“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you”. Jesus Christ as recorded in Matthew 6:33 ESV
Richard Foster, in his book, Celebration of Discipline cites the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s musing on Matthew 6:33 verse in a way that I find particularly illuminating.
Foster writes,
“Simplicity itself becomes idolatry when it takes precedence over seeking the kingdom. In a particularly penetrating comment on this passage of Scripture, Søren Kierkegaard considers what sort of effort could be made to pursue the kingdom of God.
Should a person get a suitable job in order to exert a virtuous influence? His answer: no, we must first seek God’s kingdom. Then should we give away all our money to feed the poor? Again the answer is no, we must first seek God’s kingdom.
Well, then perhaps we are to go out and preach this truth to the world that people are to seek first God’s kingdom? Once again the answer is a resounding: no, we are first to seek the kingdom of God.
Kierkegaard concludes, “Then in a certain sense it is nothing I shall do. Yes, certainly, in a certain sense it is nothing, become nothing before God, learn to keep silent; in this silence is the beginning, which is, first to seek God’s kingdom.”
This brings to mind what Paul of Tarsus says in his first letter to his Corinthian brethren. Paul writes about the way of love saying:
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If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. |
This also reminds me of an encounter Jesus had with a lawyer. The lawyer, an expert in the Jewish law, tested Jesus with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Love is the central calling of our lives. Everything else we do must proceed from that place of love.
References
Søren Kierkegaard in Christian Discourses (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940) 322-344; also cited in Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998) 86-89.
