Proper 03 2008 Year A
Theme: We are born anxious
Let us pray.
Most holy, Lord God, we worry about so many things; like Jesus’ friend, Martha, we fail to see and seek what is important; increase our faith in you, reinforcing your loving care for us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
We are born anxious. At the moment of our birth, we are cold and we are hungry. And by God we want someone to do something about it! So we are wrapped up to keep us warm with our own body heat and we are given milk either naturally or not so naturally. From this very moment, we want to be clothed and fed.
When we are young, these things are usually provided for us. Some are not as fortunate. Before adolescence, we start to make our own decisions what we will wear (with someone else’s money), but only limited in our choices of what we will eat. When we are on our own, we get to make the decisions of what we will eat and what we will wear. And then those decisions are tempered by how much we can spend on those things.
Some of us find ourselves in a situation where we don’t have the money to buy clothes or food. Some of us depend on the generosity of others to eat. We might get enough money to buy something at a thrift shop (something more of us may soon be doing). We often have no shelter.
In some communities, shelters are provided so we might be kept dry and get a shower. Some will have washing machines. Some of us make this a life-style choice. Some of us are mentally ill. Some of us are disabled. Some of us are working poor. Some of us are victims of domestic violence. Some of us lost our jobs through no fault of our own.
We don’t worry about our 401(k)s. We don’t worry about our mortgages. We don’t worry about where we will take our next vacation. We don’t worry about how we will pay our next insurance premium. We don’t worry about paying for the next fill up at the gas station. We worry if we are going to eat today. We have no money to worry about those things.
We slowly slip out of the mainstream of society and become invisible. For many places, that is where people would prefer us to stay, invisible.
Would it be too much for a shelter to be opened in this county? Would it really matter where it is? Will we serve God or will we worry about losing something transient? (So to speak.)
Jesus talked about worry and anxiety in the Sermon on the Mount we hear today. Jesus says that we cannot serve two masters, which makes sense. It is sometimes bad enough to have one boss, but two? Although I told Teresa before I hired her that to be a parish secretary here means that you have about 20 or 30 bosses.
So, Jesus is intuitively correct, but there are always exceptions. If we have two masters, we will tend to like one better than the other. This means we will tend to expend most of our energies for the one we like to the determent of the other. This will exasperate our relationship with the one we don’t like, leading into a downward spiral in that relationship.
Now knowing all of this, Jesus names the two masters: God and wealth. Ironically, the Greek word translated master is one that denotes someone who is rich and powerful. A slave is owned by the master. Jesus is our master. We are his slaves. This was a powerful metaphor in Jesus’ time. We will love God or will we love wealth. If we become overly attached to wealth, we will begin to despise God and vice-versa.
Ironically, this is an anxiety producing passage in a reading that seeks to eliminate worry. People who hear these words of Jesus may ask themselves, “Must I give up what I earned?” “Am I being asked to give away what I have?” “I have been unemployed for more than six months. Is God going to pay my bills?” We are lucky to live in this country at this time, even with soaring energy and food costs.
In Jesus’ time, there was only so much land and so much food. If someone gained, someone else lost. To serve wealth meant that someone else was robbed. And that someone probably had very little to begin with.
What Jesus says next follows from the proposition of loving God or wealth, not both. What Jesus is saying next is that if we love God, which means that we reject wealth, loving God need not cause us anxiety. If we love God, then we do not need to worry. In either case, God loves us no matter what. So don’t worry about your life. Don’t worry about where your next meal is coming from or what you will wear. Compared to your life, they are nothing.
Look at the birds of the air. They’re not farmers. They don’t store food. Yet God takes care of them and are you not more important to God than the birds? Does worrying add one more second to your life? In fact, we now know that worrying subtracts time from your life. Maybe that is why Christians have longer life spans than non-believers.
We may see models displaying the latest in fashion, but aren’t the flowers of the field so much more beautiful than they are and the clothes they wear? The flowers don’t do much for their fine clothing. Even the wealthiest people don’t look as good as the flowers. The fashion industry is merely spinning its wheels. All that God given beauty in the fields is later gathered and thrown into the fire. Are you not more important to God than they are – you of little faith?
Don’t even ask yourself, will I have enough to eat, enough to drink, enough to wear? People who don’t know God worry about these things. God knows you need these things. Do God’s work first. Do what God wants and what you need will be taken care of. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Today has enough worries all by itself. Trust in God and you can let go of everything else.
98% of the time our worrying doesn't accomplish anything, yet we continually worry. We worry about our treasures, our homes, our possessions. We worry about finances, about children, about parents. We worry about our health, our futures. We worry about the location of a homeless shelter.
There was response of a single mother to this passage, “Yeah, right! It’s a week before payday and I’ve got just enough money to buy bread and peanut butter to eat for a week, but nothing left to buy a jacket for my kid, and it’s snowing outside. And I’m not supposed to worry? Get real!” Probably not an exact quote, but that was the essence of it.
Would we read this passage to someone in Burma, whose home is obliterated, and who has no food and no drinkable water? But the passage does speak positively to those of us who are living quite comfortably, with all the essentials of life, and pension checks coming in regularly. Our physical needs are well met. And still we worry. (Ralph Milton)
Food and clothing are not unimportant. In the peasant society of Jesus’ time, food and clothing were what was required to get by. Jesus is warning us not to let our concerns of having enough food and clothing become the driving force of our lives and ultimately claim our loyalty. To strive for the kingdom of God is what this passage is all about. This isn’t so much about our relationship with God; it is about how we live in relationship with God and with one another. If we serve wealth, our primary concern is me. If we serve God, then our concern is the whole of creation and to value life the way God values life.
We now pray: Gracious God and giver of all good gifts, give us the gift of absolute faith, reducing our concerns, our anxieties, and our worries; your love for us is overwhelming, help us to love you and others, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Text: Matthew 6:24-34 (NRSV)
24 “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.i
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink,j or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?k 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of Godl and hism righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
34 “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
[1]
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i Gk mammon
j Other ancient authorities lack or what you will drink
k Or add one cubit to your height
l Other ancient authorities lack of God
m Or its
[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.