Tuesday, 9 December, 2003

This series of devotions are focused around Soren Kierkegaard’s “Christian Discourses etc.” The biblical text to consider during these devotions is: Matthew 6:24-34.



So then the daily bread is the bird’s living. The daily bread is the most scantily measured supply, it is exactly enough, but not the least bit more, it is that little which poverty needs. But then, indeed, the bird is poor. Instead of answering we will ask, Is the bird poor? No, the bird is not poor. Behold, here it appears that the bird is a teacher: it is in such a situation that, to judge by its outward condition, one must call it poor, and yet, it is not poor; it never could occur to any one to call it poor. And what does this mean? It means that its condition is that of poverty, but it has not the anxiety of poverty.



The daily bread is “exactly enough.” We don’t know what that amount is. What we do know is that it appears as though the bird is not anxious about what is its daily bread…what is exactly enough. But let’s say in our case we are told that what is exactly enough…or at least seems to be enough…is not. That is, what if we are continually told of more and the necessity for us to have more. Then, there could grow in us the anxiety of not having enough…of being poor. When we live “in comparison to others,’ there is always the opportunity for anxiety to be a leading force in our lives. So much so that we lose touch with what it is that is daily bread…what is enough. As followers of Jesus, we are encouraged to see all we have as a gift and not ours – as such. Therefore, in our abundance or in our “enough” there is always the possibility to use what is ours to be a gift to others and be a part of the enough that feeds and cares for all. But when we are focused on what may not be enough or…what could be “more” for us, we begin to walk in an anxious territory that does not build up the care for the body. Instead we leave it with less than enough.



Connection: What is it like to “come down in a place just right” as is a part of the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts?” Do we know what is enough and what is more than enough? In a “place just right” there is the promise of peace. Something to consider in this culturally press time of spend & have more where wants sometimes are miraculously transformed into needs.



Be the peace of our days, O God, and take us by the hand so that we may see the delight in the simplicity of your grace that will always fill us with life, life abundant. Amen.