VIII
Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) – March 2, 2014
Readings: Isaiah 49: 14-15 / 1 Corinthians 4: 1-5 /
Matthew 6: 24-34
Fr.
Charles Johnson, O.P.
A recent study reported findings that anxiety and worry can be
contagious. Part of the study dealt with
how one person who manifests noticeable symptoms or signs of anxiety or worry
demonstrably affects other nearby persons. The investigators noted that people standing
in line near a visibly anxious or nervous person reacted by manifesting similar
signs and behavior. The new story made me chuckle as I thought,
“Gee, I could have told them that!”
In today’s Gospel reading from the Gospel according to Matthew,
Jesus cautions against worry or its equivalent at least five times. So many times; he must have noticed it was a
problem for his followers … or that it is a problem! It helps to notice the “worry” dynamic that
Jesus talks about. Most of the examples
of worry are “me-oriented”: what we eat, drink or wear.
Noted Scripture scholar, Dominican sister Barbara Reid highlights
how the caution Jesus makes against worry also reminds us against the sin of
selfishness as she writes, “Neither obsessive anxiety about subsistence nor
fixated desires on excessive accumulation have a place in the realm of
God. Both are reflective of little
faith.” Very often, worry not only
reflects a weakness in faith, but also less interest in the good of
others.
Jesus calls on us to “seek first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” The idea is not to neglect the necessities of
life, but to view them as means to help us to get to where God invites us,
nearer to Him and in communion with those around us.
Pope emeritus Benedict XVI points out that today’s Gospel reading
is integrally related to the confident faith we are to express in the Lord’s
Prayer, the Our Father. Asking God to
“give us this day our daily bread,” is more than about asking with outstretched
hands. Jesus teaches us to see ourselves
in relationship with God, God who provides.
The fruit of that relationship is trust, not worry.
At the same time, the providence of God leads us to recognize
the value of our efforts, not only to make the Lord’s bounty practical and
usable, for those in need as well as ourselves, so that our relationship with
God nourishes our relationship with others.
Faith means working for our daily bread and knowing God as the
source of our tomorrow, so that the needs of others become not a cause of worry
but a reason for love.
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