Matthew 6:31-34
First Things First

"So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

New International Version

In my day job as a manager in a corporation, my organization is facing significant reorganizations, and while these are overdue, change is almost always uncomfortable and threatening. In discussing these upcoming changes with my organization, the Senior Vice President had some wise words to share with us, that went something like this:

The temptation at a time like this is to look out for yourself. You're nervous, you're not sure what will happen to you, and we all understand that.

At the same time, we still have a job to do, and that job becomes even more important during this time of change. Our organization has to continue to provide outstanding service during this time, so we can continue to show how we add value to the company.

It's like I have said before: our priorities always have to be company first, organization second, and ourselves third. Remember, if the company fails, we're all out of a job, so the only way for us to hope to keep our jobs is for the company to succeed. Then our organization also has to succeed, for the same reason. Only at that point, when we have made the best decisions for the company and for our organization, can we start considering what is best for us.

To get that backward, to start deciding in our own best interest first, is a guaranteed way to fail, both for yourselves and for all the rest of us. This is true for me, and it's true for you, and it is even more true today in this time of change as it has ever been.

That was an unconventional message for a "pep talk", but delivered as it was by a man of unquestionable integrity, it rang true for all of us. That's simply the nature of working with other people, it is a fact of life for social beings, that the part needs the whole like the whole needs the part. It is so very easy, and tempting, to act selfishly, but doing so inevitably damages both the person and the group.

Still, this selflessness is a hard lesson to learn, and goes against our sinful ways, which is why Jesus taught it as part of the Sermon on the Mount. Fortunately for us, Jesus also provided the power to achieve selflessness, for Jesus teaches us that God always is actively providing us with what we need, as we put our priorities first on the Kingdom of God.

In the case of the corporation, they still need me enough to keep paying me a salary, and I need them enough to keep coming to work. There is no such balance in my relationship with the Kingdom, for God does not need me in order to accomplish the work of the Kingdom -- God can find a myriad of ways to advance the Kingdom. For me to be whole, I desperately need the Kingdom, need to belong to the Kingdom, and need to work in service to the King, and the God that wants only the best for me leads me deeper into the Kingdom. This wildly unbalanced power equation, where God is God and I am nothing, helps me to find and rejoice in selflessness because the One that is over everything and above all things is caring for me!

It was amazing for me, as I listened to the Senior Vice President, to think that this passage in Matthew reflected fundamental truths about both the social nature and the spiritual nature of humans. Jesus took it one step further, stating the nature of everyday life, possibly even setting the groundwork for what would become Murphy's Law (the tongue-in-cheek postulate "if anything can go wrong, it will.")

The big grin on the Master's face must have almost glowed as he reminded his listeners to let tomorrow take care of tomorrow's problems. After all, don't we have enough problems today for one day? Jesus could have spoken with all the profundity of a Confucius, cautioning that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step -- but instead he laughed with us at the frustrations of everyday life.

Yes, even when we seize the big view of our amazing part in the Kingdom of God and the fulfillment of what our spiritual selves were created to become, we still live in this earthly, temporal world, one minute at a time. Will we choose in that one minute to put the Kingdom's goals first, or will we promote our own goals? Will we think of others, or think of ourselves? Will we fight against the daily frustrations of life, or will we laugh at them?

Then what about the next minute?