YOUR FATHER KNOWS


Do not worry, then, saying, ' What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' For the Gentiles eagerly seek for all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 
(Matthew 6: 31-32 – NAS)                                                                           


Jesus has just humorously reminded His followers of how wonderfully God takes of simple things like birds and flowers. He has even chided them in a light way about not having faith in the Lord’s providence by saying “Oh, you of little faith!” He wants to inspire them to even greater faith than they have at present.

To do that, He tells them once more not to worry about the basics of their lives. Don’t worry about what you will eat, or drink, or what clothing you will have. Even the Gentiles worry about that sort of thing, He tells them. 

Jesus references the outsiders of faith, the Gentiles, at this point. It is an indirect way of reminding His Jewish followers that they, as a people, were called by God to be a holy nation, a priesthood to the world. They were called to be something more than “just ordinary.” 

“Even the Gentiles do this,” He says. It emphasizes again that these things we worry about are indeed the basics of life. God knows that all of His creation has need of them. He doesn’t need reminding of that fact. 

“Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” 

Again, Jesus reminds us of the richness of our relationship with the Lord. Moments earlier He had addressed the nature of God as our sovereign Master whom we are to serve. But now, He returns to the relationship of us as God’s children. 

Is there a conflict in that? 

Perhaps in our democratized society, where lordship is not a factor, we are far removed from the concept of serving a lord and master. We use that phrase “lord and master” disparagingly of those with despotic attitudes, who control every detail of the lives in their charge. We equate being in service to such as being slaves, uncared for, disregarded except for the insisted service. But for older cultures, that was not necessarily the case. 

Lords had as many responsibilities to their underlings as the retainers and servants had to the lord. The lord was responsible for the protection of his people, making sure they had access to save havens in time of war, that their shelters were sufficient against the effects of weather. Ideally, it would be the lord’s task to make certain that his retainers had food enough – and that meant not just those serving in his household, but also the workers in the fields and those who handled the livestock. It does the lord no good to have people who are weak and starving. If his people were in need, it was the lord’s job to find the means to provide for them – helping them reach new markets, if trade was the answer, protecting them from raiders, if such thieves were the problem. Not every lord was contentious about such duties, of course, but everyone understood that was the standard. 

And what of the task of being a master? 

In its simplest meaning, it does indeed mean that the master has control over all the actions of his underling. He can order the lesser person to do any possible thing, for that is the power of his position. But there is more to mastery than that. For the term “master” is also used of a teacher. This was particularly notable when trade guilds were most in use.  

In the guild structure, there were generally three levels of achievement: apprentice, journeyman, master.  

The apprentice was the student, one who was learning the basics of the craft, polishing his or her skills. They would be given the initial simple tasks to do, so that they could first learn the tools of their trade. An apprentice carpenter, for instance, would likely be set to cutting the wood, so that he would learn not only how to use the axe properly but also the various natures of the different woods. Dealing with the wood in its most basic form would give the apprentice a “feel” for it. He might then be set to planing the surfaces with a plane, making them flat and smooth. This would be done under the eye of the master, who has much more experience and can show the apprentice the best way to do something, and also where he has gone wrong in his work. 

Once an apprentice has learned the basics and has achieved a level of competency in their craft, he becomes a journeyman. The journeyman is one who has the ability to deliver a good job, a reliable job on whatever the craft he practices. A journeyman carpenter was the worker the master could send out to a customer who needed hardy work tables and benches made. The journeyman could be trusted to select the suitable wood, assemble the pieces correctly, and complete the task without error. To be a journeyman was an honorable level of service. Even though we now use the term dismissively, that is only because we have acquired a distorted perception of the level of master craftsman. You don’t usually need a master plumber when your drains are clogged, but you certainly don’t really want an apprentice. You want the reliable journeyman, who knows what he’s doing and will do it efficiently. 

Eventually, one might rise to the level of master. This is the craftsman who has learned the skills of his craft so well that he can now envision even more ways of using those skills. He can easily teach the basics to apprentices, he can do the reliable work, but he can also stretch beyond what most thought possible in the craft. There was a time when the term “masterwork” did not mean the absolute best that artist could achieve (often a piece done late in that craftsman’s life). Instead, it meant first work that showed that the craftsman had moved beyond being a mere journeyman, that he had indeed “mastered” the skills and could now make those skills do what he wanted.  

Now consider again that phrase “lord and master.” God is all that to us. Our protector and teacher, who is trying to raise us up through the ranks of His apprentices. But He is also our Father. 

It was, in fact, not unusual for children (sons in particular, given the history of treatment of women) to follow in the footsteps of their parents in terms of learning a craft or skill. They would not, ideally, get special treatment or privileges simply because they were the child of the master. They were expected to learn the basics like any other apprentice. 

And that is how Jesus can so easily move from speaking of God as our Master to God as our Father. There is no conflict in it. There is only a broadening of the type of relationship we can have with the Lord.  

God IS our Father. The Creator of the Universe considers us His children, whom He loves. He knows what our basic needs are, those things that we let worry us the most. He knows we need shelter and food. He does not forget that. We don’t need to tell Him. (Perhaps He is waiting for us to get beyond the needs on our list and raise up to Him broader concerns that will draw us closer to Him? Now that’s worth a thought.)