Isaiah 49:14-15/ 1 Corinthians 4:1-5/ Matthew 6:24-34
It is often said that you can’t have your cake and eat it.
Whether we like to eat cakes or not, we know what that saying means.
Obviously, once you have eaten your cake, you don’t have it with you anymore.
It means to say we can’t have it both ways, and that we also can’t have the best of both worlds.
Anyway, baking a cake is certainly not a piece of cake. We may want to bake a marble cake, but it may turn out to be just like marble!
Just a joke about cakes: A woman woke up her husband in the middle of the night and said to him, “There is a thief downstairs in the kitchen and he is eating the cake that I just baked!”
The husband sleepily replied, “So, should I call the police, or should I call the ambulance?”
Life is certainly not like a piece of cake. Even if it is, we can’t have our cake and eat it too.
Because the basic rule of life is that we can only say “yes” to one thing and “no” to the rest.
And what we say “yes” to will also determine how we are going to live our lives and the direction that we take.
And that is what Jesus is saying in today’s gospel.
“No one can be a slave to two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or treat the first with respect and the second with scorn. You cannot be the slave of both God and money.”
And so we must know what we want and decide on it.
Our troubles and worries and anxieties begin when we are not sure of what we really want and that makes our decisions difficult.
And when we don’t know what we really want, then our lives are not focused, and we become scattered and stressed.
Jesus said that we cannot become the slave of both God and money. And with that He is already telling us what we should choose.
That is why Jesus is telling us not to worry about what to eat or what to wear. In short Jesus is telling us not to worry about money.
Because to be too anxious and worried about money is already an indication of whom we have chosen as our master.
Whatever that we keep focusing on and putting our energies into, that is our master.
What Jesus is pointing out in today’s gospel is this: Whatever we need, we already have it.
That is why He talked about the birds of the air and the flowers in the fields.
If God can provide for them, then all the more God will provide for us who are His beloved people and His beloved children.
Yes, whatever we need, we already have it. God has already provided for us. The problem is that we want more and more.
There is this short story of a poor farmer who found a magic cup.
Then he learnt that if he wept into the cup, his tears will turn into pearls.
Even though he had always been poor, he was a happy and contented man and he seldom shed a tear.
But then now, he began to find ways to make himself sad so that his tears will fall into the magic cup and turn to pearls and that would make him rich.
As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grew.
The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the magic cup, with his beloved wife’s slain body in his arms.
It’s a rather dark story with a tragic ending, and it reminds us to think carefully about what we choose and what we say “yes” to.
And so if we say “yes” to money and choose it as our master, then we must also accept the worries and anxieties that come along the way, and also pour out needless tears just to get some pearls.
But if we say “yes” to God as our master, what would that mean? Certainly it is not going to be a piece of cake!
Pope Francis said “yes” to God and that meant that he gives up all the frills and the icing on the cake that came with the papacy.
And more than that, his direction is that the Church is to be a Church for the poor and a Church of the poor.
Because as Church, as the people of God, as children of God, we must realize that what we need, we already have it.
But we also must realize that there are the poor who do not even have what they need.
The poor is not asking for a fancy cake or even just a piece of cake.
They are only asking for bread and it would be a grave injustice that the poor can’t even have what they need.
If God has provided for us, then we in turn must provide for the poor.
If God is our master, then we must serve the poor.
There may be no cakes to eat, but God will certainly provide for us in our need.
And God will never forget us in our need.
He promised us in the 1st reading: “I will never forget you.”
And may we also not forget who our real master is.