to keep the GODDESS on my side,

How often we sing it, the hymn by Grundtvig: Little God's Child, What Harms You. Many of us can recite it by heart, because it is there that the melody lives. But what of the words? Do we mindlessly recite them, has the way we repeat them grown quite automatic, rather than letting us say them with understanding and faith? What does it mean, "man is nursed by the Word of God, he is at home where his Father lives"?

In today's passage, Christ addresses the disciples, he questions their many earthly worries through two analogies, the image of the birds of the sky who do not labour like the farmer does, they do not sow or harvest or save their crops from year to year, yet they are fed and cared for until the day they return to dirt. Likewise, the image of the lily in the field, it is no tailor, it doesn't sew or weave, but - Christ says - no king in the world has been dressed as lavishly as that flower, although it is soon to be burned.

Grundtvig, too, uses these images in his hymn. But have we understood them? Have we implemented them into our hearts, where the melody lives on so gaily?

How many of us are, no, not merely guilty of, but fallen victim to our worries for how we shall survive one more day in a world that is so harsh and unforgiving, burdened by evil, poverty and illness? I admit, I worry. I worry, often. Will sickness find me? Will unemployment? Will homelessness?

When we worry, what is it that overcomes us? Truly, it is not the fear of earthly want, it isn't just fear of the death that awaits us, if we starve, it is doubt! That is where we differ from the birds and the flowers, because they do not doubt God, they live fearlessly! Doubt is the chasm between man and the Lord, our Father in Heaven, and that is why Christ calls those who worry, 'you of little faith'.

Because we mustn't doubt, we mustn't worry. Worrying is to doubt that God will see to us, whether we live or die, that he will see to us and take us into His Paradise. If we do not believe this as easily as the birds and the flowers do, as easily as children do, we are no child of God and Heaven will not be open to us at all.

So, I say unto you, worry less and believe more. Be 'you of good faith', rather than 'you of little faith'. Do not recite Grundtvig's hymn unmindfully, but meditate on every word. It is a guide to bridging the distance between you, God's child, and God, the Father, Himself. Let yourself be instructed, then. Be receptive. Open your hearts, for the Lord has already opened His arms to you, He is waiting.

That is the promise we have been given, which lies on the other side of worry and which we are only to keep fresh in memory. Amen.

( Text: Matt. 6,25-34 )
( Inspiration: Grundtvig, Lille Guds Barn )