Are You A Leg Hugging Christian?

Matthew 6:25-33

This section of Matthew's gospel offers a series of warnings about enmeshing and enfleshing the things of this world. With both strong prohibitions and proverbial sayings, Jesus instructs his disciples on how they are to regard all their possessions, all their things.

Immediately before today's special Thanksgiving Day gospel text in verses 19-24, Jesus warns against storing up treasures here on earth rather than living a life that installs treasures in heaven. Both here and elsewhere (e.g. see 13:44, 52) Matthew uses treasure as a metaphor for that which establishes itself in our hearts as our first concern (verse 21). There's no room in the small, tight human heart for more than one treasure-house. Thus if it's filled with earthly treasures, there can be no room for the heavenly treasures that Jesus wants us to store up (verse 20).

Jesus shifts metaphors, using the eye -- healthy or unhealthy -- as an example of a life lived in light or in darkness (22-23). There's no grey area in Jesus' description. If the eye is unhealthy, the darkness it encounters plunges the whole body into that darkened state.

Both the images of the treasures and the eye are summed up in Jesus' famous warning that has sounded through the centuries, "No one can serve two masters . . . You cannot serve God and wealth" (verse 24).

In today's text Jesus continues his admonitions in a long, poetic discourse where creation itself is evidence of God's abundant care and concern for God's children. With sometimes an almost "shame on you" tone, Jesus scolds the futile nature of human-based worries and concerns. Our ability to fret is only equaled by the weight of the truth that no amount of worrying can add a single hour to our life-span (verse 27).

Jesus' discussion here twice employs a classic tool of Jewish rhetoric called qal wahomer or how much more (verses 26,30). The format of the qal wahomer declares that if God cares for the birds and the flowers, then how much more will God care for men and women who are created in God's own image (see both 6:8 and 32). Traditional Jewish theology teaches that, as an extension of God's creative work as outlined in Genesis, God cares intimately for all of the created world. God's omniscience even suggests that the divine knows the number of raindrops falling on the earth, the number of feathers adorning the back of a sparrow.

God's lavish care and attention on every minute facet of creation enables Jesus to conclude his qal wahomer, his "how much more" statements, with confidence and authority. For humans to worry about what they need to survive reveals the thin crust of faith and the deep roots of doubt within the human heart. Jesus condemns this essential distrust of God and labels such worriers "you-of-little-faith" people (verse 30).

In verse 32 Jesus' identifies one such fearful, faithless attitude: a Gentile who strives for all these things, all the possessions that humans can acquire through self-centered, self-motivated endeavors. Here Jesus' message moves beyond a warning not to strive for riches or treasures to a surprising admonition not to vex about even the basic necessities of life. Non-disciples worry about bread just as much as they seek after riches.

What Jesus is counseling here is for disciples to adopt an identity that's marked by an attitude even towards life's most basic needs that sets them apart from such Gentiles. Jesus' radical definition of one who is faithful is the person who "strive[s] first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness" (verse 33). In many ways Jesus is simply restating the long-established Shema that was supposed to govern the lives of God's people -- to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might" (Deut.6:5). With love and trust in God firmly enthroned in our hearts, heads and hands, there is no room for doubt, no room for worry.

This love God first mandate is presented by Jesus as the required bedrock for the activities of a true disciple. With love and commitment firmly ensconced within their hearts, a faithful disciple will strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Working for the kingdom, laboring in love towards making righteousness a reality, is the only genuine, faithful activity of the children of God.

The Word Made Flesh

On Thursday you will join millions of families and gather around a heavily-laden table to celebrate Thanksgiving. The centerpiece of that table, in most cases, will be a large, golden-roasted turkey. Although it takes the skills of a gifted surgeon to dissect most of the big bird, there is one easily accessible portion (and the one that is often grabbed up first): the leg.

Those big, juicy, easy-to-pull-off turkey legs are especially tantalizing to kids. After all, the leg comes with its own handle. The leg doesn't require a knife and fork. And the leg leftovers fit in just one zip-lock bag -- ready to go for a snack later.

No wonder so many Thanksgiving diners are leg grabbers.

But turkey legs aren't the only legs that attract little children. At our six year old's last soccer game, one of the parent-coaches was striding up and down the sidelines, shouting encouragement and instructions to his son's team. This soccer-Dad's ability to keep up with the ball's rapid back-and-forth progress was hampered by one factor. Firmly attached to his left leg was his eighteen month old daughter, while glued to his right leg was his three year old son. Watching him struggling to keep up with his oldest child's soccer movements while making sure that his younger kids stayed safely anchored to his legs was even more interesting than the soccer game. Someone called out encouragingly, "It's a good thing kids come with Velcro!"

If you've ever established a close relationship with a young child -- as a parent, babysitter, grandparent, aunt or uncle -- you're had the same experience. The only thing worse than having a little kid pull at your leg is having no little kid to pull at your leg. Like iron filings drawn to a magnet, all youngsters seem to go through the leg-clinging, leg-riding stage. To someone under three feet tall, an adult's leg is a tall, straight column of strength. It's just the right circumference for small, short arms to go around and of course the attached foot provides a convenient seat for resting.

Did you ever consider the tremendous sense of security and love involved in leg-grabbing and leg-riding? From that special perch -- accessible only to kids of a certain size -- troubles are less daunting, fears less intimidating. Young children, riding on the leg of a loved one, feel only the strength of our love. They never notice our feet of clay.

But little ones grow larger and heavier. All-too-soon our legs aren't long enough, or wide enough, or strong enough to support them. Leg-riding two year olds become fearless shoulder jockeys by age four. Beloved parents or friends become precarious perches instead of solid anchors.

Can we ever again feel that stability and security, that absolute groundedness we gained as a leg-grabber?

Where can adults reconnect for a confidence boost, find a pillar of unshakeable love, or simply lean all our weight and all the weight of our fears, doubts, responsibilities, and failures, against someone else?

In today's gospel text Jesus' message is double-edged. On one hand, he chastises his disciples for behaving like Gentiles -- that is, those outside the family who worry about "what you will eat, or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear" (verses 26, 30).

Jesus' admonition against such worrying is not based on a conviction that food, shelter, and clothing were not crucial to our survival. Rather, it grows out of the second half of his message. The truth, Jesus proclaims, is that "your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things" (verse 32). If the God who created and cares for the birds of the air (verse 26) and the grass of the field (verse 30) lavishes so much concern on these simple life forms, Jesus declares, "will God not much more clothe you" (verse 30)?

Jesus insists that his disciples not only stop worrying about their lives, but that they should have complete confidence in God's ever-present, ever-sustaining love and concern for all God's children. God's creation, Jesus reminds his listeners, was established with divine intentionality. Each living thing -- each animal, plant, fish -- should have what it needs to survive, be that fur or feathers, talons or teeth. God has provided for each creature. Given that degree of divine oversight will God "not much more" provide the necessities to sustain the lives of the most uniquely favored of all creation, those created in God's own image?

Jesus disdains for his disciples a fretful, fearful existence. There's nothing we can experience on this earth that can knock us down or out as long as we grab on to the assurance of God's love. God wants us to be leg grabbing children.

Are you hanging on to the unshakeable Truth? Are you clinging to the unswervable strength of God's love?

No matter how big we get, no matter how old we are. . here at last are the only legs that can support us and carry us. Instead of those fragile feet of clay our own children must settle for as a temporary resting place, God's legs grow out of a rock-hard foundation. At the base of God's pillar of love is that cornerstone that had been rejected by so many.

We have the person of Jesus Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit to steady us as we cling to God's love and swing confidently through life.

If you're a leg-grabbing Christian, you aren't filling your hours and hearts with nagging fears about how you are going to make it in this tough, competitive world. But that doesn't mean leg-grabbing Christians don't have to work hard.

There's a big difference between works righteousness and righteous works. Jesus' gift to us of redemption erases the daunting, haunting need for us to earn our way to salvation through works righteousness, through good works. But Jesus does call Christians to the greatest challenge. We're called to come and participate in the most righteous work anyone can be involved in -- Jesus' works -- and to commit our lives to God and "strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness" (verse 33).

Jesus works.

And Jesus calls you and me to undertake his works, what truly works, in this life. There's nothing lackadaisical or lazy about a disciple who relinquishes worries about things (food, shelter, clothing, even the duration or our own lives) in order to focus energies and talents on those righteous works that advance the kingdom.

Righteous work may not always bring in the big bucks. Righteous work may not bring us a life of earthly riches and ease.

But righteous work will always sustain us and keep us strong enough to serve.

This Thanksgiving, become a leg-grabbing Christian. Grab onto God's legs, to those pillars of love, forgiveness, and redemption.

While you're hugging God's legs, be prepared for the ride of your life.