Jesus’ audience for these words was not any well-heeled, well-educated, specialized groups of listeners. Jesus was a simple, open-air preacher, speaking to a simple gathering of small town working people.

Actually a lot of his listeners probably were not currently working — making them truly “the poor,” those who had not been picked to work as day laborers on that day. It is easy to preach to a well-heeled congregation about the need not to “worry” about the basics — food, clothing and shelter. It is a lot more difficult to proclaim that message when you only have an audience because they are out of work and have nowhere else to go.

But that is exactly what Jesus does. Jesus considers the state of the soul of his listeners as critically important to their health and well being as he does th…