Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
May 25, 2008
Matthew 6:24-34
A Fred Craddock story: “A school mate of mine from many years ago, Glen Adsit, spent much of his career as a missionary in China. Soon after China became Red China, he and his family were placed under house arrest. One day the soldiers came and told them they could return to America. The family began celebrating until the soldiers added, ‘You can take two hundred pounds with you.’
“Well, they had been there for years. Two hundred pounds? They got out the scales and soon the arguments began: two children, wife, husband. Must have this vase. This is a brand new typewriter. What about my books? What about this? What about that? They weighed everything. They weighed this and took it off, and weighed that and took it off. Finally they had it, two hundred pounds right on the dot.
“The soldier asked, ‘Ready to go?’
“’Yes.’
“’Did you weigh everything?’
“’Yes.’
“’You weighed the children?’
“’No, we didn’t.’
“’Weigh the children.’
“And in a moment, typewriter and vase and all become trash, just trash.”
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air…consider the lilies of the field…Do not worry!”
I just hate it when Jesus decides to meddle in my life. Why can’t he just mind his own business? Do not worry. He can’t be serious, right? Do not worry. Easy for him to say. He probably never made a car payment in his life and I don’t even want to start talking about college tuition. Do not worry indeed! I think I am more sympathetic with the bumper sticker that says, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you clearly do not comprehend the situation.” Maybe Jesus just doesn’t comprehend, or, and here’s the hard part for one such as me, maybe he does. “Did you weigh the children?” Could Jesus be talking to us about priorities, about the distractions in life that take our focus away from that which matters most? Ah yes, distractions – so many distractions.
A couple of comments from that noted theologian, Dave Barry: “Stuff-wise, my family is not a lean operation. We’re the kind of people who, if we were deciding what absolute minimum essential items we’d need to carry in our backpacks for the final, treacherous ascent to the summit of Mount Everest, would take along aquarium filters, just in case.” Or this “A person can never have too many ludicrously specialized kitchen devices. That is why we own a Tupperware deviled-egg transporter, which we have conscientiously packed up and taken from house to house with us as we have moved over the years, even though we have never, to the best of our recollection, actually transported any deviled eggs in it.” Sound familiar?
A pastor shares this story: “When I was in college, I worked three jobs. I wanted to save my parents from the burden of spending money they didn’t have on my pricey undergraduate education. Besides, I also knew I wanted to go on to seminary after college. I studied, I worked hard and saved my money. When the time came to graduate and go to seminary, I was surprised to learn that much of the cost would be paid for by scholarships. Still, I needed a way to get there. The car I had been driving died. So I took the money I had saved for four years and bought a brand new Honda Civic.
“I was proud. I washed it every week. When the time came to go to seminary I packed the car full of stuff and moved to Durham, NC, and Duke Divinity School. My apartment was in a neighborhood called Duke Manor. Duke Manor may sound like a ritzy kind of place to live, but it wasn’t. It was actually pretty rough. The week after I moved in, the building next to mine was raided. It was the largest heroin bust in Durham history. There were always rumors circulating about cars being vandalized, broken into, or stolen altogether.
“I parked mine right under my bedroom window to keep tabs on it. Occasionally, I’d walk by the window and peer out. Every time there was a noise in the parking lot, I’d sit straight up in bed and do some quick surveillance of the lot, and there was constantly noise. After several restless nights, exhaustion set in and I said to the Lord, ‘Lord, I can’t keep this up. I came here to seminary to grow in my faith, draw closer to you, learn your scriptures, and learn how to be a leader in your church. I spend all hours of the day in class and studying, and then I’m awakened all hours of the night worried about my car in this neighborhood. Something’s got to give.”
“After a short pause, the Lord replied, ‘Yes, yes it does.’”
And so Jesus speaks the same word to us. He is not giving us some romantic view of poverty. He knew the pain and soul killing effect of grinding poverty. It was all around him. And he too often gave hungry people bread, too often healed their broken bodies, for me to believe that he saw poverty as a blessing. But, on the other hand, he saw how easily distracted people can become, how easily we loose sight of that which really matters.
Sara Jessica Parker, of “Sex and the City” fame, when asked what was your son’s first word, responded, “Shoes.” A funny line, if you are familiar with her characters obsesses with shoes, but one that also points to something that is all too true! Culture tells us in any number of ways that the way to be truly worry-free is amassing enough stuff – shoes, life insurance, IRA’s, stock options, fishing equipment (never have enough!) Trouble is, the goal is more elusive than the quest. We get sucked in and we lose ourselves along the way. I think this is what Jesus is telling us. We so easily forget that we are meant to live for so much more that the accumulation of stuff. We worry, boy do we worry, but we spend so much energy worrying about all the wrong things. So he comes to us with this word from Matthew, a word that essentially says, “Something’s got to give. What’s it going to be?” I believe Henry David Thoreau caught the spirit of Jesus’ words when, reflecting on his time at Walden Pond, he wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Again Jesus isn’t saying we should seek poverty, isn’t saying our worries are all trivial, isn’t saying that we have to repeal the 21st century. But he is suggesting an attitude toward life and the anxieties and concerns and stuff that fill out lives, an attitude summarized in the words, “Strive first for the Kingdom of God, and God’s righteousness.” And everything else will fall into place. He’s talking about trust here, he’s talking about faith. If God takes care of the birds and wildflowers, don’t you think God will also take care of you? If you will only set your heart on God’s kingdom, God’s justice, God’s love, God’s peace, you might be surprised to discover all the abundant ways in which God provides for you today,” you might be surprised to find growing within you the faith that this very same God will also be in all your tomorrows. In fact, we just might discover that there is nothing out there – no debt, no creditor, no calamity – that is stronger than the love and grace of God.
I like these words of Elizabeth King, a Disciples of Christ minister in Kentucky, “To relax and trust God doesn’t mean that we are immobilized. Trusting that God will take care of things doesn’t mean ignoring the bills that need to be paid or that the piles of laundry will do themselves or that the sermon will write itself. It doesn’t mean that our loved ones will no longer be ill or that we will no longer feel grief at the death of a family member or friend.
“But what if we trusted God’s providence? What if we trusted that God is with us, even in our struggles? What if we relaxed a little, gave up some of our tightly held control and anxieties to God? Only then could we begin to see all that God is doing and all that God is providing. Only when we trust, will our faith blossom, will our minds be open to new possibilities of receiving God’s provision and love.”
Am I making any sense here? Do you feel some of this in your own lives, in the life of your family? So many distractions, so many concerns and anxieties. As I suggested earlier, I really believe that we are taught, indeed encouraged, to live out a life narrative of anxiety – worried about this, fearful of that. The trouble is, as many of you have probably heard before, even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat!
But then Jesus comes along and takes us in a radical new direction. He simply refuses to live a life that is in a constant anxious state of orange alert. He offers an alternative narrative, not of scarcity and anxiety, but rather a narrative, a life, that is framed by God’s abundance, generosity and inexhaustible well-being. Says Jesus, as hard as it is to do, you need to lay down you burdens, let go of your control. Trust that God does care for you. Trust that you can have fullness and meaning in life instead of worry and wanting. It is a new narrative that is nothing less than the transformation of creation.
Says Elizabeth King, “Clothe yourself, not in the clothes of the world, not in the worries of your life, but in the beauty of God’s righteousness and love, and you, like the lilies of the field, will be clothed in great glory.”