Consider the Lilies - Luke 12:22-59

Jesus continues his teachings of eternal priorities by counseling his disciples to “take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment… Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Jesus is trying to teach them that their needs will be provided for, so they shouldn’t be so caught up in the physical that they lose out on the spiritual. It’s interesting though because we have so many examples of people’s needs not being provided for, such as starvation and freezing to death, so how do we reconcile what Jesus is teaching with the horrors that people experience in this life? How is not intervening when people are starving to death God providing for his people? This has always been a difficult concept for me to understand because I know that God loves all people the same, so why would he only provide for the needs of those who follow him and not those who have never had the chance to decide? Even if we look at animals, entire species die out all the time because of changing food supplies or weather patterns, aren’t we more important to them?

We live in a fallen world, people suffer tragically, by talking about the ravens and the sparrows and the lilies and the grass and all those natural things with short life spans, the people had to know that these animals didn’t live very long, and Jesus wasn’t implying that they lived forever. Perhaps by mentioning these parts of nature Jesus was trying to help people recognize God’s ability to create and give beauty, but also that death was a part of the natural process. I think it’s important to note that both before and after teaching about the animals, Jesus emphasized that this life is not the beginning of our journey or the end of it, this life is a transitory station for us to learn and grow and then move on. He illustrates this point, saying, “If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?”

There also seems to be a contradiction between “don’t worry about what you’re going to eat and drink and wear,” and the idea about what that means. It doesn’t mean that appearance and health are not important, because they are, but it is so easy for those aspects to dominate our lives to the point of obsession, which distracts us spiritually, and invites selfishness and materialism into our lives. I feel like the way these teachings are translated into English, the connotations are misconstrued, at least by me. If “don’t worry” was replaced by “don’t obsess,” the meaning would be more readily understood, physical things are important, but spiritual things are even more so. Take care of yourself and your responsibilities, but don’t let that become the focus of your life, keep an eternal perspective.

There might be a misconception of Jesus’ teachings “Sell that ye have, and give alms.” I don’t think that Jesus is teaching us to literally sell every single things and to be homeless and unproductive members of society, he himself were not those things. Perhaps another way to look at that teaching is, “don’t keep things you don’t need, use your excess to bless the lives of those less fortunate than you.” By giving up the “stability” that comes from having excess to bless the lives of others, we shift our focus from ourselves and our own insecurities to the needs and worth of others. This is one way we demonstrate “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” We don’t treasure extravagance or perceived long term security, we treasure other people and their needs.

Long term financial security would be nice, if we knew exactly how long we would need to prepare for. For instance, if I knew that I would die when I was 79, then I could plan out my needs for that many years, I could save and make arrangements to be comfortable, but then I could donate anything extra I had. But what if I don’t knave that long, wouldn’t it be a waste for me to spend so much time and energy preparing for a future that would never come? That’s the problem that we run into when we try to accumulate such a mass of possessions, many people devote their lives to earning money and buying things that they themselves will never use, because they spend so much time working for those things that they don’t have time to stop and enjoy them, or they die before they are able to.

Jesus tells a parable where a servant is watching over his master’s house diligently and then a thief comes, the servant is there and ready to stop him. Then there is another servant who was not watching when the thief came and lamented, “if the Goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through.” How would it have been possible for the “Goodman” to have known exactly when the thief would come? He couldn’t, that’s the point.

Verses 41 to 48 have extensive JST, which teach a parable about servants in their master’s house, some who are diligent in their duties, and when their master returns, he finds all is going well and rewards them. Some other servants are taking advantage of “when the cat’s away, the mice will play,” and “shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken.” When the master returns and finds that all is not going well, the disobedient servant will “be beaten with many stripes.” Now that might imply that the master will be the one doing the beating of the bad servant, but it doesn’t say that explicitly. Let’s just imagine that the reward for good behavior is your own house, and the faithful servants receive their own house for their obedience. If the misbehaving servant therefore had to stay in the master’s house while the others got their own, how upset would the punished servant be? Do you think he’d be so upset that he might just wish he could be “beaten with many stripes” and then given the reward? Do you think he might feel as upset as he would be if he was just beaten? Does it have to be a literal beating or hurt really bad or can it be emotional instead? The IM says, “In the Savior’s parable recorded in Luke 12:35-40, we are compared to servants who do not know when ‘their lord’ will return. They must be ready at all times for His return, just as we must be ready at all times for the Savior’s Second Coming. The Joseph Smith Translation clarifies that the Lord can come at any ‘watch of the night’- not just at the Second Coming- meaning that we will each face His judgment when we die.”

Jesus continues to caution his disciples to watch for the signs of the times and to be ready for the time we shall have to meet God.