The Lilies of the Field
The Teaching
Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious 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 the food, and the body than the raiment?
Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life?
And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Commentary
Jesus points to nature as the teacher, the flowers neither strive nor grasp, yet they are clothed in beauty beyond Solomon’s splendor. This is Wu Wei in Galilean dress: effortless action, being fully what you are without anxious grasping.
The birds and lilies don’t worry because they are completely present. This is the connection to Taoist non-striving and the Gita’s non-attachment to fruits, not metaphorical, but the same recognition dressed in different cultural clothing.
The Fibonacci geometry of the lily, the golden spiral written into its very form, is not incidental. It is the signature of the Tao/Logos/Brahman in matter. The flower is clothed by the same force that generates all form.
Themes
Connections 17
Arose apart
No known transmission between Christianity and Taoism while these teachings took shape. The Church of the East reached Chang’an in 635 and described itself in Taoist and Buddhist terms (Xi’an Stele, 781), long after both took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hinduism and Christianity while these teachings took shape. Christians lived in Kerala from early centuries, but exchange of ideas begins only with the Jesuits: Akbar’s court debates (from 1580), Roberto de Nobili writing on Hindu doctrine in Tamil (from 1606), then Wilkins’s English Gita (1785), the Upanishads in Latin (1801–02) and Vivekananda (1893). All long after either’s formative teachings.
Travelled
Christianity reached Gnosticism by 100 CE. The same milieu. Irenaeus wrote against the Gnostics (c. 180); the Gospel of Thomas, whose Gnostic character is itself disputed, shares sayings with the Gospels.
Arose apart
No known line from Christianity to this scientific work.
Travelled
Christianity reached Sufism by 700 CE. Early Muslim ascetics wore wool and learned from Christian monks, and early Sufi literature is full of meetings with them. The extent is argued.
Travelled
Alan Watts read and drew on Christianity.
Travelled
Alan Watts read and drew on Christianity.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Christianity and Taoism while these teachings took shape. The Church of the East reached Chang’an in 635 and described itself in Taoist and Buddhist terms (Xi’an Stele, 781), long after both took shape.
Arose apart
No known transmission between Hinduism and Christianity while these teachings took shape. Christians lived in Kerala from early centuries, but exchange of ideas begins only with the Jesuits: Akbar’s court debates (from 1580), Roberto de Nobili writing on Hindu doctrine in Tamil (from 1606), then Wilkins’s English Gita (1785), the Upanishads in Latin (1801–02) and Vivekananda (1893). All long after either’s formative teachings.
Unsure
No documented reading of Christianity behind this teaching, or against it.
Travelled
Judaism reached Christianity by 30 CE. Christianity began as a movement within Judaism.