Matthew 6:25-34 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
God’s Zoo Summer Worship Series Sunday, August 15, 2021 “Birds of the Air”
Several months ago, I paid a visit to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. And one of the most fascinating things I saw there was inside the hummingbird exhibit. I watched a hummingbird building a nest. The bird went from the nest to a mesh container where he was grabbing something and flying it back to the nest to continue working. The bird was working carefully and consistently. We watched it fly back and forth several times. A bit later, we learned that the material inside that mesh container was dog hair, collected by several of the Desert Museum’s employees. And the employee we learned this from mentioned that they thought they were making the hummingbirds lazy by providing all this material that they loved to build nests with so that they didn’t really need to forage the way wild birds would. I will tell you, though, that hummingbird didn’t look lazy to me. It kept working. As long as we watched, it flew back and forth, little by little adding to the nest and caring for his family. I don’t think laziness was an issue. Laziness was certainly not the issue when Jesus talked about birds in our Gospel, either. We discussed laziness last week when we talked about ants. God warns against the dangers of laziness. His apostle taught the people to work and commanded that anyone who wasn’t willing to work should not eat. God certainly does not expect people to sit around and do nothing with the expectation that everything that they need will simply fall into their laps. But he also doesn’t want us to get so caught up in the work of providing and the work of earning and the work of finding our food and clothing that we forget where our blessings come from or worry about whether we will have enough. So, as a part of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks to us about the animal of the week this week: the birds of the air. The birds provide an example for us. It is not that they are lazy, not at all. But they certainly don’t work in the exact same way people do. They don’t have barns. They don’t plant and harvest crops. They don’t work out budget spreadsheets or long-term projections. They go about their business, and they find what they need because God provides it for them. And one more thing that they certainly do not do: they do not worry. And that’s how they serve as an example for us. Jesus says, “For this reason 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?” And understand how Jesus is driving this point home: God has given you life. He has made your body. He has given you these bigger things, doesn’t it stand to reason that he will give you the smaller things like food and clothing as well? It does stand to reason. More importantly, it is God’s promise. Many times over God promises to care for our needs, to feed us and clothe us. But he does not promise that he will give us everything that we might possibly want. He doesn’t promise to make us rich or wealthy or to give us the biggest house or the fanciest car. In fact, God warns against putting our trust in earthly things like those instead of on him. Jesus in the verse just before our reading today told the people, “You cannot serve both God and Mammon” (Matthew 6:24). And then he said, “For this reason I tell you.” Jesus knew that if people truly trust God to take care of them, they won’t worry. He says, “Don’t trust money, don’t trust wealth, don’t trust physical and material things. Trust God, and don’t worry.” And yet, we do worry, don’t we? Far too often we are worried about clothing or food. We’re worried about all sorts of physical issues, all sorts of earthly matters, all sorts of possibilities and potentials. And why is that? Because we don’t trust God the way that we should. We have a sinful nature that refuses to listen to his promises. We so easily get fixated on the things that we can see and measure and monitor, like our finances and our bank accounts, and all our other “stuff.” We don’t stop and think about how God takes care of even the birds of the air and how he will no doubt take care of us. What Jesus tells us is even more encouraging and even more comforting than that. He doesn’t say, “God takes care of the birds and he will take care of you.” He doesn’t equate us with the birds of the air. He says, “Look at