Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Matthew 6:26
“The stunning suggestion in Matthew 6:25-34 is: in order to solve the crucial human problems of sufficient food and clothing, “just say no” to the greater production values of the modernized economy of ancient agriculture with its advanced technology of sowing and reaping and storing in barns. At the same time, the text disparages—by seeing through—the dazzling refinements of imperial civilization. In contemporary terms, the proposal of Matthew 6:25-34 would be that the solution to widespread hunger and the threat of exposure is not to be found in the pursuit of ever more efficent means of material production and better distribution. Nor are the Solomonic virtues of exceeding wealth and advanced wisdom, or free-flowing international exchange and expert scribal knowledge, to be trusted. Instead, we are instructed to imitate the birds of the air and the flowers of the field… Human existence need not be imagined to occur in spite of nature but as part of the realm of God’s continuing beneficience.”
Leif E. Vaage in “The Sermon on the Mount” in God’s Economy: Biblical Studies from Latin America edited by Ross and Gloria Kinsler (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2005) 144-145.
I will share another lesson from the coffee plantation, pictured above, that illustrates the point of today’s post. Vaage rightly notes that the answer to the world’s economic challenges is not to stockpile harvest in barns but to enjoy and share all God richly supplies and to sow it for sustainability.
On the coffee tour I learned that the two seeds in each coffee bean must either be planted or consumed promptly. The coffee plantation that had thrived for over a century had no barns on it. One seed is planted right away. The other bean is dried and only good for a year after being packaged. Once opened, the bean is good for only three more months whilst ground coffee is only good for one month.
What’s the point? If we imitate the birds, we see that they enjoy and share God’s provision promptly and generously. Storing them up is senseless. It is not big barns but rather God’s beneficience that sustains the birds and us. So, why would Jesus say to imitate the birds? A closer look reveals that He is pointing us to the realities of God’s abundant economy.
This heavenly economic model demonstrates the belief that, like the birds, we can even reap where we do not sow because God can supply all things beyond our limited capacity in his abundant economy. The world’s model does not comprehend that what sustains us is not our advanced technologies but our generous God.