Download Stop Worrying 2015_06_07 Rev. Kara Markell Pentecost 2

1 Stop Worrying 2015_06_07 Pentecost 2‐B Matthew 6.25‐34 Rev. Kara Markell Lake Washington Christian Church “Therefore, I say to you, don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, or about your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t sow see or harvest grain or gather crops into barns. Yet your heavenly father feeds them. Aren’t you worth much more than they are? Who among you by worrying can add a single moment to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? Notice how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t wear themselves out with work, and they don’t spin cloth. But I say to you that even Solomon in all of his splendor wasn’t dressed like one of these. If God dresses grass in the field so beautifully, even though it’s alive today and tomorrow it’s thrown into the furnace, won’t God do much more for you, you people of weak faith? Therefore, don’t worry and say, ‘What are we going to eat?’ or ‘What are we going to drink?’ or ‘What are we going to wear?’ Gentiles long for all these things. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them. Instead, desire first and foremost God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, stop worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. There is no shortage of inspirational quips about worry. “Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles, it empties today of its strength.” Or “I have spent most of my life worrying about things that never happened.” Or the ever popular “Keep Calm and Stop Worrying.” Even Dale Carnegie has a book entitled “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.” In our self‐help oriented society, we’re inundated with refrigerator magnets and coffee mugs and embroidered accent pillows urging us to stop worrying. There was even a pretty catchy little song out about 20 years ago that reminded us “don’t worry, be happy!” Combine that backdrop with how this text has been used in stewardship campaigns, to encourage people to spend less on frivolous items, things they don’t need and give it to the church instead, whether the church uses it more wisely or not. With those filters in place this text from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount can come off as glib and Pollyannaish. As Rev. Tom Long writes, “Yes, the birds of the air do not sow or reap or gather into barns.” They do not pay mortgages or college tuitions, either. True, the lilies of the field neither toil nor spin, but they also do not need health insurance and have never had to apply for a job.” The danger is approaching Jesus’ little sermon on worry too simplistically. Jesus was not ignorant of the fact that the 1st century peasants who followed him to the Mountain that day to hear him preach were living hand‐to‐mouth; working tirelessly for food and clothing and shelter. Jesus himself claimed that he had no place to lay his head. Jesus is not blithely whistling don’t worry be happy, while others suffer. In this beautifully poetic bit of preaching, Jesus first clarifies faith by telling us what it is 2 not. Faith is not excessive worry about your life. Faith is fundamentally a matter of trusting God. Stewardship is fundamentally a matter of trusting God. And it begins, as I mentioned last week, in getting our priorities straight, which Jesus does in the preceding verse: You can’t have it both ways. You can’t serve God and Mammon (wealth). You just can’t – we humans constantly try to figure out how we can, but we can’t. We can’t trust ultimately in our own economic striving for our well being, and simultaneously trust in God ultimately for our well being. If we’re primarily interested in God’s way of life, then money becomes a tool, a currency for making God’s way of life the reality for everyone. If we’re primarily interested in wealth – getting and keeping money or things – then God’s way of life isn’t possible, not only for the one hoarding wealth, but for others. Therefore, Jesus says, why not have a Sabbath. Take some time to consider how God cares for creation. Take some time to consider the cycle of blessing that God created, the system of mutuality. These birds and lilies participate in that cycle, that ecology of stewardship. They get what they need; some years are better than others; but they don’t spend their days and nights riddled with anxiety for how they will be fed or clothed. Remember that this Sermon on the Mount, begins with the Beatitudes which describe God’s way of life. “Happy are people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, because they will be fed until they are full.” In God’s way of life, there is enough for everyone to have what they need. The birds and the lilies and you and me. That’s the system God set up. And God put mankind mainly in charge of making sure that system runs smoothly. In the story of Adam and Eve, God charges them with caring for creation the way God would care for it. Jesus reminds us here that it is a spiritual discipline to appreciate the ordinary and mundane gifts of our lives: food, clothes, rest. Rather than giving themselves over to anxiety, Jesus expects his followers to put their energy into things that give meaning to life. The whole of creation – from petal to feather to hairs on your head – are continually under God’s loving care. Jesus says if you seek God’s way of life and live in right relationship, beyond that everything will take care of itself. We worry and we rely on our own ability because our lived experience tells us that the ecology of stewardship that God set up is broken; the cycle of blessings has a major clog and if we don’t take care of ourselves, no one else will. Communities don’t care for one another; many people are struggling financially in silence and fear; people are living in tents and depending on other people to provide their basic needs; while others have more homes and more cars and more money than they could ever use. This is not how things work in God’s way of life. But in addition to that when we focus our efforts in attaining goods for ourselves, when our lives are spent acquiring more, we can get distracted from seeking right relationship with God and each other, we can forget that our role as stewards is to take care of this creation the way God would take care of it. We forget that stewards don’t just look for fairness or what people might “deserve”, they seek justice. We want to be a people and a place where that ecology of stewardship is healthy and working. Arthur McGill (theologian and philosopher) once said that it does no good to command people to be generous and unselfish, because “whether people serve themselves or 3 serve others is not in their power to choose. This is decided wholly in terms of the kind of world in which they think they live, in terms of the kind of power they see ruling the roost. In New Testament terms they live or die according to the king that holds them and the kingdom to which they belong.” Or as Jesus said, you can’t serve God and wealth. I can’t stand here and tell you how to steward your gifts…I could, but I’m not sure it would do any good. But I can ask you to consider this: Which kingdom do you live in? Which king rules your roost? It’s a tough question. And it leads to more questions. But, I don’t want stewardship to be “here’s my check and I’m done.” It’s about much more than that. Here’s a powerful example: in one of our “Give it up for Good” Lenten campaigns a family in this church suspended their giving to their retirement fund and gave that money to Hopelink instead. Through faith, they decided to let the currencies of blessing flow. Those individuals know which kingdom they live in and who reigns in their lives. I’m not saying that’s for everyone. But I think that is what Jesus is talking about. Let go of the anxiety that you won’t have enough when you retire, trust God, and let go of your wealth for the benefit of others. Now, that person, as far as I know, didn’t clean out their entire retirement fund. But they did trust that they didn’t need so much, and could share their blessings with others. That’s the kind of faith and stewardship Jesus is speaking of here. All of us have legitimate reasons to fret and worry, even though it doesn’t change much. Jesus understands. His invitation to live without anxiety is not in spite of human realities. It is because of human realities. God will not leave us without resources. We can face life and its uncertainties and contingencies with the faith that we are not alone. That God cares about our situation, that God’s people care about our situation. The cycle of blessings reminds us that God will take care of us, so we can take care of God’s justice in the world. I am confident that there are enough resources to keep this church a sustainable mission center in this city and beyond. I am confident that we desire to live joyfully in a world of abundance rather than fearfully in a world of anxiety. Just imagine, if we take Jesus seriously on this one how God’s way of life might transform ourselves and our world. Amen.