8. Sunday in Epiphany, 02/27/2011

Sermon on Matthew 6:24-34, by Hubert Beck

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 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? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (English Standard Version)

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

TWO MASTERS LOOKING FOR ONE SERVANT WHO WILL BE FAITHFUL

Good advice, isn't it?

Don't try to satisfy everybody. Decide who you want to work for and do it single-mindedly.

Don't worry. It doesn't help you anyway. You can't make crops grow or clothes to be made by worrying about them, so just let things happen as they will. You may grow old faster if you worry, but you can bank on it that you won't add any years of significance to your life even if you don't worry.

There is enough trouble to take care of today without worrying about what tomorrow will bring.

So sit back. Enjoy life. Let well enough alone. "Don't worry. Be happy," as the song goes.

That's good advice for those whom Jesus calls "the Gentiles," those who rely on their own resources and get stressed out when things aren't working well. Those who leave God out of their lives find wisdom of a sort in words like these. They call out, "Relax a bit. You aren't going to change the world anyway!" Forms of such maxims are found in abundance on placards sold in Cracker Barrels, gift shops, and other such places.

The Problem

The problem for unbeliever and believer alike, however, is that, while it is easy to say, "do not be anxious about your life," it is quite another thing to live that way. Good advice is rarely advice that is easily followed. In fact, that is probably what makes it "good advice," for it very commonly is advice given over against a path that is presently being followed - a far simpler and easier path to follow, for we have cut deep ruts into that way and it is hard to get out of those ruts. One may frequently, in fact, recognize the wisdom of good advice, but find it almost impossible to follow it in spite of any or all good intentions that one may drum up within one's will.

It is one thing to tell us that we should not worry about "what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on." It is quite another thing to do that for a couple reasons:

1. Much as I want to believe that I shall have what I need to eat or drink or wear, my wallet dictates that more than my will. My wallet speaks very loudly about what I eat or drink or wear. Ask those who live in poverty! My will and my wallet often speak two different languages. Even my hope for tomorrow is at the service of whether the material means at my disposal shall permit me to live "beyond worry," so to speak. Today's economy, in fact, threatens my tomorrows very much, and I already feel the earth trembling beneath my feet.

My health, for that matter, is even more uncertain than my wallet. If tomorrow's income is uncertain, my heart, my blood pressure, the conditions of the various organs in my body, the possible accident that may impair my future in ever so many ways ... all of those and other such things cause tomorrow to be highly tentative, to say the least. I may not speak of all those possibilities in terms of "worry," but they certainly create a certain "anxiety" about life, whether I want them to or not, or even whether I am conscious of them or not.

2. If I do, indeed, entrust my future to "whatever will be will be" - or to the Father in heaven, as Jesus urges me to do - bread does not fall out of heaven apart from my efforts to obtain it. Clothing does not "just happen." It must be made by someone, sold by someone, purchased by me before I can ever wear it. While one can live in a way that encourages health through diet, exercise, appropriate care, etc., it is often afflicted by unexpected miseries and suffering that blindside one at the most unforeseen times and in the most unanticipated ways. Life and all that life demands of one requires far more than a "live and let live" attitude, uncontrolled by worry, care-free in as optimistic a frame of mind as one can muster - even if I entrust it to my loving heavenly Father. It costs to live - pure and simple - and that "cost" creates immense anxiety on occasion. I hate to admit this, but it is nevertheless true.

Jesus hands out good advice, but let him try it for a while and see what comes of it!

The Problem Revealed For What It Is

The words of Jesus in our text are words descriptive of the speaker, in fact! One must begin with this awareness.

Now, frankly, I, myself, have often wondered how he and the disciples lived on a day-by-day basis. We merely hear about how they wandered from town to town, speaking and acting out the good news of the imminence of the kingdom of God. Once in a while they are guests at a banquet or something like that. But were they "beggars," living off the hand-outs of those among whom they walked? It sounds like it when Jesus asked his disciples, "'When I sent you out with no moneybag or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything?' They said, ‘Nothing.'" (Luke 22:35, 36)

We are told that Peter, Andrew, James and John left their livelihoods of fishing to follow Jesus. Did they bring a little stash of cash with them? Matthew was called from a very profitable enterprise of tax-collecting to follow Jesus. Did he have a bank account from which they could draw funds? We must assume his other followers likewise had a source of income prior to following Jesus. But we are never told of any of them returning to make a little ready money when the treasury was low. Still ... we know that they had a treasurer, for we are told that Judas was it! So they must have had some earthly resources on which they lived - and even shared, for we are told that the disciples assumed that Judas was leaving in order to "give something to the poor" when he left the room at the Last Supper. (John 13:27-29)

So ... are the words of our text intended to exhort his followers to forsake all worldly means of support and bodily care even though he and his disciples continued to rely on food and clothing? Hardly! Was he simply saying that one can be sure that God will provide food and drink and clothing and other such everyday needs of the body without any concern about where they came from - as though all concern for such things should be put aside in favor of "spiritual things"? Hardly! To put aside anxiety for such things in favor of trusting God to drop those necessary means of living from heaven is, of course, utter nonsense. Nor does Jesus even suggest such, for that matter.

He does not say "forsake work and honest labor as a source of provision for the body." He says, "Do not be anxious for" such things, which is to say, "Do not make them your highest priority. Do not consider them the most important things in life, important though they may be." It is another way of saying, "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." "Money," in this case, represents all ultimate dependence on things of this world - a dependency that far transcends a bank account or stock holdings.

This is what Jesus was modeling both for and through his disciples. Like the birds of the air, he trusted that all that was necessary for daily life was being provided by the Father. Like the lilies of the field, he was confident that the protection of - and also the direction of - his life lay ultimately in the hands of the Father, whose protective shield of love was more beautiful than that which clothed either the lilies of the field or Solomon, whose renown spread across the world of his time. He trusted all this, even though grass may be thrown into the oven in due time - as he was to be thrown into an oven of quite another sort. There was no reason to question that which the Father gave him - or the mission upon which the Father had sent him.

Even there, at his very end, when the pains of death were inflicted on him through whips and nails and thorns and excruciating thirst, all of which brought forth that terrible cry, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34), he unwaveringly committed even his death to the care of the Father: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" (Luke 23:46) He knew that in this moment it was not his life that really mattered - it was the life of the world! As someone put it so well ... had he saved his life, the world would be lost, but if he lost his life the world would be saved! He knew that.

What an overwhelming burden was laid on his shoulders, then, when the ultimate test of faith was put before him. Was there not an alien voice in that three hour darkness calling out to him, echoing those who had passed by earlier, taunting him then. This voice was still more forcefully inflicting itself upon him. "Save yourself. You can do it. Why ‘purchase' the world with your blood when I will give you all that you propose to be dying for without price or cost!" The voice in the wilderness where Jesus and the devil had their earliest encounter in his ministry must have come roaring back into his ears during those last horrifying hours. "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." Still he said, as he had said then, "No! You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve." (Matthew 4:1-10)

It was to another voice, though, to which he commended himself. This voice said, "Die, trust yourself to me, and I shall raise you again." It was the voice of the Father. And to that word Jesus said "Yes!"

The Response to the Problem

This is the word Jesus seeks to put into the hearts of all who hear the words of our text.

There are essentially only two alternatives for service between which we must choose: God and the world, represented in the text with the word "money," translated "mammon" in older versions of this passage..

We cannot do without food and drink, clothing and health of some sort, of course. They may not be the food and drink of a millionaire's table. They may not be clothing of a fancy sort. Even our health may be short of that which we would most like to have. But each and every one of those blessings (not to speak of a multitude of others) when bestowed upon us in whatever fashion life may offer asks us, begs us, entreats us to serve it / them. Their voices are loud and demanding. They cannot be tuned out entirely, for we have need of all of them. But, while using them, we can turn them into uses in behalf of those around us rather than using them to only serve ourselves.

Is that not what the life and death of Jesus was all about? He understood his purpose to be a service to those who would not have what he called "the abundant life" without him! He didn't just speak the words of the text, saying, "Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?" He lived and died that life of which he spoke, for it was the bodily life of God's love made incarnate in the work of his Son.

"Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them." Have you ever said that common table prayer, "Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let these gifts to us be blest," while looking down at the food before you, remembering it was in front of you as pure "gift"? From earth to seed to harvester to processor to distributor to your hands and table, it originates with God, is handled by those who serve the purposes of God, and is before you as God's gift to you! "Let these gifts to us be blest," we pray - and then we hardly think of them in "gift terms" at all! Like the "birds of the air [who] neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns" you sup upon that which came to you from God through others, whether you recognize it or not! It was to this simple truth that Jesus pointed in today's Gospel reading.

The "anxiety" of which Jesus spoke has little to do with the ordinary, everyday need to work and plan, to save and purchase, to live responsibly and to provide for the future ... unless (and this is the HUGE "unless"!) one does all this as though it were all one's own doing, all dependent on self, all the security one seeks or has. If and when that is the case, such a person is the servant of all these things considered the most important things to life. It is the "anxiety" of the one whose whole end and purpose is to control the future - and the future always seems so out-of-control in the moment one most appears to have hold of it! One cannot help but be concerned about such an uncertain future.

Such a one, therefore, who proposes to hold the future in his / her own hands as though all depended on that person as the master using the material means as servants becomes just the opposite of that which she / he proposes to be. That person becomes the servant of all, not the master, and the struggle of life is always to shed that servanthood to this world in the interests of getting hold of it, to become its master! If everything depends on that person, then, ultimately, even death itself must be held in the hand of such a master. And only one has mastered death. Be assured it is not the one who considers the world as the be-all and end-all of everything essential.

The one who has gone into the shadows of death and returned as the master of death calls to us in this portion of the Sermon on the Mount - as, indeed, he calls to us from all other portions of this same "sermon." "Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?" He from whom all life came / comes and he to whom all life is going calls us to place ourselves into his care and keeping in both life and death.

This does not mean that life will all work out smoothly and well; that there will never be those moments when the budget becomes a matter of great concern; when health pressures us so much that stress and concern overwhelm us; when relationships become strained and we wonder how to untangle what seem to be impossible messes; when work stresses us out and we come home tired, frustrated and disgusted; when world events seem so threatening that the future of our nation, ourselves and our family seems to hang in the balance. All those things are part and parcel of life - just as are those moments of joy at the birth of a child; an unexpected turn of events that cause things to look brighter; the contentment of quiet moments and happy times. All of these things make up life - and surely Jesus knows this - as does the Father and the Holy Spirit who dwell in all those moments with us.

Jesus, however, is exposing the raw ends of the love that undergirds the tough times in life and that breaks forth in the joyfulness of living at other times. He is reminding us that when we play the earthly game of relying too heavily on the material means of this world - when we are tempted to let those means become the master of our lives - we are in danger of losing that which is far more important. "Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ... Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Our eyes are turned to those things that endure long after the things that can cause us anxiety and worry are long gone. The kingdom of God has arrived with the coming of the King who holds all futures in his hands!

It is always interesting to ask, "What was your greatest concern six months ago? Can you remember it, name it, cause it to be present again in words?" Chances are pretty good that, for the most part, those worries and cares have given way to new worries and cares, different concerns and troubles and fears, unforeseen six months ago, but which have overshadowed those things that occupied the front and center of our attention at that time. "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Jesus does not suggest that there is no trouble today. He simply says that, if we live in trust that the Father's love will give us the strength and courage to prevail over today's troubles, we can be sure that the same love will give us the strength and courage to prevail over tomorrow's troubles as well.

The question is not whether there will be concerns about food and clothing, shelter and personal health at this or that time. The question is - are you serving a master, whether consciously or unconsciously, who will ultimately be there with you and for you when all the hours of life are played out? There are many false masters that, having promised you ever so much in life, will fail you utterly in those hours.

There is, however, a Lord of Life who will hold firm as the foundation beneath all the troubles and cares that life places upon you in the bad times as well as making glad your good times ... even through the hours of death when he will say to you as he said to the thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." (Luke 23:43)

"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." This is the word of the Lord!

Lutheran Pastor, Retired Hubert Beck
Austin, Texas
E-Mail: hbeck@austin.rr.com

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