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8. Sunday in Epiphany, 02/27/2011
Sermon on Matthew 6:24-34, by David H. Brooks
English Standard Version, © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers
24"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.
Do Not Be Anxious
25"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? 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? 27And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30But 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? 31Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.34 "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Most people who are doing anything more than sleepwalking through their lives report to me that they find the admonition to not be anxious to be among the toughest that Jesus utters. And perhaps that is no surprise. There are lots of hard sayings out of the mouth of Jesus, of course; loving enemies or letting go of possessions generously or walking an extra mile with someone who demands from you are all hard to accept. But these at least have the advantage of having a target out there on which a person can focus-another person who can be the recipient of action, and a gauge on how well we're doing. But to tell someone ‘don't be anxious, don't be afraid' has the perverse effect of threatening to increase that choking sense of apprehension because it tends to do the one thing no one should do in moments of anxiety-focus the attention on the self. In a sort of weird flip of the famous "I was proud-I was humble" cycle, an individual told to not be anxious is sorely tempted to take an internal temperature of anxiety, and grow anxious over the perceived results.
This saying also hits hard because of the nature of our times. Countless pundits have earned a paycheck by solemnly repeating that ours is an anxious age (leaving aside the fact that the economic engine of our society depends in large part on stoking our anxieties in order to relieve them). According to the experts, we have grown increasingly anxious since the WTC attacks. Vague terrorist threat levels; dangers in the climate, the food, the water; next-door neighbors that are strangers to us; economic and political forces that seem beyond appeal; the uncertainty of intentions of even those closest to us; all these and more contribute to a sense that there are plenty of things to worry about these days. Yet maybe things have not changed so much in the last ten years; other experts tell us confidently that reported anxiety levels in the 1980s and 90s were higher among normal persons than among the mentally ill of the 1950s.
Yet even as Jesus calls upon us to let go of anxiety about life, he also identifies why we are anxious-it is nerve-wracking to serve two masters. Indeed, it is worse than nerve-wracking-it is soul-wracking to be on two trajectories, to try and live out two separate, ultimately different goals or purposes. I put it that way quite deliberately, because over these last weeks of Jesus' preaching and teaching, he repeatedly makes one point clear-to have God as the master means entering into a life that has a different trajectory than what the world or other gods or even I myself might choose. All of what Jesus has said over the last weeks about blessedness and holiness and treatment of neighbors and dealing justly and being generous and all the rest has as its goal a certain path that traces toward a particular goal, which he urges his followers toward at the end of this passage: begin by seeking the Kingdom of God, let it be your goal. Do not get distracted from seeking it by other things; do not substitute other things for it. Seek the Kingdom, and God knows that all the other things that make for life-whether we're discussing food, drink, clothes, wealth, community, whatever-will be there as well.
We find that hard to believe, of course. We are not birds, content to eat whatever we may find. We are not meadow flowers, flush with color one fine day and dry stalks the next. So we continue to try to hold to two roads, run down two tracks, hedge and hope, keep one foot alongside our Lord and the other foot trots after that other master who has captured our attention. We try to tell ourselves that we've matured, that we're more realistic, that we have responsibilities, obligations, debts-but all the while the strain of keeping a foot on two diverging roads becomes greater and greater, a heavy burden on our nerves and our souls.
But all the while Jesus continues to invite you and me to walk with him on the Kingdom road. I have always been struck by the simple genius of Dietrich Bonheoffer's road behind enemy lines parable, where he describes our situation as that of a spy caught behind enemy lines, and looking for a member of the resistance to offer guidance. She is found at a crossroad, and says that the way to safety is the road that seems to head in the wrong direction, back toward danger. Bonheoffer ends with a question-do you believe her, or do you do what she says? The answer is there is no difference.
The world says that the road Jesus walks is impossible, fraught with danger. No one prays for enemies and means it; no one lets go of goods and money without a chance for a return on the investment; no one walks an extra mile with someone who unreasonably demands it. No one lets go of what makes for the good life in order to walk an unknown path. Yet Jesus walks that path, walks it all the way to its end, and is triumphant. Life, death-he is the Master of both. And he has invited you to walk with him, and wants you to know that both of your feet are welcome. Amen.