5. What We Learn from the Lilies in the Field and from the Birds of the Air

Chapter Five

Prayer

Father in heaven! From you come only good and perfect gifts. It must also be beneficial to follow the guidance and teaching of whomever you appoint as a teacher to human beings, as a guide to the worried. So, then, grant that the worried may truly learn from the divinely appointed teachers: the lilies in the field and the birds of the air! Amen.

I

This holy gospel is written by the evangelist Matthew, 6th chapter, 24th verse to the end:

No one can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. 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? Behold the birds of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you 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 today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, With what shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. But seek you first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for tomorrow: for tomorrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Who has not known this holy gospel from earliest childhood and often rejoiced at the happy message! And yet, in this, it is not simply a happy message; it has an essential quality that really makes it into a gospel—namely, that it is addressed to those who are worried. Yes, in every line of the compassionate gospel, it is recognizable that the words are not for the healthy, not for the strong, not for the happy, but for the worried. Oh, it is thus recognizable that the cheerful message itself is doing what it says that God does: it receives the worried and cares for them—in the right way. Ah, this is certainly rendered necessary, for every person who has sorrow, and especially the deeper and the longer it penetrates into the soul or the longer it penetrates deeply into it, perhaps he is also tempted impatiently not to want to hear human talk about comfort and hope. Perhaps the sorrowful one is in the wrong; perhaps he is too impatient when it occurs to him that no person can fittingly talk to him about his sorrow. The happy person does not understand him. The strong person, just as he comforts him, seems to rise over him. For the worried person, sorrow merely increases by what he says about it. Therefore, when this is the case, it is best to look around for other teachers, whose talk does not cause misunderstanding, whose encouragement contains no secret reproach, whose glance does not judge, whose comfort does not disturb instead of calm.

The compassionate gospel refers the sorrowful to such teachers, to the lilies in the field and to the birds of the air. With these inexpensive teachers, whom one pays neither with money nor with humiliation, no misunderstanding is possible, because they are silent—out of care for the worried person. And, of course, all misunderstanding results from speech—to be more precise, speech that contains a comparison, especially conversation—as when the happy person says to the worried one: “Be glad.” Surely the statement implies as well: “As I am glad.” And when the strong person says: “Be strong,” then it is implied: “As I am strong.” But silence honors the worry and the worried one, like Job’s friends, who, out of respect, sat silent with the suffering one and held him in honor. And yet, admittedly, they did look at him! But that—that one person looks at another—again implies a comparison. The silent friends did not compare Job with themselves, not at first. Then they violated the honor (in which they silently had held him) and broke the silence in order to attack the suffering one with speech. But their presence caused Job to compare himself with himself. No person, even if he is silent, can be present in this way—that his presence means nothing at all in terms of comparison. At best, this can be done by a child, who, after all, also has a certain likeness to the lilies in the field and with the birds of the air. How often has not a suffering person experienced and touchingly felt that, when a child is present, no one is really present. And now the lily in the field! Even if it is comfortably off, it does not compare its wealth with anyone’s poverty; even if it is carefree in all its beauty, it compares itself neither with Solomon nor with the most wretched. And even if the bird springs lightly into the sky, it does not compare its easy flight with the worried person’s heavy gait; even if the bird, richer than the one whose barns are full, does not gather into barns, it does not compare its rich independence with the needy one who gathers in vain. No, where the lily blooms beautifully—in the field; where the bird is freely at home—in the heavens, whose comfort is sought: there is unbroken silence; there is no one present; there everything is sheer persuasion.

Yet, after all, this is only true if the sorrowful one actually pays attention to the lilies and the birds, forgets himself over them and their life, while in this self-surrender before them he, unobserved, learns something about himself by himself—unobserved, for there is, of course, sheer silence, no one present, the worried one exempt from every consciousness except God’s, his own—and that of the lilies.

In this discourse, then, let us consider how the worried person, by properly looking at the lilies in the field and at the birds of the air, learns:

to be content with being a human being.

“Consider the lilies in the field,” look at them—that is to say, pay close attention to them, make them into an object, not of a cursory sight in passing, but of your contemplation. For that reason, the expression used is one like the priest is in the habit of using in the most earnest and most solemn connection, when he says: “Let us in this time of worship contemplate this and that.” So solemn is the call and the invitation. Perhaps many live in the big city and never see the lilies; perhaps many live in the country and indifferently go past them everyday. Alas, how many are there who properly look at them according to the gospel’s instructions?

“The lilies in the field,” for nothing is said about the rare plants that a gardener raises in his garden and that are eyed by experts. No, go out in the field, where no person cares for the abandoned lilies and where it is ever so recognizable that they are not abandoned. Should this request not be inviting to the worried one, alas, he is also like the abandoned lily, abandoned, misunderstood, overlooked, without human care, until he—by rightly looking at the lily—understands that he is not abandoned.

So the worried one goes out in the field, and he stops beside the lilies. Not like a happy child, or a like childish adult probably does, running about to find the most beautiful one in order to satisfy his curiosity by finding what is rare. No, with quiet solemnity he contemplates them, as they stand there in numerous, multicolored quantity, the one just as good as the other—“how they grow.” Now, he actually does not see how they grow, for it is indeed as the proverb says: one cannot see the grass grow, but he does, after all, see how they grow. Or just because how they grow is inconceivable to him, he sees that there must be one who knows them just as intimately as the gardener knows the rare plants—one who looks after them every day, morning and evening, just as the gardener looks after the rare plants; one who gives them growth. Presumably this is also the same one who gives growth to the gardener’s rare plants, except that these plants so easily occasion misunderstanding because of the gardener’s help. On the other hand, the abandoned lilies, the common lilies, the lilies in the field, do not occasion any misunderstanding in the observer. For there, where the gardener is conspicuous, where no trouble or no expense is spared in order to urge on the rich man’s rare plants, it seems perhaps rather splendid to understand that they grow. But in the field, however, where no one, no one, no one cares for the lilies, how can they grow there? And yet, they do grow.

But then, I suppose, the poor lilies themselves must work all the harder. No, “they toil not.” It is only the rare flowers that are associated with so much work in order to get them to grow. There, where the carpet is more costly than in the halls of kings, there is no work. As the observer’s eyes are amused and refreshed by the sight, his soul shall not be worried by the thought of how the poor little lilies have to toil and to slave in order to make the carpet so beautiful. Only in relation to the products of human ingenuity is it the case that the eyes, while dazzled by the fineness of the work, are filled with tears at the thought of the sufferings of the poor lace maker.

The lilies “toil not, neither do they spin.” They actually do nothing other than adorn themselves or, even more correctly, be adorned. Just as in the passage from the gospel mentioned earlier, where it is said about the birds, “They sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns,” it is referred to man’s work in order to provide for himself and his own, so do these words about the lilies (they toil not, neither do they spin) contain a reference to woman’s work. The woman remains in the house; she does not go out in order to seek the necessaries of life. She remains at home, sews and spins, tries to keep everything as neat as possible. Her daily pursuit, her diligent work is, after all, closest in relation to adornment. Thus the lily as well: it remains at home; it does not leave the place. But it does not work; it does not spin. It only adorns itself or, even more correctly, it is adorned. Should the lily have any worry, then this would not be about a livelihood, which the bird really could seem to have, since it flies so far and wide around and gathers food. No, in a feminine way, the lily’s worry might stand in relation to whether it was very lovely and was adorned. But it is without worry.

For adorned it is; that is certain. Yes, the observer cannot leave it be. He bends down to a particular lily, taking the first that comes along: “I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Thus he considers it carefully and closely. And if his mind was restless—alas, as a human mind can be restless—and if his heart was beating violently—alas, as a human heart can beat—he finds rest just in contemplating this lily. The closer he looks, the more he marvels at its beauty and its ingenious formation. For only in relation to products of human ingenuity is it true that, by looking much closer, a person discovers deficiencies and imperfections. It is true that, if you sharpen your sight with a manufactured cut lens, then you see the coarse threads even in the finest human fabric. Alas, it is as if the human being to his own humiliation has made the discovery of which he is proud: when he discovered how to manufacture cut glass so that it magnifies the object, then he discovered, with the help of the magnifying glass, that even the finest human work is coarse and imperfect. But the discovery that humiliated the human being honored God, for no one has ever discovered with the help of a magnifying glass that the lily became less beautiful, less ingenious. On the contrary, it turned out to be more and more beautiful, more and more ingenious. Yes, the discovery honored God, as every discovery must, for only in relation to a human artist is it true that the one who knows him intimately, close at hand and in daily practice, sees that he is not great after all. In relation to the artist who weaves the carpet of the field and effects the beauty of the lily, it is true that wonder rises with proximity, that the distance of worship increases by proximity to him.

So, then, the worried one who went to the lilies with his sorrow stands among them in the field, astonished at the beauty of the lily he is contemplating. He has picked the first that comes along; he has made no choice. It does not occur to him at all that there should be any single lily, no more than any grass in the field, about which it would not be true that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed as one of them. If the lily could talk, would it not speak to the worried one like this: “Why are you so surprised at me? Should being a human being not be just as glorious? Should it not hold good that all of Solomon’s glory is nothing in comparison with what every human being is by being human? Hence, in order to be the most glorious thing he is and to be conscious of this himself, Solomon must strip off all his glory and just be a human being! Should what is true of poor me not be true of being a human being, who, after all, is the wonder of creation!” However, the lily cannot talk, but just because it cannot talk, just because there is sheer silence out there and no one present, that is exactly why the worried one—if he talks and if he talks with the lily—talks with himself. Yes, little after little, he discovers that he is talking about himself, that what he says about the lily he says about himself. It is not the lily who says something; it cannot talk. It is not any other person who says something to him, for, after all, with the other person the restless thoughts of comparison come so easily and directly. Among the lilies the worried one is only a human being and—is content to be a human being.

For entirely in the same sense as the lily is a lily, so in just the same sense is the person—despite all his worries as a human being—a human being. And entirely in the same sense as the lily, without working and without spinning, is more beautiful than Solomon’s glory, so in the same sense is the person—without working, without spinning, without meriting anything—more glorious than Solomon’s glory just by being human. Indeed, it does not say in the Gospel that the lily is more glorious than Solomon. No, it says that it is better clothed than Solomon in all his glory. But, alas, in recurring dealings with people, in manifold dissimilarity and its different points of contact, one forgets through the busy or the worried inventiveness of comparison what it is to be a human being. One forgets it due to the dissimilarity between one person and another. But in the field with the lilies, where the sky arches high as over a ruler, free as breathing is out there, where great thoughts about the clouds scatter all pettiness: there the worried one is the only person and learns from the lilies what he perhaps could not learn from any other person.

“Consider the lilies in the field.” How brief, how solemn, how impartial is this language about the lilies. There is not a trace of an intimation. Not in the least is it hinted that there could be any difference among the lilies themselves. All of them, and each single one of them, are talked about. All of them are talked about equally: the lilies. Perhaps one will also think that, after all, it would be odd and too much to expect that human language should involve itself with the difference among the lilies themselves and their potential worries occasioned by the difference. Perhaps one will think: “Such differences and such worries are not worth paying attention to.” Let us understand one another. Is this the point—that for the lilies it is not worth paying attention to such worries, in other words, that the lilies ought to be sensible enough not to pay attention to such things? Or is this the point—that it is beneath the human being’s dignity to care about the potential worries of the lilies, because the human being is a human being and not a lily? That is to say: are such worries foolish in and of themselves, and therefore not worth paying attention to? Does it not matter who has them, either the simple lilies or the sensible human beings? Or is essentially the same worry something other when the lily has it than when the human being has it, so that it is bad of the lily to worry about such things but not bad of the human being? If, that is, the lilies actually had such worries—and the one speaking was of the opinion that essentially the same worry had great significance in relation to a human being—then of course it would not be wisdom and sympathy but human self-love that could speak so curtly and so dismissively about the poor lilies, so aristocratically about the petty cares of the lilies, so aristocratically by calling them petty cares that are not worth paying attention to. Now suppose that there were differences among the lilies themselves, which, in their little world, corresponded to human differences. Suppose these differences occupied and worried the lilies, just as much as human beings, and then suppose that what was said was really true—that such differences and such worries are not worth paying attention to.

Let us consider this question more closely. And since the worried one who went out to the lilies in the field precisely wished to avoid all comparison with other people, since he was so reluctant that any other person should talk to him about his worry, the discourse will respect his worry. I shall not talk about any human being, or about any worried human being, but I prefer to talk about the worried lily.

There was once a lily. It stood in an out-of-the-way place by a little stream and was well known by some nettles as well as a couple of other small flowers there in the vicinity. The lily was, according to the gospel’s truthful description, more beautifully clothed than Solomon in all his glory, as well as carefree and glad all day long. Imperceptibly and blessedly the time slipped by, like the stream that hums and fades away. But then one day it happened that a little bird came and visited the lily. It came again the next day, was then away for several days, until it came again once more, which seemed peculiar and inexplicable to the lily—inexplicable that the bird did not stay in the same place like the small flowers, peculiar that the bird could be so whimsical. Yet, as it so often goes, so it also went with the lily: it loved the bird more and more precisely because it was whimsical.

This little bird was a bad bird. Instead of putting itself in the lily’s place, instead of rejoicing over its loveliness and being happy in its innocent blissfulness, the bird would make itself important by fancying its freedom and by letting the lily feel its lack of freedom. And not only this, but the little bird was also talkative and now talked fast and loose, truthfully and untruthfully, about how in other places there were entirely different splendid lilies in great number, where there was delight and cheerfulness, a fragrance, a flamboyance, a birdsong that surpassed all description. The bird talked in this way, and it liked to end its story with a humiliating remark for the lily—that in comparison with such glory the lily looked like nothing, yes, that it was so insignificant that whether or not it actually could be called a lily was a question.

So the lily became worried. The more it listened to the bird, the more it became worried. No longer did it sleep restfully at night, and no longer did it wake up cheerful in the morning. It felt imprisoned and bound; it found the babbling of the water dreary and the day long. Now, in self-concern, it began to occupy itself with itself and with the circumstances of its life—all day long. “It can, indeed, be nice enough,” it said to itself, “now and then, for variety’s sake, to listen to the babbling of the brook, but always to hear the same thing day in and day out: that really is all too dreary.” “It can, perhaps, be pleasant enough,” it said to itself, “now and then to be in an out-of-the-way place and solitary, but like this, throughout one’s life, to be forgotten, to be without a community or in community with stinging nettles, which surely are not a community for a lily: that is not to be endured.” “And then to look as simple as I do,” the lily said to itself, “to be as insignificant as the little bird says I am: oh, why have I not yet come to exist in another place, under other circumstances, oh why have I not yet become a Kaiser’s Crown!” For the little bird had related that, among all lilies, the Kaiser’s Crown was seen as the most beautiful and was the object of envy for all other lilies. The lily noticed that, badly enough, the worry exhausted it. But then it talked sensibly to itself, albeit not so sensibly that it knocked the worry out of mind, but in such a way that it convinced itself that the worry was right. “After all,” it said, “my wish is not some senseless wish. After all, I do not ask for the impossible, to become what I am not—a bird, for example. My wish is only to become a magnificent lily or perhaps even the most magnificent.”

During all this, the little bird flew to and fro. With its every visit and its every separation, the lily’s unrest was nourished. At last it completely confided in the bird. One evening they agreed that, on the next morning, a change should take place that would put an end to the worry. The little bird came early the next morning. With its beak it pecked the soil away from the lily’s root so that it could become free. When this was successful, the bird took the lily under its wing and flew away. The decision was that the bird would fly with the lily to where the magnificent lilies bloomed; after that, the bird would again help it to be planted there. If only by the change of place and the new environment, the lily was supposed to succeed in becoming a magnificent lily in community with the many others or perhaps even a Kaiser’s Crown, envied by all the others.

Alas, the lily withered on the way. Had the worried lily been content with being a lily, then it would not have become worried; had it not become worried, then it would have remained standing where it stood—where it stood in all its beauty; had it remained standing, then it would have been the very lily about which the priest talked on Sundays, when he repeated the words of the gospel: “Consider the lily; I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like it.” For, after all, one cannot well understand the gospel otherwise, whereas it is lamentable—yes, almost horrifying if true—that an interpreter of Holy Scripture, like the little bird, has found occasion in the text about the lilies to state that the Kaiser’s Crown grows wild in that area—as if one could then better understand that the lily surpasses Solomon in beauty, as if one could then better understand the gospel, which, accordingly, does not pertain to the unimpressive lily.

So this is how things turned out for the worried lily, whose worry was to become a magnificent lily or even a Kaiser’s Crown. The lily is the human being. The bad little bird is the restless thought of comparison, which wanders far and wide, unceasingly and capriciously, and gathers the unhealthy knowledge of difference. And just as the bird did not put itself in the lily’s place, so does comparison do the same by putting the person either in another’s place or another in his place. The little bird is the poet, the seducer, or the poetic and seductive in the human being. The poetic is like the bird’s speech, true and untrue, fiction and truth. In particular, it is true that difference exists and that there is much to say about it, but the poetic is that passionate difference is the highest, whether in despair or in jubilation. And this is eternally untrue.

In the worry of comparison, then, the worried one ultimately goes so far that, due to difference, he forgets that he is a human being. Then, in despair, he considers himself to be so different from other persons that he even considers himself different from being human, as, indeed, the little bird also thought that the lily was so unimpressive that it became a question whether or not it actually was a lily. But the supposedly sensible answer to the worry is always this: one, after all, does not demand something unreasonable—for example, to become a bird—but only to become this particular thing that one is not, even if this particular thing in turn seems totally insignificant to other worried persons. When, then, comparison with the bird’s movement to and fro has incited worry’s passion and gotten the worried one torn loose from the ground—that is, from wanting to be what he is intended to be—then it looks out for a moment in which comparison would really come in order to fetch the worried one to the desired goal. But it comes right enough and fetches him, yet only as death fetches a person. It lets the worried one perish in the drifting of despondency.

Now, if the person, not without smiling, can think about the lily’s worry about becoming a Kaiser’s Crown, think about how it died on the way: oh, then may that person bear in mind that, on the other hand, it is proper to weep when a human being is worried just as foolishly. But, no, how dare I leave this undecided in this way. How dare I earnestly accuse the divinely appointed teachers—the lilies in the field—in this way. No, the lily is not worried like this; that is precisely why we ought to learn from it. And, so, when a human being, like the lily, is content with being a human being, then he does not become sick with temporal worry. And when he does not become temporally worried, then he remains in the place he is assigned. And when he remains there, then it is truthful that he, by being a human being, is more glorious than Solomon’s glory.

What, then, does the worried one learn from the lilies? He learns to be content with being a human being and not to be worried about the difference between one person and another person. He learns to talk just as concisely, just as solemnly, just as inspiringly about being a human being as the gospel concisely talks about the lilies. And this is, after all, also human custom and usage precisely on the most solemn occasions. Let us think about Solomon. When he puts on the royal purple, when he sits majestically on his throne in all his glory—now, yes, there is solemn speech in such a way that the one speaking says: “Your Majesty.” But when, in the eternal language of earnestness, the most solemn is to be spoken, then it is said: “Human Being!” And we say just the same thing to the lowest person when he, like Lazarus, lies almost unrecognizable in poverty and misery; we say: “Human Being!” And in the decisive moment of a person’s life, when the choice of difference is demanded, we say to him: “Human Being!” And in death’s decisive moment, when all differences are abolished, we say: “Human Being!” All the same, we are still not talking contemptuously. On the contrary, we say the highest because to be a human being is not lower than the differences but is raised over them. For the essentially equal glory among all human beings is surely not death’s sad equality, as little as it is not the essential equality among lilies, which is precisely an equality in beauty.

All worldly worry has its basis in the fact that a human being will not be content with being a human being, in the fact that, through comparison, his worried craving is for difference. However, one does not dare to say simply and as a matter of course that earthly and temporal worry is comparison’s invention. That a human being, in the actual moment of need, requires food and clothes is not discovered through comparison. The one who lived alone among the lilies in the field would also discover it. Alas, financial difficulty—or as it is commonly called in a sad plural, financial difficulties—are not exactly an invention of comparison. Still, whether or not comparison, in countless ways, ambiguously works to determine what is to be understood by financial difficulty is something else, whether, after all, there should not be…but, no, the worried one is, indeed, very reluctant that any other person should talk to him on the subject, precisely in order to avoid comparison. Well, now, then let us put it in this way: should one still not be able to learn much from the birds pertaining to this care?

We will now consider this: how the one whom financial difficulty causes worry learns to be content with being a human being by rightly paying attention to the birds of the air.

“Behold the birds of the air.” Look at them, that is to say, pay close attention to them—in the way the fisherman comes in the morning and looks at the line that has been out in the night; in the way the doctor comes and looks at the one who is sick; in the way the child stands and looks when the adult does something that the child has never seen before. Hence, not with a divided mind and distracted thoughts, but with total attention and contemplation—with wonder, if possible—one must pay close attention to the birds. If someone were to say: “One has seen a bird so often; surely that is not remarkable,” then he has not understood the invitation in the gospel about the birds of the air.

“The birds of the air,” or, as it is said in another place, “the birds under heaven.” One sees well the birds down near the earth, sees them on the ground. Yet, if one is to truly benefit from looking at them, one must see them under heaven or yet continually keep in mind that they are home under heaven. If anyone, by always seeing a bird on the ground, could forget that it was a bird of the air, then he would have hindered himself in understanding the gospel about the birds of the air.

“They sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns.” How are such things even to be done where the birds find refuge—under heaven, where they live without the foresight of temporality, unacquainted with time, in the moment. The provident person on earth learns from time to take advantage of time, and when he has a full barn from a past time and is provided for in the present time, then he still takes care to sow again for a future harvest so that he can always have the barn full for future time. For that reason, three words are used in order to signify the work of foresight. It is not said concisely, as it is about the lilies: “They toil not.” By these three words are indicated the rule of time, which lies at the basis of foresight.

“Yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” The heavenly Father, yes, clearly it must be him, if the observer looks at the birds—under heaven. For where the farmer, morning, midday, and evening, comes out and calls the birds together and gives them food, there the observer can easily see the wrong way and believe that it is the farmer who feeds the birds. But where there is no farmer—in the field, where there is no storeroom; under heaven, where the carefree birds soar lightly over forest and lake without sowing, without harvesting, without gathering into barns, and without financial difficulties—surely there it must be the heavenly Father who feeds them.

“He feeds them,” or should we perhaps foolishly say what many a foolish farmer has certainly said: “The birds steal,” so it is still actually the farmer who feeds the birds because they steal from him. Alas, if a person’s mind had sunk so deeply into miserable wretchedness that, in annoyed seriousness, he could think anything like that, how should he well be able to learn loftiness from the birds of the air, how should it help him to look at the birds of the air! And yet, it assuredly should help him, if he only would look at them, that is to say, pay close attention to them, learn once again, learn to forget the miserable sensibleness that inhumanly made his soul small. No, the heavenly Father feeds the birds and does so in spite of the fact that they do not sow and harvest and gather into barns. That is to say, the heavenly Father also feeds the creatures that sow and harvest and gather into barns, and therefore the one who supports himself is to learn from the birds of the air that it is, after all, the heavenly Father who feeds him. But the one who owns nothing, nothing at all, on earth; the one who also lives “under heaven” in this way; the one who sadly feels that he is very near in cheerful kinship with the birds of the air: he learns that the heavenly Father feeds them.

“Behold the birds of the air—your heavenly Father feeds them.” How concise, how solemn, how impartial is this speech. All the birds are referred to. Not a single one is forgotten in the discourse, which clarifies that the heavenly Father does not forget a single one, he who opens his gentle hand and fills everything that lives with blessing. In the gospel’s language about the birds, there is not the least hint of any difference—that one perhaps got plenty, the other scantily; that one perhaps had provision for a little longer time, the other necessities for only a moment; that now and then one had to wait, wait in vain, had to perhaps go to bed hungry. No, only the birds and that the heavenly Father feeds them are talked about.

Yet perhaps one says: “If a bird now and then got too little as well, if a bird starved to death too, that would not be such a big deal.” How should a human being have the heart to talk in this way about the birds? And is the worry about a livelihood not essentially the same whether it is a bird who has it or a human being? Should a person aristocratically ignore this worry, if it was only the bird who knew it and the human being was exempted? Or was it unreasonable of the bird to be worried about such trivialities, but it was not unreasonable of the reasonable human being to be worried about the same trivialities? Suppose the life of birds was not unfamiliar with difference as regards to livelihood, which, for the worse, is in force among human beings. Suppose this difference occupied and worried the birds in the same way that it worries human beings?

Correspondingly, when this is assumed, then the discourse can indeed avoid what the worried one does with such reluctance—let another person talk to him about his worry. Then the discourse can remain out in the field with the birds and talk about the bird’s worry.

There was once a wood pigeon. In the scowling forest, where wonder lives shuddering among the upright solitary trees, it had its nest. But not far away, where smoke rises up from the farmer’s house, lived some of its more distant relatives—some tame pigeons. It met with a couple of these more often. That is, it sat on a branch that bent out over the farmyard; the two tame ones sat on the ridge of the roof, yet the separation was not so great that they could not exchange their thoughts with one another in conversation. One day they talked together there about the days’ events and about making a living. The wood pigeon said, “Until now I have my livelihood in such a way that I let each day have its trouble, and in that way I go through the world.” The tame pigeon had listened closely, not without feeling a certain indulgent movement through its whole body called strutting. Then it answered, “No, we do otherwise. With us—that is to say, with the rich farmer with whom we live—one’s future is made secure. When harvest time comes, then I or my mate, one of us, sits up on the roof and looks out. Then the farmer carts in one load of seed after the other, and when he has carted in so many that I cannot count any longer, then I know that there is store enough for a long time. I know that by experience.” When it had spoken like this, it turned, not without a certain arrogance, to its mate sitting by, as if it would say: “Is it not true, my little mate, that we two have our future guaranteed?”

Then the wood pigeon came home. It thought further about this situation. Immediately, it occurred to it that it would be a great comfort to know in this way that one’s livelihood had been made secure for a long time. On the other hand, it really was miserable to constantly live in uncertainty, so that one never dares to say that one knows one is provided for. Therefore it thought, “It would be best to see if it should not be possible to collect a greater supply, which you could have lying in one or another well-secured place.”

The next morning it woke earlier than usual and now was so busy gathering things together that it scarcely had time to eat or to eat its fill. But it was as if a fate hung over it, so that it could not get leave to accumulate wealth. For every time it had accumulated a little supply and stashed it in one or another of the supposedly safe places, it was gone when the wood pigeon came to look for it. In the meantime, there was no essential change with regard to making a living. Every day it found its food as before, and so far as it took a little less for itself, then it was because it wanted to accumulate and because it did not give itself time to eat. Otherwise it had its ample livelihood as before. And yet, alas, it had undergone a great change. It far from suffered actual need, but it had gotten a notion of need in the future. Its restfulness was lost—it had gotten worry about sustenance.

From now on the wood pigeon worried. Its feathers lost their play of colors; its flight lost its lightness. Its day passed in a fruitless attempt to accumulate wealth; its dreams were the impotent plans of the imagination. It was no longer happy. Indeed, it was almost as if the wood pigeon became envious of the rich pigeons. Each day it found its food, had enough to eat, and yet it was as if it did not have enough to eat, because it hungered for a long time in its worry about sustenance. It had trapped itself in a snare in which no fowler could trap it—in the idea, wherein only the free can be trapped. “Very true,” it said to itself, “very true, each day when I get as much as I can eat, then admittedly I have my livelihood. The great supply I want to accumulate I could never eat at one time, and in a certain sense one cannot eat more than one’s fill. Yet, after all, it would be a great comfort to be freed from this uncertainty in which one becomes so dependent.” “It may well be,” it said to itself, “that the tame doves pay dearly for their secure livelihood; it may even be that, in the end, they have many worries, which I have been free from until now. However, this security for the future is constantly on my mind. Oh, why did I ever become a poor wood pigeon and not one of the rich pigeons!” Then it realized that worry was exhausting it, but then it talked sensibly to itself, albeit not so sensibly that it banished worry from its thoughts and put its mind at rest. Rather, it talked in such a way that it convinced itself that its sorrow was justified: “Of course, I am not asking for something unreasonable,” it said, “or for something impossible. Indeed, I am not asking to become like the rich farmer, but only like one of the rich pigeons.”

At last it devised a scheme. One day it flew over and sat on the ridge of the farmer’s roof between the tame pigeons. Then it noticed that there was a place where the two flew in. It flew in as well, for surely the storeroom had to be there. But then the farmer came in the evening and shut the pigeon cote; immediately he discovered the strange pigeon. It was then placed in a little compartment until the next day, when it was killed—and freed from worry about sustenance. Alas, the worried wood pigeon had not only trapped itself in worry, but it also trapped itself in the pigeon cote—unto death.

Had the wood pigeon been content with being what it was—a bird of the air—then it would have had its livelihood. Then the heavenly Father would have fed it. Then, on the terms of uncertainty, it would have remained where it came from, there where the upright solitary trees are in melancholy harmony with the cooing trill of the wood pigeon. Then it would have been the one about whom the pastor spoke on Sunday, when he repeated the words of the gospel: “Behold the birds of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them.”

The wood pigeon is the human being—but, no, let us not forget that the discourse has only allowed the wood pigeon to be picked on out of respect for the worried person. Yes, as when a princely child is brought up and there is a poor child who is punished instead of the prince, so has the discourse let the wood pigeon suffer everything. And it has willingly put up with it, for it very well knows that it is one of the divinely appointed teachers, from whom we are to learn. But at times a teacher also does this so that he himself shows the error he wants to warn against. The wood pigeon itself is carefree; indeed, it is actually what the gospel talks about.

Therefore the wood pigeon is the human being. When he, like it, is content with being a human being, then he understands what he learns from the bird of the air—that the heavenly Father feeds him. Yet, if the heavenly Father feeds him, then he is, of course, without worry about sustenance. Then he lives not only like the tame pigeons with the rich farmer, but he lives with the one who is richer than all. He actually dwells with him, for then heaven and earth are God’s house and property. In this way, the human being dwells with him indeed.

This is the point: to be content with being a human being, to be content with being the lowly one, the creature who can just as little support himself as create himself. In contrast, if the human being wants to forget God and sustain himself, then we have worry about sustenance. It is certainly praiseworthy and pleasing to God that a person sows and reaps and gathers into barns, that he works in order to find food. Yet, if he wants to forget God and to think that he sustains himself by his work, then he has worry about sustenance. The richest man who has ever lived—if he forgets God and thinks that he sustains himself, then he has worry about sustenance. For let us not talk foolishly and pettily by saying that the rich one is free from worry about sustenance, the poor one not. No, only that person is free who, content with being a human being, understands that the heavenly Father feeds him. And, of course, the poor can do this just as well as the rich.

Worry about sustenance is, therefore, the trap in which no external power, no actuality, can trap a person but in which only he—the rich as well as the poor—can trap himself when he will not be content with being a human being. That is, if he will not be content with this, then what is the more he demands? The more is: to be himself his own providence for all his life or perhaps only for tomorrow. And if he wants that, then he goes—ingeniously—into the trap, the rich just as well as the poor. Thus he wants to wall himself, as it were, in a little or large area, which is not to be an object of God’s providence and the supportive care of the heavenly Father. Perhaps he does not notice, before it is too late, that he lives in this walled security—in a trap. He is doing to himself what the farmer did to the wood pigeon: he locks the cage and believes that now he is secure, yet, on the contrary, he is now trapped. Or, what can also be said in another way, he is now certainly locked out from the care of providence and abandoned to worry about sustenance. For only the one who has locked himself in with his many or few goods is trapped and locked out in the thought of supporting himself. And only that person is free and without worry about sustenance who—with many or few goods, indeed, in poverty—understands that the heavenly Father feeds him. And the one who, with presumptuous reason, has ingeniously locked himself and thereby trapped himself has, just like the wood pigeon, trapped himself unto death in a spiritual sense.

Already, then, it emerges that worry about sustenance arrives by comparison—here, namely, in the terrible way that the human being does not want to be content with being a human being, but wants to compare himself with God, wants to have security by himself, which no human being dares to have. And, therefore, a security that is precisely—worry about sustenance.

Yet, in other ways, it also emerges that worry about sustenance arrives by comparison, insofar as worry about sustenance is not today’s actual need, but the idea of a future one. Comparison, then, always arrives when the human being does not want to be content with being a human being. After all, the poor bird of the air compared himself with the rich birds; by this comparison it discovered worry about sustenance. What it is to hunger and to find food—it had known that for a long time. But worry about sustenance it had not had before. And now since these classifications—rich and poor—are not separated from one another by an engulfing abyss, then they, on the contrary, touch one another in continual association and constant disagreement about borders. And, further, since the different consideration comparatively changes the classification, then this third thing of comparison can, therefore, be extremely different. In the worry about sustenance, then, the worried one will not be content with being a human being, but wants to be or wants to have difference, wants to be rich, wealthy, well-off, fairly secure, and so on. He does not look, namely, at the bird of the air—away from the difference of human life—but he looks at others in comparison, at difference, and his worry about sustenance is a relation of comparison.

And even if, in comparison, the worried person does not fix his attention on degrees of difference in this way and call that worry about sustenance which is more a worldly worry (for, after all, to be worried about having just as much as this one and that one is not worry about sustenance)—even if this is not the case, comparison nevertheless lies at the root of worry about sustenance, insofar as this is not the expression for actual but imagined need. Why is it that the bird does not have worry about sustenance? From this—that it does not compare one day with the other, that it lets each day have its own trouble in accordance with the word of the gospel. But even if the worried one does not compare his circumstances with any other person’s and, in this sense, “keeps himself untainted by the world” (alas, comparison is perhaps one of the most pernicious kinds of defilement)—however, when he anxiously compares the one day with the other, when, on the day he has a rich livelihood, he says: “But tomorrow!” And when, on the day he has hardly a thing, he says: “Tomorrow it will be even worse”—indeed, then he compares.

Alas, if such a worried person were to read this, would he not become impatient with the speaker! Gladly would I do as a pagan wise man did out of respect for the object of his discourse: he veiled his countenance. Out of respect for the worry, I would gladly cover my face in this way, so that I see no one but only talk about the bird of the air. After all, it was by this kind of comparison that the wood pigeon discovered worry about sustenance in worry’s sorrowful interaction with itself from day to day. It certainly confessed that it had its livelihood, but uncertainty saddened it. It seemed that it became so dependent—on God. It grieved over the fact that it never dared to talk about the next day with certainty. Oh, but let us not forget that, in a godly sense, it dared to talk with certainty when it said: “The heavenly Father will surely feed me tomorrow.” Let us not forget that it talked with greatest certainty about tomorrow if, with true sincerity, it limited itself to only giving thanks for today! Is this not the way it is? If there was a loving girl whom the beloved came and visited, if she then said to him, “Will you also come again tomorrow?”—then there really was some worry in her love. But if, without mentioning tomorrow, she threw her arms around his neck and said, “Oh, thank you for coming today”—then, indeed, she would be entirely at peace about today. Or if there were two girls, and one said to the beloved, “Will you also come again tomorrow?” and the other said, “Oh, thank you for coming today”—which of these two would be most convinced that the beloved would come again tomorrow?

A useless and perhaps vain dispute is conducted often enough in the world when the poor person says to the rich one: “Yes, you are a lucky fellow; you are free from worry about sustenance.” I wish to God that the poor person would really understand how the gospel thinks so much better of him, equally and more lovingly. The gospel truly does not let itself be deceived by the illusion of visible difference, does not let itself be deceived by taking sides with any person against any other person, with the rich against the poor or with the poor against the rich. Not having to worry about sustenance is, in truth, a pleasing thing in God’s eyes. Should, then, the rich have this advantage as a matter of course and the poor be shut out? Ah, no. If the poor person would really be content with being a human being, and learn from the birds of the air to be without worry about sustenance, then he would simply elevate himself over apparent difference. At times, perhaps, he would be prompted to say: “That poor rich person, he has financial difficulties after all.” For what person can rightly and truly say these words: “I have no financial difficulties”? If the rich person points to his riches as he says that, I wonder if there is a trace of sense in his words! Does he not outrageously contradict himself in the same moment—he who holds fast to his worry about sustenance while he holds it away by his treasures and, because of his worry about sustenance, closely attends to his treasures and adds to them! Yes, if the rich person would give away all of his possessions, cast his money and worry about sustenance away and really say, “I have no financial difficulties”—only then would there be sense in his words. And, of course, this is the poor person’s situation, when he, who owns nothing and thus has nothing to give away, casts worry about sustenance upon God and says, “I have no worry about sustenance.” Is it not the case that the riches must go away, if it is to be at all possible for his words to make sense? If one who owned an expensive collection of glorious medications that he used every day were to say while he pointed at the medications, “I am not sick”—would this not be an outrageous contradiction!

Often enough in the world, the strife of discontented comparison about dependence and independence, about the happiness of being independent and the difficulty of being dependent, is carried on between one person and another person. And yet, neither human language nor thought has ever devised a more beautiful symbol of independence than—the poor bird of the air. And yet, no speech can be more strange than to say that it must be so heavy to be—as light as the bird! To be dependent on one’s treasures is dependence and heavy slavery; to be dependent on God, entirely dependent, is independence. The worried wood pigeon badly feared to become entirely dependent on God. Therefore it ceased to be independent and to be the symbol of independence; it ceased to be the poor bird of the air, which is entirely dependent on God. Dependence on God is the only independence, because God has no weight. Only earthly things, and especially earthly treasures, have that. Thus the one who is entirely dependent on him, he is light. It is the same with the poor person, when he, content with being a human being, looks at the bird of the air, looks at it—under the heavens. Indeed, the praying one always looks up; the praying one—no, he, the independent person, is indeed one who gives thanks.

To be content with being a human being. The discourse was about this and about how the worried one learns this from the lilies in the field and from the birds of the air—how, on the other hand, comparison caused worldly worry and how it caused worry about sustenance. It is certainly a human being who has spoken, but, aided by the lilies and the birds, he has spoken about the lilies and the birds. That he is the one speaking, then, implies no comparison with any other human being, as if he had any advantage by being the speaker. No, here again is equality in relation to the divinely appointed teachers: the lilies in the field and the birds of the air.

II

If it is the case that care and worry—especially the longer and the deeper they penetrate into the soul, or the longer they penetrate deeply into it—also become fixed all the more firmly, then it is certainly beneficial to think of a diversion for the worried one, albeit not in the sense that, often enough and foolishly enough, the world recommends: the wild hurrying or noisy anesthetization of vain diversion. When, then, the worried one feels forsaken and yet, by a self-contradiction in his cares, does not want sympathy, because, pinching and pressing, this comes too near to him, so that he winces almost just as much at the sympathy as at the pain—then one leads him into the surrounding country, where nothing reminds him of his cares, not even of sympathy, where sympathy, as it were, is and yet is not; surrounding country that has sympathy’s touching nearness, insofar as it is somewhat present, and sympathy’s soothing distance as well, insofar as it is not sympathy after all.

In this way, the gospel read earlier leads the worried one out into the field, into the surrounding country, which will weave him into the great common life and win him for the great fellowship of existence. Yet, since worry has now become firmly fixed in him, the important thing is to do something to get his eyes and mind away from it. For this purpose, the gospel recommends two useful movements. Because when the worried one “looks at the lily” at his feet, then he looks down; and when he looks down at the lily, then he does not see the worry. It is certainly possible that, in his cares, he also normally walked bent over, looked down, and saw his worry. However, if he looks down in order to see the lily, then he looks away from the worry.

And when he, in accordance with the gospel’s directions, looks at the bird of the air, then he looks up; and when looks up at the bird, then he does not see his worry. It is certainly possible that, in his cares, he also looked up at times, when he sent a worried sigh up to God and, with the gaze of worry, looked after it. Yet, if he looks up to see the bird of the air, then he looks away from the worry. Because worry has fixed itself in a person’s soul, how else should one signify it than by saying that it is like when the eyes stare. When the eyes stare, then they look out ahead without changing, look constantly at one thing, and yet actually do not see, because, as science explains, they see their own seeing. But then the doctor says: “Move your eyes.” And thus says the gospel: “Divert your mind, look down at the lily, and stop staring at the worry; look up to the bird and stop staring at the worry.” Hence, when the tears cease while the eyes look down at the lily, is it not as if it were the lily who is wiping away the tears! When the wind dries the tears from the eyes that watch the bird, is it not as if it were the bird who is wiping away the tears! Even when the loved one sits with a person and wipes the tears away if the worried one keeps on crying, is this actually wiping the tears away? But the one who gets the worried one to stop crying—he wipes the tears away.

This is what one dares to call a godly diversion, which does not excite impatience and feed worry like the worldly and vain diversion, but it diverts, calms, persuades the more one devoutly gives oneself over to it. Human shrewdness has invented so much in order to entertain and to divert the mind, and yet the law for this kind of invention defies this fruitless endeavor by a self-contradiction. The art is itself in the service of impatience. More and more impatiently it teaches to condense the many diversions into the transitory moment. The more this shrewdness increases, the more it works against itself, since it turns out that the diversion will continually cover a shorter and shorter time as the art increases. Let us take an example, where the vain and worldly diversion rightly shows itself as flimsy and self-contradictory as it is. The pyrotechnist, to be sure, wants to entertain the eyes and to divert the mind by lighting the artificial blazing evanescence in the darkness of night. And yet, if it only is to last an hour, then the onlooker becomes tired; if it is to be only a little moment between each new ignition, then the onlooker becomes tired. The task of shrewdness is, therefore, to finish it off faster and faster; the highest, the most perfect thing will be to burn the whole lot in a few minutes. But if diversion is determined to pass the time, then, to be sure, the self-contradiction shows itself clearly: the diversion, when it has become most perfect in its art, can only while away a couple minutes—the more frightfully it becomes very clear how long the time is. For a fee, then, one buys admission to be able to wait, in the tension of impatience, for the entertainment’s beginning, and in the same moment it is over. As that conjuring flare shines and, in a moment, vanishes into nothing, so must be the soul of the person who only knows such diversions: he despairs over the length of time in the minute of diversion.

Ah, how different it is with the godly diversion! For have you ever seen the starry sky, and have you really found any more reliable sight? It costs not a thing, so there is no urge of impatience. Nothing is said about tonight, still less about 10 o’clock on the dot. Oh, no, it waits on you, if, in another sense, it does not wait on you—as the stars now shine sparkling in the night, so have they, unchanged, endured for millennia. As God makes himself invisible—alas, perhaps that is why there are many who never really become aware of him—so does the starry sky make itself just as insignificant—alas, perhaps that is why there are many who never really see it. The divine majesty refuses the visible, the falsely prominent. The solemnity of the starry sky is more than unassuming; oh, but if you stand still, if you perhaps go out there without purpose, where it is visible year in and year out, unappreciated, if you by chance came to a stop and looked upward—then you surely have experienced it. The persuasion rises with each moment. More and more movingly it tricks you out of the temporal; what should be forgotten sinks into deeper and deeper oblivion with each moment that you continue to contemplate it. Oh, godly diversion, you do not faithlessly and treasonously call yourself a diversion, while, with empty noise and with hurrying impatience, you really are in league with boredom, into which you plunge a person deeper and deeper—by means of diversion. No, you are in league with the eternal, and therefore only the beginning is difficult. When it is made, then the stillness of diversion grows and, with it, the persuasion.

So it is with everything in nature. It seems insignificant and yet is so infinitely rich. If you, therefore, go hastily on your way on an important errand, and the way leads you along the seashore, then be on your guard. Well, true, there is no one who calls out to you; no invitation is heard, neither the advertiser’s voice nor the cannon’s thunder as with human entertainment. And yet, be careful; hurry, lest you—by standing still a moment—perhaps discover the persuasion of monotony in the waves of the sea. And so it is too with the lily in the field and with the bird of the air. If you quickly go “to your farm, to your business, to your wife,” and a bird flies past you, then do not look after it. For if you look after it, then perhaps you are bound to stand far too long to watch the bird. If it is time for work, wherein one is to attend to his labor, if the harvester nimbly sharpens his scythe and swings it against the grain, then let him not look to the lily at his feet, lest it persuade him so that both the lily and the harvester remain standing.

But the worried one, he is not warned. On the contrary, the gospel encourages him to go out in the field and to stand still there in order to contemplate the lily and the bird, so that the godly diversion can bring the gazing eyes to move, can divert the mind in which worry has become fixed. Contemplate the lily; see how it stands lovely at your feet. Do not refuse it. After all, it waits for you to delight in its beauty! See how it moves to and fro, shakes off everything in order to continue being lovely! See how it is refreshed by the wind, exercises as it were, so that it—calm once again—might rejoice in its happy existence! See how gentle it is, always willing to joke and to play, while it nevertheless conquers and endures the most violent storm by giving in! Contemplate the bird of the air; see how it flies. Perhaps it comes from far away, from distant, distant happier parts of the country—so they do exist, after all. Perhaps it flies away, far away to distant, distant parts of the country—so let it take your worry with it! And this it does without noticing the burden, if only you continue to look after it. See how it now stands still. It takes a rest—in that infinite space; therefore it takes a rest where no rest seems possible! See how it finds its way, and yet what way through all the hardships and adversities of human life is as difficult, as incomprehensible as “the bird’s mysterious way through the air”! Accordingly, where no way seems possible, there is a way and a way to be found.

However, since all diversion is not only to pass the time, but is to serve primarily to give the worried one something else to think about, then we will now consider how the worried one—who looks at the lily and at the bird, with the help of the godly diversion, which disperses the mists—gets to think about something else than worry, how he, by forgetting the worry in the diversion, is led to consider:

how glorious it is to be a human being.

“Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field…shall he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” Thus God clothes the grass, or the grass is clothed. The stalk’s beautifully formed frame, the delicate lines of the blades, the lovely shades and mixtures of colors, the whole richness, if I dare say so, of ribbons and bows and frills—all of this belongs to the lily’s clothing, and it is God who clothes it in this way. “Shall he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?” “You of little faith.” This is the admonition’s gentle reproach; when love does not have the heart to talk severely to the one who is wrong, this is how it talks. It wags the finger reproachfully at him and says, “You of little faith,” but says it so gently that the reproach does not hurt, does not sadden, does not dishearten, but instead elevates and makes one bold. If a disheartened child came to an adult and asked for something that the child had anyway and had had for a long time but was not aware of it and therefore thought that it ought to ask for it in order to get it instead of giving thanks for having it, I wonder if the adult, gently reproaching, would not say: “Yes, my dear child, you will be sure to get it tomorrow, you of little faith!” That is to say, when you come to understand better one day, then you will be sure to appreciate that you have it, that you have had it forever, and that it therefore was a kind of indiscretion—although forgivable, indeed, charming for a child—that you asked for what you had.

But if this is the meaning of the words, then, indeed, it is said in the gospel not only that the human being is clothed like the grass but that he is clothed far more gloriously. With the help of the added reproach (“you of little faith”), it is actually said: would God not have clothed you much more? Thus the words are not about the new dress one would like to have for Sunday or about the new tailcoat one needs so greatly, but about the indiscretion that would forget how gloriously the human being is clothed from God’s hand. Would there not even be an inconsistency in the words, if the first was that the lily is more gloriously clothed than Solomon, and the last is: “Shall God not much more clothe you?” Would there not be an inconsistency, if the last part was to be understood as referring to the few pieces of clothing a person may need?

Indeed, let us consider this matter correctly. It is said that the lily is clothed, but, after all, this is not to be understood in this way—that the lily’s existence is one thing and that to have clothes is something else. No, its clothing is to be a lily. Now, in this sense, would not the human being be far more gloriously clothed? Or would the human being, out of worry about articles of clothing, be allowed to entirely forget its first clothing? O you of little faith, you misguided person with your imaginary need, O you worried one, even if your need was so great that you totally would forget how God has clothed you—learn from the ant to become wise but learn from the lily how glorious it is to be a human being, how gloriously you are clothed, you of little faith!

Worldly worry always seeks to lead a person out into the petty unrest of comparison, away from the sublime rest of simple thoughts. To be clothed means, then, to be a human being—and thus to have good clothes on. Worldly worry occupies itself with clothes and with a multiplicity of clothes: is it, then, not like the sorrowful child who comes and asks for what it has and to whom the adult says with a gentle reproach: “You will be sure to get it tomorrow, you of little faith!” Really, the gospel first wants to remind even a needy person not to forget how gloriously he is clothed by God. And, in the next place, we are all admittedly a long way from being needy in a serious and more strict sense; yet, on the other hand, we are all perhaps only too inclined to be worried about clothes and ungrateful enough to forget the first thoughts—and the first clothing. But by contemplating the lily the worried one is reminded to compare his clothing to the lily’s—even if poverty has clothed him in rags.

Should not, then, the invitation to learn from the lilies be welcome to everyone, just as the reminder is useful to him! Alas, in the weekday and worldly life of comparison, those great, uplifting, simple thoughts—those first thoughts—are more and more forgotten, perhaps entirely. The one human being compares himself with others; the one generation compares itself with the other. And, in this way, the heaped-up pile of comparisons rightly overwhelms an actual human being. As ingenuity and the pressure of business increase, there come to be more and more in each generation who tiresomely work their whole lives far down in the low, underground regions of comparison. Indeed, just as miners never see the light of day, so do these unhappy ones never come to see the light—those uplifting, simple thoughts, those first thoughts, about how glorious it is to be a human being. And up there on the high places of comparison, smiling vanity plays its false game, deceiving happy persons so that they get no impression of those sublime, simple thoughts, those first thoughts.

To be a ruler—yes, what conflict is not carried on about that in the world, now about ruling over kingdoms and lands, over thousands, or yet about having one person to rule over—besides oneself, which no one is worried about ruling over. But out in the field with the lilies, where every person who quietly and solitarily nurses on the milk of those first thoughts, is what every person is according to divine purpose: he is a ruler. Indeed, no wants to be a ruler out here! To be a prodigy—ah, what efforts are made in the world in order to reach this envied status, and how envy bends over backwards in order to hinder it! But out in the field with the lilies, where every person is what God has made him to be, is the marvel of creation. Yes, no one wants to be the prodigy out there! The better individual would probably smile; the crowd’s strident laughter would mock the fool who could talk about being a ruler and a prodigy in this sense.

And yet, what can the Preacher mean by the words: “that God separated the human being in order to see if he would regard himself as a beast”? For the one who, having been isolated, does not want to be calmed, comforted, upbuilt, uplifted by the absolute nature of those first thoughts, the one who wants to abandon himself to disappearing and perishing in the meaningless service of comparisons: he regards himself as a beast, whether or not he was distinguished or lowly in terms of comparison. Therefore God singled out the human being, made every human being into this distinct entity, who is encompassed by the absolute nature of the first thoughts. The individual animal is not isolated, is no absolutely distinct entity; the individual animal is a number and belongs under what the most famed pagan thinker has called the animal category: the herd. And the human being, who, in despair, turns away from those first thoughts in order to plunge himself into the herd of comparisons: he makes himself into a number; he regards himself as a beast, whether or not he was distinguished or lowly in terms of comparison.

However, the worried one is isolated with the lilies, far away from all human or, perhaps rather, inhuman comparisons between person and person. Yes, not even the one who has turned his back on the greatest city in the world has left behind such a motley crew, such a confused, immense multiplicity, as the one who turned his back on inhuman comparisons—in order to compare, like a human being, his clothing with the lily’s.

By clothing, then, must be understood what it is to be a human being, as has been shown. Already a pagan has been aware of this. He did not know to attribute everything to God, but, as he ingeniously says, he thought that it was the soul itself that like a weaver wove the body—which is the human being’s clothing. And now he praised the ingenious creation of the human body in perfect wonder, its glory, with which surely no plant and no animal could sustain any comparison. In this thought, he let it, as it were, grow into what is the human being’s distinction: the upright walk. And while he imitated it by thinking, his mind was uplifted. He wondered over the ingeniousness of the human eye and even more over its look, for an animal has an eye but only the human being has a look. Therefore, in the beautiful mother tongue of that man of wonder, the human being is called the upright one, albeit in such a way that a twofold meaning is suggested—first, that the human being’s figure is upright like a straight tree trunk and next that the upright one accordingly directs his look upward. Even if the straight tree trunk rises higher, the upright one, with this help of vision, proudly lifts his head higher than the mountains. Thus the human being stands upright—commanding. And that is why it seemed so glorious to that man of wonder that the human being was the only creature that has hands, for, after all, the ruler holds out his hands when he gives orders.

And so again, in many ways, that man of wonder knew how to speak gloriously about the human being’s glorious clothing. Perhaps many have talked more learnedly, more insightfully, more scientifically about this, but, amazingly enough, no one has talked with more wonder than that noble wise man, who did not begin with doubting everything but, on the contrary, when he had become older, when he had seen and heard and experienced much, he properly began to wonder, to wonder over that simple first thought, which otherwise no one cares about in this way, not even the scholars and the scientists, because, after all, they are not occupied with this subject—as an object of wonder. But this language about wonder really is imperfect insofar as it assigns clothing to the soul. Indeed, most imperfect of all is the foolish talk that entirely forgets that solemn first thought, so that it, without further ado, thoughtlessly takes being a human being as if it were nothing, takes it in vain and immediately begins the foolishness about pieces of clothing, about trousers and jackets, about purple and ermine. Yet, the talk that is certainly aware of that first thought but not truly aware of God is also imperfect. No, if the human being is to compare himself with the lily, then he must say: “All that I am by being a human being—that is my clothing; none of it is caused by me, but it is glorious.”

Now, how should we talk about this glory? It could be talked about a long time without finishing, but this is not the place for that. Instead, then, let us talk briefly and gather everything into one simple phrase, which Scripture itself uses with authority: God created the human being in his own image, but, again, for the sake of brevity let us only understand this verse with regard to one thing.

God created the human being in his own image. Should it not be glorious to be clothed in this way! In order to praise the lily, the gospel says that it surpasses Solomon in glory: should it not be infinitely more glorious to be like God! The lily does not resemble God; no, it does not do that. It bears a little hint by which it reminds one about God; it is a witness, since God, after all, has not let himself be without witness in any created thing. But the lily is not like him.

When the human being sees his image in the mirror of the ocean, then he sees his own image. But the ocean is not the human being’s image, and when he moves away, the image is gone: the ocean is not the image and cannot even hold on to the image. What is the cause of this, except that the visible figure, precisely by its visibility, is powerless (just as the bodily presence makes it impossible to be omnipresent). Thus it cannot reproduce itself in another so that this retains the image when the figure is gone. But God is spirit, is invisible, and the image of invisibility is, again, obviously invisible. In this way, the invisible creator reproduces himself in the invisibility that is the definition of spirit, and God’s image is exactly the invisible glory. If God were visible, well, then there would be no one who could be like him or be his image. For the image of everything visible does not exist and among everything visible there is nothing, not even a leaf, that is like another or is its image. If that were the case, then the image would be the object itself. But since God is invisible, then no one can visibly be like him. That is just why the lily is not like God, because the lily’s glory is the visible, and therefore the pagan really spoke imperfectly about the human being even as he spoke most perfectly about the glory of the human body, yet said nothing about the fact that the invisible God created each human being in his own image.

To be spirit is the human being’s invisible glory. When, then, the worried one stands out in the field surrounded by all the witnesses, when every flower says to him, “Remember God!” then he answers, “I will be sure to do that, little children; I will worship him—something you poor little ones cannot do.” The upright one is, therefore, a worshiper. The upright walk was the distinguishing mark, but to be able to kneel down in worship is even more glorious. And the whole of nature is like the great staff of servants who remind the human being, the ruler, about worshiping God. It is this that is expected, not that the human being is to come and to take control, which is also glorious and assigned to him, but that the human being is to praise the creator in worship—something nature cannot do, because it can only remind the human being about doing that. To be clothed like the lily is glorious; to be the upright ruler is even more glorious; to be nothing by worshiping is most glorious!

To worship is not to rule, and yet worship is precisely that by which the human being is like God, and to be able to worship in truth is the virtue of the invisible glory above all creation. The pagan was not aware of God and, therefore, sought likeness in ruling. But the resemblance is not like this. No, on the contrary, then it is taken in vain. Truly, it is only within the infinite difference, and, for that reason, to worship is likeness with God, since it is the virtue above all creation. The human being and God are not literally like one another, but inversely like one another: not until God has infinitely become the eternal and omnipresent object of worship and the human being always a worshiper, not until then are they like one another. If the human being wants to be like God by ruling, then he has forgotten God, then God has gone away, and the human being pretends to be a ruler in his absence. And so it was in paganism; it was the human being’s life in the absence of God. That is why paganism was really like nature, and the most grim thing that can be said about it is: it could not worship. Even that noble, simple wise man, he could fall silent in wonder, but he could not worship. But to be able to worship is no visible glory; it cannot be seen. And yet, nature’s visible glory yearns; it pleads with the ruler. Without ceasing, it reminds the human being that he finally must not forget—to worship. Oh, how glorious to be a human being!

Truly, then, the worried one, in his diversion among the lilies, got something entirely different to think about than worry. He came to properly consider how glorious it is to be a human being. If, in worldly fashion, he forgets it again in the crossroads of comparisons and the collision of differences between one human being and another, then it is not the fault of the lilies. On the contrary, then it is because he also has forgotten the lilies, forgotten that there was something he should learn from them and something he finally must remember to do for them. That is, if one were to characterize worldly worry with a single word, then must one not say: it is a worry about clothes, a worry about how things look. Just for that reason, the highest exaltation over worldly worry is the upbuilding by the invisible glory—that to worship is the glory and also a service that is shown to the lily.

So it is with the instruction of the lilies. Now we will contemplate how the worried one learns from the bird how glorious it is to be a human being.

“The bird sows not, neither does it reap, nor gather into barns.” The bird is without worry about sustenance. But is this, then, actually a perfection? Is it a perfection to be carefree in danger, when one does not know it, does not know it exists? Is it a perfection to take certain steps—because one is walking blindly? Is it a perfection to walk securely—because one is sleepwalking? No, to be more truthful, one must surely say that it is a perfection to know danger, to confront it, to be awake—that it is a perfection to be able to have worry about sustenance precisely in order to overcome this fear, thereby letting faith and trust drive out the fear. Then one is truly without worry about sustenance in the carefreeness of faith. For only faith’s carefreeness is, in a divine sense, the gliding whose beautiful yet imperfect symbol is the easy flight of the bird. After all, that is why we even talk about rising on the wings of faith, and this stroke of the wings is, in a divine sense, the perfect one. The bird’s wing-stroke is only a faint and pictorial hint. Yes, as when the weary bird with flagging wing-strokes slowly sinks to the earth, so is the proudest flight of even the most daring bird only an earthly and temporal feebleness in comparison with the high gliding of faith—a slow sinking in comparison with faith’s easy rising.

We will consider this more closely. Why does the bird not have worry about sustenance? Because it only lives in the moment. Therefore nothing eternal is in the bird. But is this really a perfection? On the contrary, how does the possibility of worry about sustenance come to light? In this way—that the eternal and the temporal touch one another in consciousness or, rather, that the human being has consciousness. In consciousness, he is eternally far, far beyond the moment. No bird flew so far away, and yet precisely thereby he becomes aware of the danger that the bird does not suspect. Because eternity came into existence for him, tomorrow came into existence too. Through consciousness, he discovers a world that the most traveled bird does not know: the future, and when this future is taken back into the moment by consciousness, then the worry that the bird does not know is discovered. For however far away it flew and from however far it flew back, it never flew to the future, nor did it ever return from there.

Since, then, the human being is consciousness, he is the place where the eternal and the temporal touch one another, where the eternal breaks into the temporal. That is why time can seem long to a human being, because he is conscious of the eternal and measures the moments with it. But time never seems long to the bird. The human being, therefore, has a dangerous enemy that the bird does not know: time, an enemy, yes, an enemy or a friend, whose demands and whose dealings the human being cannot evade, because he is conscious of the eternal and, accordingly, must measure it. The temporal and the eternal can painfully touch one another in many ways in the human consciousness, but one of the points of contact that the human being especially shrinks from is, of course, worry about sustenance. Its distance from the eternal seems so infinite; there is not talk about filling up time with some glorious feat, some great thought, some uplifting feeling, as in the hours that one says are being lived for eternity. Alas, no, there is only talk about lowly work in hours that, quite literally, are lived for temporality—the poor work to procure the condition for temporal existence. But to be able to have worry about sustenance is a perfection and is but depression’s expression for the loftiness of the human being. For as high as God raises up, he also presses down as deep. But, then, that means that to be pressed down deep is also to be raised up high. And as God lifted the human being high over the bird by consciousness of the eternal, so again he pressed him down, if you will, under the bird by his acquaintance with care, the earthly, lowly care that the bird does not know. Oh, how dignified it seems that the bird does not have worry about sustenance—and yet, how much more glorious to be able to have it!

From the bird, then, the human being can certainly learn. He can also call the bird his teacher, but not in the highest sense. Just as the bird lacks worry about sustenance, so, by the way, is a child like that too. Ah, who would not gladly learn from a child! And when the imaginary or the actual need in the worry makes a person despondent, dejected, downcast: oh, then he will gladly be soothed, gladly learn from a child, gladly call the child his teacher in his calm, grateful mind. But if the child were to begin to speak and to talk didactically, then the adult would gently say: “Yes, my dear child, that is something that you yourself do not understand.” And if the child were not silent, then the adult would say that he was a naughty child, and perhaps not hesitate to paddle—the teacher, and perhaps rightly do so. Why? Because the adult is the child’s teacher in an earnest sense, while the child is the adult’s teacher only in the beautiful sense of playful earnestness. But, then, it is truly a perfection to be able to have worry about sustenance, and the human being is by far the superior, even if he gladly learns from the bird in accordance with the gospel’s instructions and calls the bird his teacher in his calm, grateful mind.

Hence, since it lacks worry about sustenance, the bird certainly serves as an example for the human being, and yet the human being, in being able to have worry about sustenance, is far more perfect than the example. That is why the human being never dares to forget that the one who sent him to the bird of the air—as if for a first, a childlike education—that precisely he is the actual example in earnestness and in truth, that precisely he serves as the true, the essential example of human perfection. For when it is said that the birds have nests and the foxes have holes, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head, a state that is indeed more helpless than the bird’s is being talked about, and it is conscious of this as well. But then, with the consciousness of being without a nest, without a place to reside, yet—to be without a care. Indeed, this is the divine example of the exalted creation; this is the human being’s divine example. This example does not exist for the bird, nor for the child. But, for that reason, it is a perfection to be able to have worry about sustenance. Is that not the case? Do we really say that it is a perfection in woman that, as the weaker sex, she does not go into war; that it is a perfection in the prisoner that he cannot come out and risk his life; that it is a perfection in the person sleeping that he sleeps through the danger! Or do we really say that it is a perfection to be excluded from daring to call the exalted one his example! But why, then, is worry about sustenance talked about in another way, as if the woman were happier because it is rather the man who must acquire things; as if the prisoner were happy because the state provides for him; as if the one who slept himself into wealth were happy; or as if the one who perhaps by wealth was prevented from calling the God-man his example were happiest of all!

Yet, the worried person cannot speak this way out there with the bird. He looks at the bird; he entirely forgets his imagined worry. He even forgets the actual need for the moment. He is relieved; yes, he is upbuilt. But if the bird dared to say a didactic word, then he would certainly answer: “My little friend, this is something you do not understand.” That is, he would become aware that it is a perfection to be able to have worry about sustenance.

“The bird sows not, neither does it reap, nor gather into barns.” In other words, the bird does not work.

But, then, is this a perfection—to not work at all? Is it a perfection to steal the day’s time in the sense that sleep steals the night’s? For it is true that the bird wakes early to sing, and yet…yet, when it has slept, it actually wakes in order to dream. Even its most beautiful song is, after all, a dream about an unhappy love. And, in this way, it sleeps and dreams life away—a happy or a melancholy jest. But is this really a perfection? Is it a perfection in the child that it plays and becomes tired—like the man of work—and sleeps and plays again! It is lovable in the child—ah, who would not gladly learn from a child! And when, at times, the adult does his work well but receives no joy from it, yes, is perhaps even annoyed: oh, then he would gladly be comforted by the child, gladly learn from it, gladly call the child his teacher in his calm, grateful mind. But, if necessary, he would not hesitate to reprimand—the teacher. And the adult would do that with justification. Why? Because the adult is the child’s teacher in an earnest sense, and the child is the adult’s teacher only in the beautiful sense of playful earnestness.

The bird does not work. In an innocent sense, its life is vain, and, in an innocent sense, it even takes its life in vain. Is this a perfection? Then, I suppose, it is also an imperfection in God that he works, that he works up to now! Is it a perfection in the bird that, in hard times, it sits and starves to death and knows nothing at all about what to do, that, confused, it lets itself fall to the earth and die? Of course, we do not normally talk in this way. When the sailor lies down in his boat and lets things take their course in the storm and knows nothing at all about what to do, we do not talk about his perfection. But when the brave sailor knows how to steer, when he works against gale and storm through ingenuity, strength, and perseverance, works himself out of danger, then we admire him. When, late in the morning, one person sees another who gets up late, sluggish and yet hungry, waiting to get food by chance, we do not praise this, do we? But when, early in the morning, we see the good worker, or when we do not see him but see that he has already been there early in the morning, that the fisherman has already been out to his nets, that the cattleman has already moved the cows, then we praise the fisherman and the cattleman. To work is the human being’s perfection. By working the human being is like God, who, after all, also works. And so when a human being works for food, then we would not foolishly say that he feeds himself. Rather, precisely in order to recall how glorious it is to be a human being, we would say that he works with God for food. He works with God; therefore, he is God’s coworker. See, the bird is not that. The bird gets enough food, but it is not God’s coworker. The bird gets food just as a wanderer subsists out in the country, but the master calls the servant who works for food his coworker.

The bird does not work—and yet it gets food. Is this a perfection in the bird? After all, we normally say that the one who will not work does not get food either, and God says this as well. Hence, when God makes an exception for the bird, it is because the poor bird cannot work. The poor bird cannot work: we do not talk like this about a perfection, do we? To work, then, is a perfection. It is not, as one inadequately represents it, that it is a hard necessity to have to work in order to live. Oh, no, it is a perfection not to be a child all one’s life, not to have parents who always care for one, both while they are living and when they are dead. The hard necessity—which, at the same time, still precisely acknowledges the perfection in the human being—is needed only in order to force the one who will not freely understand that it is a perfection to work and, therefore, will not gladly go to work. That is why, even if there was not a so-called hard necessity, it would still be an imperfection if a person were to cease to work.

It is said that, with regard to royal medals, some wear the medal to honor themselves, others honor the medal by wearing it. So let us refer to a great example, who rightly can be said to have honored work in actuality: the Apostle Paul. If anyone else was bound to have wished the day was twice as long—then surely it was Paul. If anyone else could have easily allowed himself to be supported by the congregations—then surely Paul. And yet, he preferred to work with his own hands! Just as he humbly thanked God that he enjoyed the honor of being scourged, persecuted, insulted; just as he, humble before God, proudly calls his fetters a point of honor, so he found it also an honor to work with his own hands—an honor so that, in relation to the gospel, he dared to say with the beautiful modesty of a woman and the holy modesty of an apostle: “I have not earned a cent from preaching the word; I have not married money in becoming an apostle”; an honor so that, in relation to the lowliest human being, he dared to say: “I have not been exempted from any of life’s hardship, nor have I, through favor, been barred from any of its advantages; I also have had the honor of working with my own hands!”

Oh, in the despairing, glittering or utterly miserable wretchedness of worldly comparisons, where one knows just as little about what honor is as about what perfection is, there one talks cravenly or treacherously in another way. But out with the bird, there the worried one understands how glorious it is to work or, in doing so, how glorious it is to be a human being. For it does not make a difference whether or not one works for riches, another for bread, one in order to gather an abundance, another to defend himself against poverty. No, what makes a difference is—that the bird cannot work.

Hence, in this diversion with the bird, the worried one did, after all, get something entirely different to think about than his worry. He came to rightly consider how glorious it is to work, how glorious it is to be a human being. If he forgets it again during work, oh, then perhaps that sweet teacher, the bird, will fly by him and remind him about what he forgot…if only he looks at the bird.

III

If it is the case that care and worry, especially the longer and the deeper they penetrate into the soul, or the longer they deeply penetrate into it, also give the strength of worry, then it is indeed likely that the consoling friend is bound to get the worst of it in the struggle. That is to say, it is like a struggle that is conducted between worry and consolation; they look at one another as enemies in the same sense as sickness and medicine. They cannot tolerate, cannot stand one another, at least not immediately. And who has not experienced what powers worry can give a human being, how he both cunningly and powerfully knows to defend himself against consolation, how he can do what no leaders can otherwise do: in the same moment that worry’s defense is disarmed, to lead the very defense freshly into battle at the same time! Who has not experienced how the passion in worry can give a human being strength in thought and in expression, of which the consoling person is almost afraid. Who has not experienced that scarcely anyone desiring something can talk as seductively in order to win over another as a worried person can persuasively talk in order to convince himself—and the person consoling him—that once again there is no consolation! But when this is so, when a worried person has become the stronger—perhaps at times only by what appears to be obstinacy, at times, alas, actually the stronger by the magnitude of sorrow—is there nothing at all to do then? To be sure. One seeks then to persuade the worried one to familiarize himself with another’s suffering. And the one who himself will not receive consolation from another person is often willing to take part in another’s sorrow, to become worried about another and on another’s behalf. Thus is the struggle forgotten. While the worried one wistfully suffers with another, the mind is appeased. The one who armed himself against consolation is now disarmed; the one who was like a fortified city is now like a city that has surrendered. By grieving with another he finds consolation for himself.

In this way, the abovementioned gospel leads the worried one out to the field, and he who—alas, at once weak and strong—thought of himself as victor over all human consolation now stands in an entirely different environment. Consider the grass, “which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven.” Ah, what a fleeting life, oh sheer vanity! And even if it is not cast into the oven, “the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withers the grass, and the flower thereof falls, and the grace of the fashion of it perishes.” So the grass withers, and no one knows its place anymore. No, no one, no one knows its place anymore; no one asks about, and if anyone asked, it would, after all, be impossible to find it. What a miserable existence—to be, to have been, and then to be forgotten in this way!

Consider the bird! “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?” Alas, one sparrow has no value at all; there must be two if the buyer is to give a penny. What a change—so cheerful, so happy…and now not worth a penny! This is how the bird dies! Oh, how hard to die in this way! And then, when the first swallow comes again in the spring, all will greet it with joy, but whether it is the same one who was here last year—indeed, no one knows that. No one knows it, and therefore no one can recognize it either!

Oh, in nature, there is certainly beauty, and there is youthfulness and loveliness; there is certainly a manifold and teeming life, and there is delight and jubilation. But there is also something like a deep, inscrutable sorrow, which not one of them out there ever suspects. And just this—that no one suspects it—is the sadness in the human being. To be so lovely, to blossom in this way, to flutter about so, to build with the beloved in this way: to live in this way—and to die in this way! Is this life, or is it death? When the sick person is at the decisive moment of his illness, one asks: is it life or death? But, then, one admittedly sees the perilousness as well; one sees it before one’s eyes and sees it with a shudder. But, in nature, where everything smiles invitingly and seems secure! And yet, the life of nature is always in this tension: is it life or death? Is it life, which, eternally young, renews itself? Or is it corruptibility, which insidiously hides itself so that it will not be seen for what it is—the corruptibility that precisely thereby swindles with the charm of the lily and field, with the carefreeness of the bird, while, underneath, it only waits to reap the deception with insidiousness. Thus is the life of nature: short, rich with song, blossoming, but death’s prey in every moment. And death is the stronger.

So the worried person sinks into sadness. It grows dark before his eyes. The beauty of nature fades. The bird’s song becomes as silent as the grave. Corruptibility wants to swallow everything—and yet he cannot forget the bird and the lily. It is as if he would save them from death by his recollection, save them for a longer life by recollecting them. The sadness lies just in this. But is death’s earnest reminder of death really more gripping than that of sadness, which is contained in this expression: is it life or death? What death says is more terrible: it is finished. But what sadness says is more gripping: is this life or death? The shape of death is more horrifying—he, the pale reaper. Yet, when death is clothed like the lily in loveliness, it is more gripping. Thus the worried one, gripped by sadness, is weakened like a woman, pacified like a city that has surrendered—and consolation finds a way in.

Now, then, let us bear in mind how the worried one, through his sadness with the lily and the bird, in an earnest sense gets something to think about other than worry, how he is led to rightly consider:

What blessedness is promised in being a human being.

“No one can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” But are these also the words of the gospel? Certainly. The abovementioned gospel about the lilies in the field and about the birds of the air begins in this way. But is such talk, then, directed to a worried person? Certainly. It is a worried person to which a high value is ascribed; the language is stern for just that reason. The sterner the authoritative person speaks to a worried person, the more he concedes to him as well; the more he demands of the worried person, the more he concedes to him as well: the sternness and the demand are precisely the concession. Is this not how it is? When the doctor sees that it is over for the sick person, then one can immediately hear it in the doctor’s voice. He speaks in passing, in an undertone, evasively. Yet, on the other hand, when the doctor sees that there is much to do, especially that the sick person can do much himself, then he speaks sternly: the sternness is precisely the concession. What is heard at times is, therefore, by no means doubtful—that a person, instead of begging for gentleness, has said, “Oh, just speak to me sternly.” And the gospel’s stern language, is it not like when an earnest father says to the child: “I want to hear no whining”? Is, then, the earnest father lacking in sympathy for the child’s worries? Far from it. He just wants the worries to be legitimate, while he is like a consuming fire toward foolish worries. So also with the gospel. The lilies and the birds can be talked about in many ways. They can be talked about gently, movingly, ingratiatingly, affectionately, almost like a poet. And a person even dares to talk in this way, dares to persuade the worried one. Yet, when the gospel speaks authoritatively, then it speaks with the earnestness of eternity, then there is no more time to be suspended dreamily over the lily or to look at the bird with longing—a brief, instructive allusion to the lily and the bird, but then the eternal demand of earnestness. And as it is true about diversion—that, in an alleviating sense, it gives the worried one something else to think about—so is it true about the stern talk of earnestness, which, in earnestness and in truth, gives the worried one something else to think about than to worry.

“No one can serve two masters.” And here there can be no doubt about which two are being talked about. Therefore the worried one was led out into the field, where there can be no talk about human relations, about serving a ruler as an assistant or about serving a wise person as a devotee, but only about serving God or the world. Nature does not serve two Gods; there is no vacillation or double-mindedness. The poor bird of the air and the humble lily of the field do not serve two masters. Even if the lily does not serve God, it is nevertheless in service to God’s honor alone; it does not spin, does not work. It does not want to be anything at all itself or to have something for itself, to have it as spoils. The bird does not serve two masters. Even if it does not serve God, it exists for God’s honor alone, sings to his praise, does not demand at all to be anything itself. Thus is everything in nature. This is its perfection but also its imperfection, because for that reason there is no freedom. The lily, which stands in the open, and the free bird of the air are, nevertheless, bound in necessity and have no choice.

“Either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.” Therefore love of God is hatred of the world, and love of the world is hatred of God. Therefore this is the immense point of contention—either love or hate. Therefore this is the place where the most terrible struggle conducted in the world is to be fought, and where is this place? In a person’s heart. Perhaps that is why the one who sensed the struggle in his own heart often came to a standstill; he stood and sought a diversion by contemplating the raging of the elements and the battle of nature, because he felt that this struggle is really like a game, since it does not matter if either the storm or the sea wins. Yes, why do the storm and the sea actually quarrel, and over what do they actually fight! It is different with the terrible struggle in a person’s heart. Whether the fight is over millions or a penny, the fight is about this—that a human being will lovingly prefer it to God. The most terrible struggle is the one that struggles over the highest. The penny seems to be nothing; the struggle seems to be about nothing—about a penny—and yet there is a dispute over the highest. And everything is at stake. Or is it more offensive to a girl that the beloved prefers a thousand talents, rather than a penny, to the possession of her?

Now, is not the sadness forgotten over the terribleness of the struggle? But then we come to the glorious thing—that the human being is granted a choice. What blessedness is not promised hereby for the one who chooses rightly!

A choice. My listener, if you talked year in and year out, do you know how to express anything more glorious in a single word, how to name anything more glorious than a choice, to have choice! For it is certainly true that the sole blessing is really to choose rightly, but, to be sure, choice itself is ultimately the glorious condition. What does the girl care about a list of all her fiancé’s excellent qualities when she herself may not choose? And, on the other hand, whether others praise her beloved’s many perfections or name his many flaws, what more glorious thing does she know to say than when she says: “He is my heart’s choice!”

A choice—yes, it is the glorious treasure, but it is not intended to be buried and hidden. For an unused choice is worse than nothing, is a snare in which the person trapped himself like a slave who did not become free—by choosing. It is a good that you can never get rid of again; it stays with you, and, if you do not use it, it is like a curse. A choice, not between red and green, not between silver and gold—no, a choice between God and the world. Do you know anything greater to place together for a choice! Do you know any more overwhelming and humbling expression for God’s complaisance and indulgence toward the human being than that, in a certain sense, he puts himself in the straight line of choice with the world, just so that the human being can choose. That God, if language dares to put it this way, proposes to the human being, that he—the eternally strong one—proposes to the weak human being. For, after all, the strong one always proposes to the weaker one. Yet, how insignificant is even the girl’s choice between suitors in comparison with this choice between God and world. A choice, or is it perhaps an imperfection in the choice under discussion that the human being not only can choose but must choose? Would it not, then, be to the young girl’s benefit if she had an earnest father who said, “My dear girl, you have your freedom; you may choose yourself, but you must choose.” Would it be more useful to her that she had the choice but coyly picked and picked and never came to choose!

No, the human being must choose. For, in this way, God holds himself in honor, while he also has fatherly solicitude for the human being. If God has humbled himself to be the one who can be chosen, so must the human being choose as well—God does not let himself be mocked. Therefore it is truly like this—that if a human being avoids choosing, then this is the same as the presumption of choosing the world.

The human being is to choose between God and mammon. This is the choice’s eternally unchanged condition; there will be no way out—not in all eternity. No one will be able to say: “God and mammon, they are not so unconditionally different; one can unite both parts in the choice.” This is not to choose. When there is a choice between two things, then wanting to choose both is precisely “to draw back unto perdition” from the choice. No one will be able to say: “One can choose a little mammon and then God too.” No, oh no, it is presumptuous blasphemy if someone dares to think that only the one who requires much money chooses mammon. Alas, the one who requires a penny without God, who wants to have a penny for himself, he chooses mammon. One penny is enough; the choice is made; he has chosen mammon. That it is little makes no difference, after all. If one rejects one girl and chooses another, and this other one is as nothing in comparison with the first one, who was like the Queen of the Orient—has he therefore not rejected the girl? If one buys a toy with the money with which he could buy the highest, has he therefore not refused to buy the highest? Is this really an excuse—that, instead of buying the highest, he has bought what is nothing at all, even in the sense of nothingness! If anyone does not understand this, then it is because he does not want to understand that, in the moment of the choice, God is present, not in order to look on, but in order to be chosen.

Therefore, it is deceitful talk if someone wants to say that God is so sublime that he cannot stoop to being chosen, since then the choice is abolished. And if the choice is abolished, because God is not present as the object of choice, then mammon is not an option either. It is precisely God’s presence in the choice that posits the choice between God and mammon. And God’s presence in order to be chosen is that which gives eternal earnestness to the decision of the choice, for it is never to be forgotten what has been granted to a human being, nor how he chose. But that kind of talk is blasphemy, which would prevent God from letting himself be chosen on account of sublimity, which seeks to get God set aside in a polite way, which haughtily wants to be knowledgeable about the difference that, so to speak, should be involved with being God, instead of being content with what God wills. To place a crown of thorns on his head and to spit on him is blasphemy, but to make God sublime in such a way that his existence becomes a fancy, becomes meaningless—that is blasphemy as well.

Therefore the human being must choose. Terrible is the struggle, the struggle in a human being’s heart between God and the world. To have the choice is the glorious perilousness of the condition. But what, then, is the blessedness that is promised when one chooses rightly? Or, to say the same thing, what is the human being to choose? He is to choose God’s kingdom and his righteousness. He is to give up everything for this. It does not matter at all if this everything is either millions or a penny, for even the one who chooses a penny instead of God chooses mammon. Only when the human being, although he works and spins, is nevertheless entirely like the lily, who does not work and does not spin, only when the human being, although he sows and reaps and gathers into barns, is entirely like the bird, who does not sow and does not reap and does not gather into barns, only then does he not serve mammon.

“Seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

The kingdom of God is, therefore, the name of the blessedness that is promised to the human being. It is at this name and before this name’s glory that all of nature’s beauty and its peace fade and vanish. While sadness, bent over, sees nature sink into corruption, the eyes of faith aspire to the invisible glory. Just as Noah, saved, saw a world’s destruction, so does sadness see the destruction of the visible world, sees everything founder whose life is united with visibility. But faith, saved, sees the eternal and the invisible.

Seek first the kingdom of God—“which is above in heaven.” The bird does not seek anything. However far it flies, it is not seeking. It is migrating and being drawn; its longest flight is a migration. But the one in whose soul the eternal is lodged—he seeks and aspires. If visibility does not deceive him, as the one who grasps the shadow instead of the form is deceived; if temporality does not deceive him, as the one who constantly waits for tomorrow is deceived; if the temporary does not deceive him, as the one who delays on the way is deceived; if this does not happen, then the world does not quiet his longing. Only repulsively, then, does it help him to seek further, to seek the eternal, the kingdom of God, which is above in heaven. The bird never reached so high; the one who flies highest still flies under heaven.

Seek first the kingdom of God—“which is within you.” The flower does not seek anything. Should it get something, this something must come to it. It waits, and even this is without longing. But the one whom visibility did not deceive by anesthetization; the one whom temporality did not lull to sleep by monotony; the one whom the temporary did not bewitch by fantasy—the world does not satisfy him. It only helps him by painfully keeping him awake and waiting, to seek, to seek the eternal, the kingdom of God, which is within a human being. The flower does not know such an invisible, inner glory. What it has, it must give away immediately; the bud quickly breaks the silence, gives away the glory, which is also soon gone.

Seek first the kingdom of God. This is the order, but it is also the order of inversion, for that which first presents itself to the human being is precisely everything visible and corruptible, which tempts and allures, indeed, wants to imprison him in this way—that he comes to seek God’s kingdom last or perhaps never. But the right beginning begins with seeking God’s kingdom first; therefore it begins just by letting a world come to an end. Oh, difficult beginning! We cannot specifically profess how this earthly life begins for a human being; it is begun unnoticed, and the human being evades the difficulty of the beginning. But living for the eternal begins with first seeking God’s kingdom. There is no time to accumulate wealth beforehand, no time to think over this question; there is no time to lay up a penny beforehand, for the beginning is: to seek God’s kingdom first. If a human being has something that he knows must be done first each morning, then he also knows that there can be no thought about anything else that could be done beforehand; he knows that, even if he did what was prescribed at another time of day, it would be wrong, since this should be done first. And yet, it would certainly be possible that such an earthly task could even be done at another time of day, but, in relation to seeking the kingdom of God, it holds true that it must be done first. That is unconditionally the only way in which it can be done. The one who will think to do it at some other time of day, at some other hour, has not even come to the beginning, which, after all, is to seek it first. The one who does not seek it first does not seek it at all. It does not matter—it absolutely does not matter—whether he goes and seeks a penny or millions.

“The kingdom of God, and his righteousness.” The first term is described by the last, for the kingdom of God is “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Here, then, is no talk about setting out on a quest in order to find the kingdom of God, for the kingdom of God is righteousness. If you had every aspiration of desire in describing, if you could calm the world’s otherwise busy capital city, because all listened to your discourses, you have not thereby come to the kingdom of God, not a single step closer, for the kingdom of God is righteousness. You can live so hidden in the great mass of people that not even the authorities know your name and your whereabouts; you can be the only one, the absolute ruler over all kingdoms and lands: you have not thereby come to the kingdom of God, not a single step closer, for the kingdom of God is righteousness.

But what, actually, is righteousness? It is to seek the kingdom of God first. Righteousness is neither extraordinary abilities, for when righteousness is demanded of you, it is precisely of such abilities that righteousness will call you to an accounting; nor is it earthly obscurity, for no human being is so lowly that he can do no wrong. And just as no coin is too little to bear the image of the emperor, so is no human being too lowly to bear God’s image. Neither is righteousness power and might, for no human being stands so high that he is higher than righteousness, so that he would need to lay down his crown in order to find occasion to practice righteousness. Righteousness is to seek the kingdom of God first. If you give all persons their due but forget God, are you then practicing righteousness? Is this way of practicing righteousness not like when the thief does what is right and just with the money he has stolen? To forget God—is this not like stealing your whole existence? But if you seek God’s kingdom first, before anything else you do, then you will not practice unrighteousness toward any person, and you will not forget God either. For how would one be able to forget that which is constantly the first thing one seeks.

The beginning is to seek the kingdom of God first, and righteousness is to seek the kingdom of God first. See, that is why we said that setting out on a quest to find the kingdom of God is not the point. On the contrary, you remain in the place where you are and that is assigned to you; every search away from this place is already unrighteousness. And if it were the case that you first should seek somewhere else before you begin to seek the kingdom of God, then, after all, it would not be true that you first should seek the kingdom of God. While, then, the world of visibility founders and sinks into corruption, you nevertheless remain in your place, and the beginning is to seek the kingdom of God first. From an earthquake the human being runs away to safer places; before a forest fire the human being flees to areas without vegetation; from a flood the human being makes for higher points. Yet, if it were the case that the world of visibility wholly sank into corruption, then, of course, the human being would have no other place to which he could flee. And that is precisely why he remains on the spot and seeks the kingdom of God first. If the whole world of visibility does not founder, then, for him, the kingdom of God would be like another place upon the earth. Then he would set out on a quest to find the kingdom of God, and, in his fruitless and self-contradictory search, he would either realize that he is not finding it, or he would be deceived if he has found it.

But when a human being seeks the kingdom of God first—“then all these things shall be added unto to him.” They shall be added unto him, for there is only one thing that is to be sought: the kingdom of God. Neither the thousands of wealth nor the penny of poverty is to be sought; this shall be added unto you.

“All these things,” or as another gospel writer has it—“the rest.” Oh, what blessedness the kingdom of God really must be! For if you take everything that the bird and the lily have, everything that glorious nature has, and think of all this together, then it is included in the saying: “the rest,” “all these things.” Therefore, God’s kingdom must be valued so highly that, in relation to it, one can talk about that in this way—with so little esteem, so negligently, so sublimely. When a man has gathered a very big fortune but perhaps still has some outstanding debts that he could claim, then he says: “No, the rest doesn’t matter.” When a man called to a high position in a foreign land travels away and takes everything that is dear and important to him, but there are still many things behind, then he says: “No, I will not take all of these things with me.” Alas, all of what the bird has is this “rest”; all of the lily’s glory is “all these things.” Oh, what blessedness the kingdom of God must be!

Yet, in his sadness, the worried person indeed went out with the lily and the bird to think about something other than worry; he came to consider what blessedness is promised in being a human being. So he let the lily wither and its loveliness become unrecognizable; let the leaf fall to the ground and the bird fly away; let it get dark over the fields: the kingdom of God does not change with the changes of the year. So let the rest be needed for a long or a short time; let it come abundantly or scarcely. Let all these things have their moment when they are discarded or possessed, their moment as a subject of conversation until, in death, they are eternally forgotten: the kingdom of God is still that which is to be sought first but also that which is to endure through all eternities until the end. And “if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remains is glorious.” And if it was hard to live in want, then, after all, to die to want is only an easier separation!

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