‘What am I giving my heart to?’ To that extent, it is really about getting our priorities right, bringing them into line with God’s priorities. That is why towards the end of the reading Jesus declares, ‘Set your hearts on God’s kingdom first, and on his righteousness’. Don’t be so preoccupied about food, drink and clothing, Jesus is saying, that there is no room in your heart for concern about the coming of God’s kingdom or the doing of God’s will. The first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer relate to what might be termed God’s priorities, ‘Hallowed by thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done’. These were Jesus’ priorities and he calls on his disciples to make them their own as well. The prayer ‘thy kingdom come’ impels us to work for the coming of God’s kingdom for all of God’s people here and now.

And/Or

(iv) Saturday, Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

We all spend a certain amount of our lives trying to figure out what our priorities should be. This is especially the case if we have competing priorities. People often find that there can be a tension between the demands of work and the demands of home, for example. Where should the priority lie at any particular time? Sometimes we just have to live with the tension of competing priorities and try to order them as best we can. We will probably never get the perfect solution to competing priorities. However, we can get our basic priorities right; those fundamental priorities that shape all our other priorities, all the decisions we make as to what is the best thing to do in the here and now. It is those basic priorities that Jesus is talking about in the gospel reading this morning. When he says that you cannot be the slave both of God and of money he is declaring that money should never be our ultimate priority. When he says do not worry about what you are to eat or about your clothing but set your hearts on God’s kingdom first, and his righteousness, he is declaring that doing God’s will, living in accordance with the values of God’s kingdom, is a higher priority than food or clothing. He states this as one who elsewhere demands that we feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Jesus is talking in the gospel reading about that fundamental priority, that decision for God and his kingdom, which shapes everything else that we do in life. He seems to be saying that we must get that right first, and then all else will follow.

And/Or

(v) Saturday, Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

We all have worries and anxieties and preoccupations. It is part and parcel of living. In the gospel reading, Jesus suggests that there needs to be a sense of proportion about our anxieties. We need to be more preoccupied about what is more important and less preoccupied about what is less important. What is most important is what Jesus refers to in the gospel reading as the kingdom of God and his righteousness. We are to set our hearts on those realities first. In comparison to those realities the material needs of life for food and clothing are much less important. What Jesus says here corresponds to the prayer that he gave his disciples to pray, where we are taught to pray first for the coming of God’s kingdom and that God’s will would be done on earth as in heaven, and only then to pray for our own material needs, our daily bread. What Jesus refers to in the gospel reading as God’s righteousness is simply another way of referring to the doing of God’s will. If everyone did God’s will on earth, as it is done in heaven, then the kingdom of God would be fully present on earth. It is clear what Jesus’ own priorities are and he wants us to make his priorities our own. Our primary preoccupation is to be the seeking and doing of God’s will. This priority of Jesus is there again in the Beatitudes, ‘blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness’. If we were to ask ‘What does doing God’s will mean?’ Jesus would point to himself, and he would say to us, ‘Learn from me’. He is the one human being in whom God’s will was done on earth as it is in heaven.

Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland.

Twitter: @SJtBClontarfRC.

Facebook: St John the Baptist RC Parish, Clontarf.

Tumblr: Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin.