Last time, the state of the economy had Brad in a gloomy mood as he sat down to read his daily dose of scripture. In keeping with God’s extraordinary sense of humor and good timing, the next book-marked passage was Luke 12:22-33. Brad’s eyes were immediately drawn to a bold heading above the verses he was about to read. It said, in a very objective and authoritative, yet casual, italicized font:

“Do not worry.”

So here’s what that cynical voice in my head is saying about Luke’s “Do not worry” passage…it’s saying Sure, it’s easy for Jesus to tell these people not to worry. He didn’t have the financial responsibilities of a family to worry about! Neither did Peter, or Paul, for that matter. None of them schlocks had wives or kids to take care of! (Apparently bible scholars still debate if Peter or Paul were married, but the fact that this even is a debatable question shows the lack of priority the women and children must have had in the scheme of things.) Those disciples and apostles didn’t have a mortgage payment, or car repairs, or the care and well-being of their wives to think of, or college tuition payments to worry about so their kids could get a decent start in life and avoid spending the next ten years paying off college loans the way their parents did.

The great founding fathers of our faith have very little to say about the sticky little pressures of modern family life. Couldn’t Jesus and the other guys who wrote the gospels and the epistles have given us parents and spouses a little more credit? Instead we hear them encouraging men to stay single, don’t get married unless your loins are burning up. It’s like Jesus called on these random guys to be his disciples, and bam! Just like that they leave their jobs, families and homes. Goodbye responsibility, hello Jesus!

It would have given me great comfort if, just once, Jesus told someone that the kingdom of God would be better served if he stayed home, kept his job and took good care of his family rather than abandoning it all for the gospel.

Jesus approached a young man named Bartolomes at his place of work and said, “Follow me.” Bartolomes immediately dropped his spreadsheet tablets (for lo, he was an accountant) and got up to follow Jesus. His wife and six children however, chased after him frantically, crying out desperately for him to remain with them and help pay the bills so they could eat three squares a day and have a decent roof over their heads.

Jesus, aware of the potential family meltdown, turned to Bartolomes and said, “No, I did not mean for you to follow me, literally. Dost thou not have a brain in thine head to think with? I meant follow me in your heart. You will do more good for the Kingdom of God by faithfully loving and caring for your family as if you were loving and caring for me, than you ever would by gallivanting across the land.

Wouldn’t that be great?

I wish the Bible had something more uplifting to say for those of us who gave up all of our youthful ignorance, idealism and self-centered single living in exchange for becoming productive and responsible citizens, devoted and loving parents and spouses. It’s a fulfilling life, certainly, but at times it’s also difficult and stressful and expensive and time consuming. There’s plenty of stuff to worry about.

On the days when I’m feeling especially anxious, rather than praying about it, I’ll just ask God to give me a once-over while I go take a nap. My hope is that the Holy Spirit will have better luck with my subconscious self, who is really just a deeper, more in-touch version of me, and perhaps together those two will do some kind of magnificent handiwork on my tired soul. I closed Luke 12:22-33 and got on with my life.

The next morning I woke up and went back to that same scripture in Luke 12 again, and tried to read it with a fresh perspective. This time I happened to notice the few verses that preceded the “Do not worry” passage, verses that seemed now to be connected to the story in an important way. Once I backed up and read again from verse 13 instead of starting at verse 22, I realized that Jesus got into that whole worry discussion mostly because he was trying to say something about our relationship with money.

Here’s what happens in verse 13. Jesus is doing his usual thing, preaching spiritual truths to the crowds, being brilliant and cutting and witty and all that, when some smart-ass in the audience decides that his problem is the most important issue in the room. He then tells — not asks, but tells — Jesus that he wants his help. He wants to get his fair share of his inheritance, because this guy’s brother apparently won’t divide it with him, and he needs Jesus to butt in and make his brother split the cash. Which, really, if you think about it, is such an inappropriate and bossy thing to tell Jesus when there’s a huge mob of desperately needy and sick people there all around him. What is this guy thinking? Jesus won’t help him. Instead Jesus more or less says, “Why should I help you, buddy?” This is probably a very effective way of pointing out to the crowd what an idiot this guy is. I’m sure the crowd applauds too, after they hear this comment: Jesus proceeds to use the loudmouth’s obnoxious request to warn everyone about greed, that our life is more than possessions. He goes on to tell the story of a rich man who was doing so well with his crops one year that he started fantasizing about building these huge barns, overflowing with all the crops, so that he could sit around all day fat and happy, just collecting the cash. Sounds kind of nice, doesn’t it? “I’ll just eat, drink and be merry,” is the actual line famously used in this scripture. Who among us hasn’t dreamed about having that kind of security? I’ll work hard, make a pile of cash, and finally have freedom. No worries, we think. Like the Joni Mitchell song says: “I’ll make a lot of money and quit this crazy scene.” Unfortunately, the rich man in the story died that same night, and God said “So, big guy, who’s got all your toys now?”

Jesus knows that we all have this drive to work really hard to try and buy security in life. And he is saying, no, that’s not it. There really is no security in life. That’s the first lesson; numero uno. Which is kind of hard to swallow for us hard-core, independent-minded control freaks. But maybe once we grasp that point, then the verses that follow in Luke 12:22 -33 about not worrying start to make sense. Jesus is saying there is so much more to life than the raw economics of money and transactions. There is a spiritual economy, too, made of relationships and giving and loving, which leads to spiritual security. The spiritual economy is going on all around us, right in front of us, and the beauty is that it is based on eternal, unlimited abundance. But we get distracted and driven by the financial economy which appears to be bigger, more important, more tangible and more threatening. So we fret about our portfolio and our prospects, and we check in on the market every 15 minutes, and we worry. But If I am quiet for a second and listen to Jesus very carefully, He says, “You’re operating in the wrong economy. Change gears. Shift your perspective.”

Get over yourself.

We’re all going to survive this financial downturn. It will come, and it will go. We may lose a lot of money, and we may recover it again. God loves me and is still going to take care of me and my family. What I need to do right now is invest in the spiritual economy. That’s more of a sure thing.