SUMMER REBOOT – this podcast was originally published on 24 September 2018.

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Good morning everyone, my name is Bryony and I’m part of the staff team here at STC Sheffield. This week we are continuing our journey through Matthew’s Gospel. If you listened in last week Tom Finnemore started looking at Matthew’s retelling of the Sermon on the Mount. Tom talked about what it looks like to have your life interrupted and turned inside out by Jesus. During the Sermon on the Mount Jesus painted a picture of what life in his kingdom looked like. People often refer to it as the ‘Jesus Manifesto’, it’s in these passages where Jesus reveals how differently a life lived for the kingdom in the kingdom is.

I’m going to continue where we left off and this week we’ll be looking at Matthew chapters 6, 7 and 8. I especially want to focus this week on what we can learn from Jesus’ words around the area of provision. What does it look like to be provided for? How can we see provision in our life? Do we even believe that God is a provider?

REFLECTION

Today’s passage is Matthew 6: 19-34, I’ll read all of it at the end but I’m going to focus particularly on verse 28-30. ‘…why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith?’

‘Worry’ – Jesus uses this word 6 times in today’s passage. It’s like he knows it will be a big problem! A quick glance in the dictionary tells me that worry is the ‘ feel or cause to feel anxious or troubled about actual or potential problems.’ We know that worry comes in all shapes and sizes, from the small daily issues to huge concerns about the future.

My daughter went on a school trip last year to Cleethorpes. The night before the trip one of her friends got very upset and started crying. Her mother thinking that she must be nervous about going away for the day told her

‘it’s ok, I’m sure you will really enjoy it’. To which she replied ‘I’m not worried about enjoying the trip, I’m worried that Daddy will sleep too much and not get me into school on time!’. Her Mum was quick to reassure her

that her Dad was indeed a functioning, capable adult!

Worry is a daily temptation for most of us. There are so many moments today when there will be a temptation to be drawn into worry. Will I miss the bus? Did I turn off the oven? Will my child be ok? Have I made the right

choice? Where am I going to live? Small question and big questions, all with the potential to end in worry. What is Jesus’ response to this age-old human problem? Well fairly annoyingly in verse 25 he says ‘don’t worry’!

Just don’t do it. There’s no formula or tools for how we are to stop worrying, he doesn’t give that, just ‘don’t worry’. However in the passage I’ve just read, rather than telling us how not to worry, he tells us why we are

not to worry. He points to birds (and in this passage) flowers and grass and notes how they are cared for by God, how much beauty he bestows on nature. And then Jesus says… ‘If that is how God clothes the grass of

the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you?’

What he is saying is grass is pretty worthless, it grows it dies, it’s not the most precious thing and yet God enables it to grow, God created it to grow and flourish. But we are so much more precious to God that grass,

therefore Jesus is reasoning that we had no basis from which to worry. Our response to this comes down to the value we place on ourselves and believe God places on us. If we believe that God doesn’t value us then of course we would doubt his provision in our live...