SETTING THE CONTEXT

According to Luke huge crowds gathered to listen to Jesus as he taught his disciples. Someone from the crowd asks Jesus to judge a family money dispute. Jesus warns him about greed and tells this parable.

READ Luke 12:16-20

Luke places the passage we are about to read in a different context than Matthew. In Luke, Jesus’ his comments about worry immediately follow the passage we just read and are directed to his disciples. They come as he warns the disciples about the coming persecutions. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is teaching the crowds a long series of lessons. Today’s passage comes in the middle of this long teaching. Jesus begins his lessons with what we call the Beatitudes, the teachings like “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Then Jesus talks about his role and the everyday struggles and decisions that people have to make. He ratcheted up the standard of ethics from what they had always been taught. He talked about anger, adultery, divorce, making promises, revenge, enemies, giving, praying, spiritual disciplines, possessions, your outlook and money. Then he talks about an all too common human activity- worry.

READ Matthew 6:25-33

THE SERMON

I have to admit to you that I am a worrier. I lay in bed at night or in the morning and run through all the things that are waiting for me to do. I worry about the emails I haven’t answered, the laundry that’s not done, the bills that aren’t paid. I review different conversations I had or I imagine ones that I might have. I worry about money and time. Somehow, I don’t think I’m the only person who does this. Worry leads to stress and it is well known that stress is very hard on the body, especially when there is no let up. Worrying every now and then over a real worrisome issue isn’t harmful, but chronic worry can be energy-draining and damaging. I also find that my worrying not only wears on my body, it wastes a lot of time and energy and it distracts me from other important matters including the important need of rest.

Both passages today deal with priorities. They deal with where we focus our attention and efforts. Jesus directs his first remarks to worrying about things or provision. Most of those listening to Jesus on that mountain were peasants, people who lived from hand to mouth; people who knew hunger so he was speaking to them about a day to day worry.  He talked about worry over clothing; most of them probably had only the clothes on their backs and maybe one other outfit and that’s all.  It’s funny that all these centuries later even with a whole closet full of clothes, many of us have the very same worry, don’t we? And Jesus asked a question that I should tape to my forehead, can worrying change anything? Can it add time to our day? Can it give us control over something we have no control over?

In Luke, he told the story of someone who went to the extreme to have control. A rich man spent all of his time collecting and hording food, so he could enjoy the good life “someday”. However “someday” never came because he died. The parable implies at least to me, that he didn’t share his abundance or do the things that would bring him joy along the way. This story may be a “once upon a time” kind of story, but it really happens to people. George’s dad worked very hard in a job he didn’t like during his young and middle adult life. He and his wife were going to retire “someday” and move to Florida and really start to be happy. They delayed doing lots of things believing that “someday” they would have the freedom to do it all. Just a couple of years before Dad was due to retire, George’s mother died of cancer. “Someday” never came. I give Dad a lot of credit for instead of being bitter the rest of his life, he eventually moved to Florida where he met another woman who has shared with him the life he envisioned. God is indeed a God of 2^nd chances for those who take them. I like the way the Message Bible paraphrases Jesus’ last statement in the Luke passage. After he says “And your barn full of goods – who gets it?” he says, “That’s what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God.”^[i] Our priorities can get out of whack so easily and it leads to all kinds of trouble, so what’s the antidote?

Jesus gives us the antidote to misplaced priorities and worry. The King James Bible translation is probably the most well known, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” Seek above all else the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness or justice and all the rest will come for God already knows what we need. And Jesus told us and demonstrated throughout his life that God is loving and merciful. This leaves us with a very important question. What is the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven? We’ll spend the next four weeks exploring that question using some of Jesus’ parables from the Gospel of Matthew.

I said some because Matthew is full of references to the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact, I counted them and found 37 instances where he used the words Kingdom of Heaven or Kingdom of God.^[ii] Both phrases mean the same thing, it’s just that most of the time Matthew as a reverent Jew tried to avoid saying the word “God” which in Jewish practice is too sacred to be spoken. Most all of us have been raised in a democracy so the image of kingdom is a little harder for us to grasp, but the people of Jesus’ day were living in a kingdom or empire. It was a political reality for them. They knew that kingdoms were ruled without question or criticism by the powerful and elite. As Marcus Borg says in The Heart of Christianity, the Kingdom of God “is what life would be like on earth if God were king and the rulers of this world were not.” ^[iii] The kingdom of God is where God’s justice or righteousness is fully realized, where everyone lives God’s will. We believe that the Kingdom of God is breaking through in the present; John the Baptist and Jesus both proclaimed that “the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.” But we also know that it is “not yet;” all we have to do is look around to see that we and the world are far from what God wants it to be and so we pray that the kingdom will come.  As we enter this time of discernment be prepared for Jesus’ teaching is challenging, perplexing even offensive to our normal way of thinking. As seminary professor Ted Weeden said, “The Kingdom puts you in free fall.” ^[iv] But don’t worry for I know that Jesus will guide us and will bless our discovery.

Learning to quit worrying so much is like learning any new skill; it takes concerted effort and stamina. We try, fail, and try again. I am confident it will be worth the effort for as the Message Bible paraphrases Jesus’ words of antidote, “What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. … Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. … You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.” Amen.

Sermon delived by Rev. Nancy Cushman on September 3, 2006.