Today I was reading one of my favorite (and most challenging) of Jesus’ teachings: do not worry.

Here is what Leon Morris has to say about Luke 12:24:

Jesus reinforces this [teaching] with an appeal to the ravens (or ‘crows’, Goodspeed, GNB), mentioned here only in the New Testament (they are the objects of God’s care in Ps. 147:9). Birds do not engage in agricultural activities, but they do not lack for all that. God feeds them. There is possibly significance in the fact that ravens were unclean (Lev. 11:15). God makes provision even for these unclean birds. And Jesus goes on to remind his hearers that they are of more value than birds (cf. v. 7)

Here is a poem I wrote about a parallel passage, Matthew 6:34:

Matthew 6:34

It’d be too easy to assume
You were talking to me, so
Who? Your disciples? They
Seemed to worry more about
Fish than God (then anyway).
The crowds, hungry and poor
And the soldiers stealing their cloaks?
Maybe. And maybe yourself,
Reminding yourself of what
You already knew: the times
Were short, the work was long
From Capernaum down to Judah, and
The coming trial must not
Darken the day too soon.

Each day has trouble enough.

Photo credit: Raven and the First Men at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, by bRONTE dIGITAL