Homilies on Matthew, Homily 22

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin. And yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these.” After speaking about the food we need and showing that we should not worry even about this, He moves on to something easier. For clothing is less necessary than food. Why, then, did He not use the same example here too, the birds, or mention the peacock, the swan, and the sheep? Surely there were many examples He could have drawn from them. Because He wanted to show how far the argument could be taken from both directions: from the lowly nature of the things that share in such beauty, and from the lavish generosity shown to the lilies in their adornment. For this reason, after dressing them so beautifully, He no longer even calls them lilies, but “grass of the field.” And He is not satisfied even with this name, but adds another sign of their lowliness, saying, “which exists today.” And He did not say, “and tomorrow does not exist,” but something much more degrading: “is thrown into the oven.” And He did not say, “clothe,” but “so clothe.” Do you see how He expands and intensifies His language everywhere? He does this to bring His words home to them. That is also why He added, “will He not much more clothe you?” This too carries great emphasis. The force of the word “you” is to suggest the great value placed on our race and the care shown for it, as though He had said, “you, to whom He gave a soul, for whom He fashioned a body, for whose sake He made everything that is seen, for whose sake He sent prophets, gave the law, and performed those countless good works; for whose sake He gave up His only-begotten Son.” Only after He has made His proof clear does He go on to rebuke them as well, saying, “You of little faith.” For this is what a counselor does: He not only instructs but also reproves, to make people more responsive to the persuasive force of His words. Through this He teaches us not only to stop worrying, but also not to be dazzled by the expense of people’s clothing. Why, grass has such loveliness, and green plants such beauty; or rather, the grass is even more precious than such clothing. Why, then, pride yourself on things for which a mere plant wins the prize, with the scales tipped heavily in its favor? And see how, from the beginning, He shows that the command is easy. Once again, He leads them away from these worries by pointing to their opposites and to the very things they feared. Thus, after saying, “Consider the lilies of the field,” He added, “they do not toil.” So He gave these commands because He wanted to free us from toil. In fact, the labor lies in worrying about these things, not in being free from worry. And just as, when He said, “they do not sow,” He did not do away with sowing but with anxious thought, so when He said, “they neither toil nor spin,” He put an end to worry, not to work. But if their beauty surpassed Solomon’s, and not once or twice but throughout his reign—for no one can say that at one time he wore such clothing, though afterward he no longer did; rather, he never dressed so beautifully for even a single day, for Christ declared this by saying, “in all his reign”—and if he was not surpassed by one flower while rivaling another, but fell short of every one alike (which is why He also said, “like one of these,” for the distance between those robes and these flowers is as great as that between the real thing and its imitation), if, then, the man more glorious than every king who ever lived acknowledged his inferiority, when will you be able to surpass, or rather, even faintly approach, such perfection of form? After this He teaches us not to aim at such adornment at all. Just look at its end: after its triumph, “it is thrown into the oven.” And if God has shown such great care for things lowly, worthless, and of little use, how will He abandon you, the most important of all living creatures? Why, then, did He make them so beautiful? To display His own wisdom and the excellence of His power, so that we might learn His glory from everything. For it is not only “the heavens” that “declare the glory of God,” but the earth too. David declared this when he said, “Praise the Lord, you fruitful trees and all cedars.” Some send up praise to their Maker through their fruit, some through their size, and some through their beauty. This too is a sign of surpassing wisdom: that He pours out such great beauty even on the lowliest things (and what can be lowlier than something that exists today and is gone tomorrow?). If, then, He has given grass something it does not need (for how does its beauty help feed the fire?), how will He fail to give you what you need? If He has lavishly adorned the lowliest of all things, doing so not out of necessity but out of generosity, how much more will He honor you, the most honored of all things, in matters of necessity? 2. Now, as you see, after He had demonstrated the greatness of God’s providential care, they were also to be rebuked in what followed. Yet even here He was gentle, charging them with poverty of faith, not a complete lack of it. Thus He says, “If God so clothes the grass of the field, much more you, you of little faith.” And yet surely He Himself does all these things. For “all things were made by Him, and without Him not a single thing was made.” Yet He still makes no mention of Himself anywhere. For the time being, it was enough to indicate His full authority that, with each commandment, He said, “You have heard that it was said to people long ago, but I say to you.” Do not be surprised, then, when in later instances too He conceals Himself or speaks humbly about Himself. For the present He had just one aim: that His teaching should be readily accepted by them and should demonstrate in every way that He was no adversary of God, but of one mind and in agreement with the Father. This is what He does here too. Throughout all His words, He continually sets Him before us, expressing admiration for His wisdom, His providence, and His tender care extending through everything, both great and small. Thus, when speaking of Jerusalem, He called it “the city of the Great King”; and when mentioning Heaven, He again spoke of it as “God’s throne.” And when discussing His ordering of the world, He again attributes it all to Him, saying, “He makes His sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” In the prayer too, He taught us to say that His “is the kingdom and the power and the glory.” And here, discussing His providence and showing that even in little things He is the most excellent of artists, He says that “He clothes the grass of the field.” And nowhere does He call Him His own Father, but theirs, so that through this very honor He might reprove them, and so that when He called Him His Father, they would no longer be displeased. Now if we should not worry about bare necessities, what pardon can we deserve when we worry about expensive things? Or rather, what pardon can those deserve who even go without sleep so that they can take other people’s possessions? 3. “Therefore do not worry, saying, What will we eat? or, What will we drink? or, What will we wear? For the nations of the world seek all these things.” Do you see how He has again put them more deeply to shame, while also showing along the way that He has commanded nothing difficult or burdensome? Thus, when He said, “If you love those who love you,” He was saying that you are doing nothing great, for even the Gentiles do the same. By mentioning the Gentiles, He was urging them toward something greater. So now too He brings them forward to reprove us and show that He is asking us to pay a necessary debt. For if we must do more than the Scribes or Pharisees, what can we deserve when, far from surpassing them, we remain at the low level of the Gentiles and imitate their smallness of soul? Yet He does not stop with the rebuke. After reproving and rousing them in this way, and putting them to shame with all the force of His words, He also comforts them with another argument, saying, “For your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” He did not say, “God knows,” but “your Father knows,” to lead them to greater hope. For if He is a Father, and such a Father, surely He cannot overlook His children in the depths of suffering, since even human fathers cannot bear to do so. Along with this He adds still another argument. What is it? That “you need” them. What He says amounts to this: What! Are these things unnecessary, so that He should disregard them? Yet even with unnecessary things, in the case of the grass, He showed no lack of care; and now these things are actually necessary. So what you consider a reason for anxiety, I say is enough to free you from that anxiety. I mean, if you say, “Then I must worry, because they are necessary,” I say the opposite: “No, for this very reason do not worry, because they are necessary.” For even if they were unnecessary, we should not despair, but feel confident that they would be supplied. Now that they are necessary, we must have no more doubts. For what kind of father can bear to fail to supply his children even with necessities? So for this reason too, God will most certainly give them. For He is the Maker of our nature, and He knows its needs perfectly. So you cannot say, “He is indeed our Father, and the things we seek are necessary, but He does not know that we need them.” For He who knows our very nature, who made it and formed it as it is, clearly knows its needs better than you who experience them, since it was by His decree that our nature has these needs. He will therefore not oppose His own will by first making our nature necessarily subject to such great need, and then depriving it of what it needs, even absolute necessities. Let us therefore stop worrying, for we gain nothing from it except tormenting ourselves. For He gives both when we worry and when we do not—and gives more when we do not. What, then, do you gain by your anxiety except to impose an unnecessary punishment on yourself? Surely someone about to go to a lavish feast will not let himself worry about food, nor will someone walking to a spring be anxious about drink. Therefore, since we have a supply more abundant than any spring or countless banquets prepared for us—the providence of God—let us not be beggars or small-minded. 4. Along with what He has said, He gives yet another reason for confidence about such things, saying, “Seek the kingdom of Heaven, and all these things will be added to you.” Thus, after freeing the soul from anxiety, He also mentioned Heaven. For He came to do away with the old things and call us to a greater country. Therefore He does everything to free us from unnecessary things and from our attachment to the earth. For this reason He also mentioned the heathens, saying that “the Gentiles seek these things”: those whose whole labor is for the present life, who have no concern for things to come and no thought of Heaven. But for you, other things take priority over the things of this present life. For we were not born to eat and drink and be clothed, but to please God and attain the good things to come. Therefore, just as the things here are secondary in our work, let them also be secondary in our prayers. That is why He also said, “Seek the kingdom of Heaven, and all these things will be added to you.” And He did not say, “will be given,” but “will be added,” so that you might learn that present things make up no great part of His gifts compared with the greatness of the things to come. Accordingly, He does not even tell us to ask for them, but to ask for other things and feel confident that these too will be added to them. Seek, then, the things to come, and you will receive present things too; do not seek the things that are seen, and you will surely obtain them. Yes, for it is unworthy of you to approach your Lord for such things. And you, who should devote all your zeal and care to those indescribable blessings, greatly disgrace yourself by spending it on the desire for passing things. “How, then,” someone says, “did He not tell us to ask for bread?” Yes, but He added “daily,” and then “this day,” which is in fact what He does here too. For He did not say, “Do not worry,” but “Do not worry about tomorrow,” both giving us freedom and fixing our soul on the things we need more. For this reason He also told us to ask even for those things, not because God needs us to remind Him, but so that we might learn that whatever we accomplish, we accomplish with His help, and that through our continual prayer for these things we might become more fully His own. Do you see how through this too He wants to assure them that they will certainly receive present things? For He who grants the greater will much more give the lesser. “For when I told you not to worry or ask,” He says, “My purpose was not for you to suffer hardship and go about naked, but for you to have these things in abundance too.” And this, you see, was especially likely to draw them to Him. So, just as in almsgiving, when He discouraged them from making a display before others, He won them over chiefly by promising to provide them with it more generously—“for your Father,” He says, “who sees in secret, will reward you openly”—so here too, in drawing them away from seeking these things, His persuasive argument is His promise to give them in greater abundance when they do not seek them. Thus He says, I tell you not to seek, not to keep you from receiving, but so that you may receive plentifully; so that you may receive in a way worthy of you, with the benefit you ought to have; so that by worrying and distracting yourself with anxiety about these things, you may not make yourself unworthy both of them and of spiritual things; so that you may not suffer unnecessary distress and again fall away from what is set before you. 5. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for each day has enough evil of its own”: that is, its affliction and its bruising. Is it not enough for you to eat your bread by the sweat of your face? Why add the further affliction that comes from anxiety, when you are about to be freed from even those earlier labors? By “evil” here He does not mean wickedness—far from it—but affliction, trouble, and calamities, much as He says elsewhere, “Is there evil in a city that the Lord has not done?” Nor anything like these, but the scourges sent from above. And again He says, “I make peace and create evils.” For here too He is not speaking of wickedness, but of famines and plagues, things most people consider evil, since people generally call these things evil. Thus, for example, the priests and prophets of those five territories, after yoking the cows to the ark and letting them go without their calves, called those plagues sent from heaven “evil,” along with the dismay and anguish they caused within them. This, then, is His meaning here too when He says, “Each day has enough evil of its own.” For nothing pains the soul so much as worry and anxiety. Thus Paul too, when urging celibacy, offered this advice: “I would have you free from worry.” But when He says, “Tomorrow will worry about itself,” He does not mean that the day worries about these things. Rather, because He was speaking to people who were still somewhat immature, He wanted to make His words more vivid, so He personifies time, speaking to them as people commonly do. Here He gives advice, but as He goes on He even makes it a law, saying, “Provide neither gold nor silver nor a bag for your journey.” Thus, after demonstrating it all in His actions, He then sets it down more explicitly in words. By then the command had become easier to accept, because His own actions had already confirmed it. Where, then, did He confirm it by His actions? Listen to Him saying, “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Nor is He satisfied with this alone, but in His disciples too He gives full proof of these things, shaping them in the same way while allowing them to lack nothing. But notice His tender care too, how He surpasses the affection of any father. “I give this command,” He says, “for no other reason than to free you from unnecessary anxieties. For even if today you have worried about tomorrow, tomorrow you will have to worry again. Why, then, add this extra burden? Why force the day to take on more than its allotted distress, adding the burden of the following day to its own troubles, when this addition cannot possibly lighten the other day, and you will merely show yourself eager for unnecessary troubles?” Thus, to reprove them more strongly, He all but brings time itself to life, presenting it as someone injured and protesting against their unprovoked mistreatment. Why, you have been given the day to take care of its affairs. Why, then, add the next day’s affairs to it too? Does it not already have a heavy enough burden in its own anxiety? Why, I ask you, make it still heavier? Now when the Lawgiver says these things, He who is to judge us, consider how good the hopes are that He offers us. He Himself testifies that this life is miserable and wearisome, so that even a single day’s anxiety is enough to hurt and afflict us. 6. Nevertheless, after so many weighty words, we worry about these things, and no longer about the things in Heaven. Rather, we have reversed His order, fighting against His words on both sides. For notice: “Do not seek present things at all,” He says, but we are forever seeking them. “Seek the things in Heaven,” He says, but we do not seek those things for even a short hour. Instead, our neglect of spiritual things matches the greatness of our anxiety about worldly things—or rather, is much greater still. But this will not go well forever, nor can it last forever. What if we treat this with contempt for ten days? For twenty? For a hundred? Must we not inevitably depart and fall into the hands of the Judge? “But the delay brings comfort.” And what sort of comfort is it to expect punishment and vengeance every day? No, if you want some comfort from this delay, gain it by gathering the fruit of a changed life after repentance. For if the mere delay of vengeance seems a kind of relief to you, it is a far greater gain to escape that vengeance altogether. Let us therefore make full use of this delay, so that we may be completely delivered from the dangers pressing on us. For none of the commands is burdensome or difficult. All are so light and easy that, if we only bring a sincere resolve, we can fulfill them all, even if we are guilty of countless offenses. Thus Manasseh had committed countless acts of defilement: he had raised his hands against the saints, brought abominations into the temple, filled the city with murders, and done many other inexcusable things. Yet even after such long and great wickedness, he washed all these things away from himself. How, and in what way? Through repentance and reflection. For there is no sin—yes, none—that does not yield and give way to the power of repentance, or rather, to the grace of Christ. For if we would only change, we have Him to help us. And if you want to become good, no one can hinder you; or rather, there is one who would hinder you, the devil, yet he has no power as long as you choose what is best and so draw God to your aid. But if you yourself are unwilling and turn aside, how will He protect you? For He wants you to be saved by your own will, not by necessity or compulsion. For if you yourself had a servant full of hatred and aversion toward you, continually leaving and running away from you, you would not choose to keep him, even though you needed his services. Much less will God, who does everything for your salvation rather than His own benefit, choose to hold you by force. On the other hand, if you show even a right intention, He will never choose to abandon you, whatever the devil may do. So we ourselves are to blame for our own destruction, because we do not approach, plead with, or implore Him as we should. Even if we do approach, we do not come as people who need to receive, or with the proper faith, or as people pressing a request. Instead, we do everything with yawning indifference. 7. And yet God wants us to press our requests on Him, and for this He considers Himself deeply indebted to you. For He alone among all debtors considers a demand for payment a favor, and gives what we have not lent Him. And if He sees the person making the demand pressing earnestly, He pays out even what He has not received from us. But if we are sluggish, He too keeps delaying, not because He is unwilling to give, but because He is pleased to have us press our requests on Him. For this reason He also told you the example of the friend who came at night and asked for a loaf, and of the judge who neither feared God nor cared about people. Nor did He stop with parables, but showed it in His very actions when He sent that Phoenician woman away after filling her with His great gift. For through her He showed that He gives those who ask earnestly even things that do not belong to them. “For it is not right,” He says, “to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs.” Yet He gave it because she pressed Him earnestly. But through the Jews He showed that He does not give the careless even what belongs to them. Accordingly, they received nothing and lost what was their own. And while they did not receive even their own because they did not ask, she, because she pressed Him earnestly, was able to obtain even what belonged to others, and the dog received what belonged to the children. Persistence is such a great good. For even if you are a dog, if you persist, you will be preferred to the negligent child. Everything that affection failed to accomplish, persistence accomplished. Therefore do not say, “God is my enemy and will not listen.” He answers you at once when you continually press Him, if not because you are His friend, then because of your persistence. Neither enmity nor an inconvenient hour nor anything else stands in the way. Do not say, “I am unworthy, so I do not pray,” for the Syrophoenician woman was unworthy too. Do not say, “I have sinned greatly and cannot appeal to Him whom I have angered,” for God looks at your disposition, not at what you deserve. For if the ruler who neither feared God nor felt shame before people was overcome by the widow, much more will He who is good be won over by continual pleading. So even if you are no friend, even if you are not asking for what is due to you, even if you have devoured your Father’s property and been out of His sight for a long time, even if you are without honor, even if you are last of all, even if you approach Him when He is angry and deeply displeased, just be willing to pray and return, and you will receive everything and quickly extinguish the anger and condemnation. But someone says, “Look, I pray, and nothing happens.” Why, you do not pray like those people: I mean the Syrophoenician woman, the friend who came late at night, the widow who kept troubling the judge, and the son who used up his father’s possessions. For if you prayed like that, you would quickly obtain what you ask. For even though He has been insulted, He is still a Father; and even though He has been provoked to anger, He still loves His children. He seeks only one thing: to see you repenting and pleading with Him, rather than to take vengeance for our insults. If only we burned with as much warmth as His heart feels in its love for us! But this fire needs only a beginning, and if you supply a little spark, you kindle a full flame of generosity. For He is deeply distressed not because He has been insulted, but because you are the one insulting Him and so becoming frenzied. For if we, evil as we are, grieve for our children’s sake when they insult us, much more does God, who cannot even suffer injury from insult, feel deep distress for you who have committed it. If we do this, who love by nature, how much more does He, whose affection goes beyond nature. “For even if,” He says, “a woman should forget the children of her womb, I will not forget you.” 8. Let us therefore approach Him and say, “Yes, Lord; for even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Let us approach “in season, out of season”; or rather, we can never approach at the wrong time, for the wrong thing is to fail to approach continually. It is always the right time to ask someone who desires to give. Yes, just as there is never a wrong time to breathe, there is never a wrong time to pray; rather, it is failing to pray that is out of place. For just as we need this breath, we also need the help that comes from Him. And if we are willing, we will easily draw Him to us. To show this and point out how constantly ready His generosity is, the prophet said, “We will find Him ready as the morning.” For however often we approach, we will see Him waiting for us to move toward Him. And if we fail to draw from His ever-flowing goodness, the blame is entirely ours. This, for example, was His complaint against certain Jews when He said, “My mercy is like a morning cloud, and like the early dew it goes away.” His meaning is this: “I have indeed supplied everything on My part, but just as a hot sun comes up and scatters both cloud and dew, making them vanish, so you have restrained the indescribable Beneficence by your great wickedness.” This too is itself another instance of providential care: even when He sees that we are unworthy to receive good, He withholds His benefits so that He will not make us careless. But if we change a little, even just enough to recognize that we have sinned, He gushes out more abundantly than springs and pours Himself out more abundantly than the ocean. And the more you receive, the more He rejoices, and in this way He is moved again to give us more. For He considers it His own wealth that we should be saved and that He should give generously to those who ask. This, it seems, is what Paul was declaring when he said that He is “rich to all and over all who call upon Him.” For when we do not pray, He is angry; when we do not pray, He turns away from us. For this reason “He became poor, so that He might make us rich”; for this reason He endured all those sufferings, so that He might move us to ask. Let us therefore not despair. With so many reasons and such good hopes, even though we sin every day, let us approach Him, pleading, imploring, and asking forgiveness for our sins. For in this way we will be less ready to sin in the future; in this way we will drive away the devil, call forth God’s lovingkindness, and attain the good things to come, by the grace and love for humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and might forever and ever. Amen.