When Anne and I were planning our wedding, we selected a non-traditional Gospel text. Non-traditional for weddings, but one that has served as a guide to us, off and on, since that day. It’s a text that reminds me, every time I hear or read it, of God’s generous care for us, and of the futility of my flailing efforts to take over his responsibilities in my life. The passage comes from the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus teaches:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? There do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:25-33, NRSV).

This passage came to mind while I was reading “The Clothing and Footwear of the Brothers” (RB 55), a fairly long and detailed description of the provision and management of basic necessities. Three times in the chapter, Saint Benedict uses the phrase “it is enough” and displays a concern that monks receive the basics meeting their needs, so that they are not consumed by a spirit of acquisitiveness.

The ideal of sufficiency challenges me, because I am always tempted to believe that enough is just a little more, or a little better, than what I already have, and certainly more than what I need. But when I succumb to that spirit of acquisitiveness, I end up striving, not toward sufficiency that opens me to seeking the kingdom of God, but toward an insufficiency that distracts me from his kingdom. This redefines for me the notion of insufficiency as having too much, as having possessions out of balance with needs.

I don’t know that I can shake this imbalance on my own. Saint Benedict writes of a measure that sounds extreme to me, but perhaps an extreme measure is needed to address a spirit of possession: “But to completely root out this vice of private ownership, the abbot must provide people with everything they need…. This should remove all pretext of want” (RB 55:18-19).

I get the hint that along this path lies the freedom in which I could “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33, NRSV). So, to ask myself the question Jesus asks, “Why do I worry?”

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.