RELIGIOUS FRAGMENTS OF LUTHER

In these words it is as if the Lord wants to say: You have never seen a bird with a sickle, which has mowed and gathered into a barn. No, the birds do not labor as we do, and yet they are fed. The Lord, however ,does not say here that we should not work, but He wants to take away from us by this example our unnecessary cares; because a bird cannot work in the field as we do, but is nevertheless not without work: he does that unto which the Lord has created him, namely, he raises his young, he feeds them, and praises God for that with a song. Had the Lord laid more work upon the bird, he would also do that. He rises up early in the morning, goes and sits on a branch, he then flies away and seeks a kernel of grain which God has laid away for him some place, about which he did not think when he was singing; and yet he had occasion enough to care for the food.

Well, now, it is to your shame that the birds are more pious and trusting than you are; they are happy and sing cheerfully and yet do not know what they shall eat. This is told us, all the more to our disgrace, since we cannot even do as much as the birds do. A Christian is put to shame by a bird that can do what it did not learn, that trusts the Lord’s providence and His care without preaching and admonition. Now if you could say to a bird in the Spring, when the birds sings the most: Why are you singing so joyfully, seeing you have no grain in the barn? — it would mock you, who desire to be a Christian and a child of God; who hear continually the promise of God and yet do not trust with a good conscience and cheerful courage, not having any undue cares and anxieties, that you may expect from God what you cannot give to yourself. It is an example that should make us ashamed and should excite us to trust more in God than we do. Therefore Jesus concludes with the significant proverb and asks: “Are ye not much better than they?” Is there not reason to abase ourselves because the Lord makes the birds our instructors, and places them before us so that we shall first learn from them? Shame on that hateful, dishonoring unbelief! The birds do what they must do, but we do not. In Genesis 1:28 we have God’s commandment that man shall have dominion over the inferior creatures, and we bring disgrace upon ourselves considering that God has to point to the birds as our teachers to show how we serve mammon and leave the true God.

“He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away.” — Luke 1:53

For some years I have been reading my Bible twice from Genesis to Revelation, and if this Scripture were a great and strong tree and all its words twigs and branches, I am sure that I have then shaken them all, since I was anxious to know what fruits they did bear. I may say, that I always have shaken off a few apples.

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