In the Sermon on the Mount, immediately after Jesus tells His followers to lay up treasures in heaven, not Earth, and says “Ye cannot serve God AND mammon,” He told his followers to stop worrying about food and clothing.
Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
Matthew 6:25-30
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
The “take no thought” teaching is in direct contradiction to the commonly heard capitalist refrain, “There is no such thing as a free lunch!” This fear-inducing slogan is used to keep us working for Satan. After all, we tell ourselves, if we leave his employ, what will become of us?
The choice is between fear or faith. this becomes clear in the next few verses.
It’s a question of priorities
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
Matthew 6:31-34
(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Our Heavenly Father knows that we have need of food and clothing. Jesus is teaching us here what our priorities should be. If our primary focus is personal righteousness and building up the kingdom of God, then the basic necessities of life will be provided for us. Remember, in the wilderness of Sinai the Lord provided Israel with a “free lunch” (manna) daily for 40 years!
You can’t take it with you
In Luke chapter 12, just before He says “take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat” (verse 22), Jesus tells the story of a rich man whose priorities were in the wrong place. He spent his entire life accumulating and saving material goods in order to guarantee himself a comfortable retirement.
And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:
Luke 12:16-21
And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?
And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.
This man had done exactly what we all are expected to do in this life. He had spent his days preparing for tomorrow. However, as Latter-day Saints, we are NOT supposed to be preparing for tomorrow, we are supposed to be preparing for eternity.
As the rich man in the parable found out the hard way, tomorrow does not belong to us. All we have is today. The question is how we spend our time today. The only treasure worth storing up each day is that which will benefit our eternal soul.
Our needs are few
Brigham Young taught that we don’t need as much in the way of material things as we think we do.
Our real wants are very limited. … I possess everything on the face of the earth that I need, as I appear before you on this stand. I am not hungry, but I am well fed; I am not cold, but I am well clothed. I am not suffering for a hat, for I have hair on my head, and when I go outdoors I have my hat to put on; and with these and a shelter to protect me from the scorching heat or the piercing cold I have everything that a man needs or can enjoy if he owned the whole world. If I were the king of the earth I could enjoy no more. When you have what you wish to eat and sufficient clothing to make you comfortable you have all that you need, I have all that I need.
Brigham Young
Work less, wear less, eat less, and we shall be a great deal wiser, healthier, and wealthier people than by taking the course we now do.
Brigham Young
We all need food, clothing, and shelter in this life. But, when it comes to quantity, it is easy to forget that too much is, indeed, too much. As for quality, we need to remember that wholesomeness and durability are the proper standards, not popularity and costliness.
We need to stop our selfish, insecure, pursuit of material goods and start appreciating the simple, God-given, gifts and beauties of this life.
Consider the lilies of the field….
Hugh Nibley, “Work We Must, But The Lunch Is Free,” Approaching Zion, Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol. 9.
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 13:302, 12:122.
Nicely put. Soothing to think about.
“We need to stop our selfish, insecure, pursuit of material goods and start appreciating the simple, God-given, gifts and beauties of this life.”
For working class folk like us, the pursuit of material goods is not selfish. It is born of fear, stark fear of not having what our families need. Karl Marx demonstrated for the ages that most profit comes from capital not compensating labor fully for the value it, labor, adds. So for capital wages can never be low enough. This is why labor is always under duress and AFRAID, VERY AFRAID.
Exactly! The choice is between fear and faith. The capitalists (working for Satan) create and promote scarcity and fear. The solution is the Gospel of Jesus Christ (which includes feeding the hungry and consecration of one’s material goods).