Our Mother God (don t worry about the title of this sermon) Matthew

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1 Our Mother God (don t worry about the title of this sermon) Matthew No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. 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 will wear. 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 can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry 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 clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, What will we eat? or What will we drink? or What will we wear? For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today s trouble is enough for today. There is one question of faith that I m betting almost every one of us has pondered at some point in our lives. What would you do if you won the lottery? It is a sort of non-question for me, at least. I have already lived my answer, because I have already won the lottery. The day I turned 18 the first thing I did was buy a lottery ticket, because I could do it legally. And I won five dollars. What I did was pocket the five dollars and I never bought another lottery ticket in my life. But it is a fun question to consider..

2 If I hit the jackpot, I would be smart, I hope. I would buy security, not spectacular homes and cars and vacations. I would pay off a mortgage, invest enough for three children to get all the schooling they could ever want. I would buy at least one brand new car with an extended warranty so that I could get all the life out of it possible. On my more generous days, I would invest in 6 educations, not just three, so that there would be scholarships for other children. I would create an endowment for the campus ministry where I worked so that the balance between fundraising and ministry was never again an issue. I would give a significant amount to our church, Calvin, so that we could be bold in ministry, without the worry about how to fund it. I would give to other causes that are important to me. But then I think, how much is enough to give away? No matter how big my jackpot is, I cannot solve the problems of the world with money. In fact, how do I know that the organizations to which I give would use it wisely? Of course, I would probably be invited to sit on their boards, and have a say in that. But what if I didn t like the way they spent my money? Maybe I should just start my own non-profit. But that comes with its own worries and stresses. And if I am giving all this money away, what do I do when my brand new car is not so reliable anymore in fifteen years? If I have become so good at giving my money away, what do I do when I don t have that security anymore? What if I become sick and have astronomical medical bills? If I was able to find that fine balance between security and generosity, what if the stock market crashed and I lost

3 everything? How do I make sure that my money will keep me safe? You can see the problem, great wealth seems to create more problems, more worries, and heighten those I already have to extreme proportions. You have probably heard stories about those that have won the lottery squandering their wealth. I even read about a woman who won the lottery twice in two years who is now living in a trailer on social security. With great wealth comes great worries. You only have to do a little research into the lives of those who have won big to learn that. But what surprised me when I did a little of that research is that the ones who have the most problems are not those who live lavishly and spend only on themselves. There are surely dangers in serving the god of wealth and living only for yourself. The people who lost their wealth the quickest are the ones who tried to help others. In our text for today, Jesus doesn t even address the difficulty and futility of taking on wealth, mammon, as our only master. Jesus speaks of the danger of attempting to serve both God and wealth. They paid debts for family members. They invested unwisely in friend s companies. They paid medical bills in the millions. They handed out $100 bills on the street. They bought cars

4 and homes for their mothers. They gave and they gave and they gave, until they had nothing. The answer would seem to be to invest wisely, to exercise caution, and to keep our day jobs if we win the lottery. But if we keep reading, Jesus says something shocking. He tells us that we cannot serve both God and mammon. To clarify this, here s what Jesus does not say: So decide to place your trust in God and use your money wisely. Invest securely. Store up grain for yourselves and your community in case of famine. Don t spend it all in one place. This is clearly not a lesson in how to be a person of means and a person of faith at the same time. When he gets down to specific examples, Jesus doesn t tell us to consider the Saducee, who has both great faith and great wealth and does an adequate, if not complete job at managing the two. Jesus doesn t point out the working man, who puts in a full days work and earns an honest wage and is somehow able to store something away for the future. Jesus says, consider the lilies of the field. The lilies grow with no work, the earn nothing of their beauty, and yet they surpass even the finest gold garments. By simply being planted where they are, and reaching toward the sun, they give a gift to the world of a beauty that cannot be bought or earned or created by any other than God himself.

5 Look at the birds of the air. They don t store up food for tomorrow, they don t exhaust themselves to bring in a harvest, but they still eat. They fly by instinct and know where they are going not by drawing a map of their course and where they will head for the winter, but simply by doing what they need to do when they need to do it. Now this kind of perspective is a little unnerving for those of us who live in a culture with bank accounts and refrigerators and the reality that our gas tanks must have something in them if we are to get anywhere in the morning. Let us not mistake Jesus instructions not to worry for the suggestion that planning is bad, or that intentionality should be avoided. In my important research on lottery winnings, I actually came across a website that used this text as support for a nudist lifestyle: do not worry about what you will wear. But elsewhere Jesus seems to place some importance on clothing. In Matthew s telling of the parable of the wedding banquet, we hear similar dynamics to our text today. A man hosts a grand party, but when the invitations are issued, his potential guests are too busy plowing the fields, or running their businesses to come to a party. So the invitations go out to those who have no security in which to invest, those who have no way to save up for tomorrow. But when one shows up without wedding clothes, he is thrown into the outer darkness, where there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 22

6 It isn t about clothes, or food, or work, but worry. It isn t about avoiding planning, or entering a state of denial about the future, but refusing to allow our future plans consume our present lives. Jesus shows us how to live for this day, trusting that the beauty and joy of one day spent relying only on God can lead into a future of the same. Worrying about tomorrow can consume us and prevent us from fully realizing and entering God s grace today. After I have filled my gas tank and made sure my headlights work and put a little money away in case my car breaks down, worrying about exactly when that will happen does nothing except prevent me from going where I need to go now. Jesus tells us we cannot serve both God and wealth. They are words for us, not for those who have already bowed exclusively to a life spent chasing after the next windfall, or dependant only on our own means to save us. Jesus speaks to all of us who are faithful and wise about money we use it as a tool, we don t serve it as a master. We think we know where the line is. We think we are smart enough to know where our true hope lies. These are Jesus words to us: you cannot serve two masters. If your wealth or lack of it makes you worry, you might be trying to do just that. There can only be God if you seek true security. That master, the one who ordered the universe itself, will order everything else. So let God rule your life. Everything else will fall into place and you will know your priorities.

7 Our Isaiah text is one which has been used by feminists, of which I am one, to provide an example of a feminine image for God. It is beautiful, the association of God s care for us being us natural and urgent and unconditional as a child at her mother s breast. It is important, I think, for those who feel hemmed in and stymied by the traditional notion of a male God to know that God is beyond gender. That all of our issues with our own fathers are healed and consumed and reconciled in a God who is both mother and father, who is neither male nor female. But do we for one minute think that when Isaiah received this word of God in the form of a visual illustration that he clapped his hands and thought, Finally, something concrete so that those 21 st century Christians can have a proof text for inclusive language? Do we think that Isaiah desperately wanted to provide validation for those who have so much trouble understanding the goodness of God through male imagery? Do we think that Isaiah was worried about a feminist critique of Old Testament scriptures and the eternal vision of the prophets, so he covered his bases, giving balance to the male-dominated stories and visions that permeate Scripture? No, Isaiah was writing about security. Isaiah was illustrating the unconditional love God has for his people that surpasses even the bond between mother and child. Isaiah was a prophet, echoing, hundreds of years before, Jesus caution

8 that, unless you become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18 What would it take for us to return to that carefree time when the whole future was open to us and anything was possible? How can we claim the ability to live what God has called us to on this day without worrying about the future? Do we dare set aside our worry that our bank accounts are full enough? Do we dare consider that worrying about our pews not being full enough is pointless? Do we dare to step forward in our lives, as a church, without knowing what lies ahead? Do we dare start a new program without knowing exactly how it will be funded? Do we dare go back to school when we re not sure how the bills will be paid? Do we dare give joyfully our tithe to the church and not consider how 90% will cover everything else? Do we dare to choose to attempt reconciliation in our relationships even when we think we might get burned? Do we dare to reach out to those in need of money and food those who neither toil nor reap not knowing if they will spend it in a responsible manner?

9 Do we dare to believe that God s will will be done in our church, in our families, in our lives, in the world without our planning out every infinitesimal detail? To step into those dares in denial causes all kinds of problems. To refuse to plan and act intentionally in all parts of our lives is not what Jesus is trying to push us towards. But to live instead in worry, in dread, in fear, in a petrified stillness that we might mess something up that is ultimately out of our control can bring our witness to the ultimate security and love and gift of God with us in Jesus Christ to a screeching halt. All those do we dares are worries that can prevent us from actually living. We are called to be people of the past, present, and future. We are gifted and loved and challenged as individuals, but also as members of a family that God has loved for a long time, and has promised to love forever. In Jesus Christ, we are shown again that all the things we try to put before that truth, and all the sin that creeps into the middle of it, is made secondary to the love of God given before and beyond any ability of our own to mess it up. Jesus came to save sinners not just those who have great wealth and use it in ways that do not fully serve God, but also

10 to save those of us who have just enough for today, and spend our time worrying about tomorrow instead of living now. Don t think that Jesus doesn t want you to win the lottery. I ve already won it. You ve already won it. There is nothing that we need to worry so much about in the future that it clouds our ability of enjoying God s gifts and God s call and God s grace right now. There is nothing that can tear us from God s arms, so let us live fully there right now. There is nothing that can provide security more fully than what Jesus has already done. So claim those winnings. Live boldly into the future that has already been won for you. Let us be bold to live with the beauty and love that has already been given to us. Let us dare to act with the abundance of God s grace and mercy now, trusting that because of Christ, there is more than enough for eternity.

11 Bibliography Dao, James. Instant Millions Can t Halt Winners Grim Slide. New York Times. 5 December Accessed online February Killinger, John. Of Rainbows, Geese, and Wildflowers. Chicago Sunday Evening Club: 30 Good Minutes. 22 January Web February Lose, David. Picture This. Working Preacher. 20 February Web February Roberts, Kathryn L. "Isaiah 49:14-18." Interpretation 57.1 (2003): ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials. EBSCO. Web. 19 Jan

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