Sermon for Trinity 15
Matthew 6:24-34 + 1 Kings 17:8-16 + Galatians 5:25 – 6:10
What do you care about? What kinds of things do you worry about? If you were to make a list of the things that occupy your thoughts and your plans and the things you spend your energy on from day to day, how many of those things would have to do with money, or the things money can buy for your life on earth? House issues, job-related issues, school issues, income issues, retirement savings, insurance policies, how to provide for yourself and for your future – do you spend time worrying about those things? If any of those things is threatened – say, by a bad economy, a volatile stock-market, a job loss that has either happened or is looming on the horizon – are you troubled? Are you scared? Are you worried?
If so, you’re not alone. Few if any of us do not spend time being concerned about money matters; few if any of us are not scared when our livelihood is threatened. But just because it’s common among doesn’t mean it’s acceptable for us, or that it makes any sense. In today’s Gospel, Jesus wishes to crush us and crucify us sinners with the sickening reality of our double-minded service and our faithless worrying – not to harm us, but to save us and to free us from it, so that instead of spending our time worrying about how to provide for ourselves, we can know the peace of having a Provider in heaven who really is worthy of the name “Father.” Then we can spend our time worrying about bigger and better things, like, how to serve our Father. In our Gospel, Jesus shows us how The Father’s Care Frees Us to Care about the Things That Matter Most.
The first thing to notice in the text is that it falls within Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. That’s when he took his own disciples aside and taught them many things about the kingdom of God. He was talking to his disciples, not to the heathen, not to the unbelieving world. He’s talking to his disciples who know God as a gracious Father through faith in his beloved Son, Jesus Christ. So everything Jesus says in this Gospel, he is saying to those who are Christians.
And to those Christians, he says, “No one can serve two masters. 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 both God and Money.”
Notice, Jesus doesn’t say you can’t possess money and God at the same time. It’s not sinful to have possessions, even many possessions. Many Christians in the past have been wealthy. But what Jesus says is that it is impossible to serve both God and money – although many Christians foolishly try.
You serve money by hoarding up a pile of money – as much as you can, and then living your life to serve that pile of money. You make your plans around feeding that pile. You look to that pile to provide you with food and shelter and safety and security. You look to your pile to be there for you when you get sick. You look to your pile to give you a future. You turn to your pile to satisfy your earthly needs and your earthly wants. And you get nervous and scared and defensive when your pile is threatened.
But see! Your pile of money is a dead god. It’s corruptible. It’s perishable. It doesn’t care about you at all. It’s fickle, and even if you spend your whole life working hard to serve it, it can flee from you in an instant and leave you with nothing but misery and emptiness. It takes from you much more than it gives, and it refuses to accompany you to the grave. Your pile of money is a worthless god, and we are fools to serve it, to rely on it, to count on it, to base our hope and our future on it.
The Gentiles – the pagans seek after these things, Jesus says. Oh, how Jesus puts us to shame and shows us how we mimic the ignorant, unbelieving world, putting so much stock in stocks, so much trust in wealth and income and bank accounts and insurance companies and governments to bail us out. It’s at least understandable that the pagans would run after such things – they have no one else to turn to. But for Christians to worry about “things,” as if we had no Father who really cared for us, or who was so impotent that he can’t help us in our need or so unfriendly and unfatherly that he won’t help his children when they need the most essential things of life – food and clothes and shelter – that’s unconscionable. No wonder Jesus says, “O you of little faith.”
Maybe you’ve noticed that telling someone to stop worrying doesn’t usually work. If someone is in crisis mode, they won’t just stop worrying because you told them to. The lifeline God lets down to the person who is trapped in a pit of worry and anxiety is the simple message of law and gospel. “What are you doing down there in your pit?” he says. “Well, I’m worried.” “Why are you worried?” he asks. And you confront the reality, “I’m worried because I don’t really believe that you will love me like a Father and take care of me.” There it is! There’s the problem! It’s called “sin.” But now that we’ve identified it, we can address it.
Our Father doesn’t walk away angry. He says, “You’re wrong not to trust me. You’re wrong to believe that money will be your Savior. I brought you into my house when you were baptized. Do you really think I will abandon you now? Repent of your life lived in service to your pile of money; repent of your unbelief; repent of your doubt and your worry and your lack of faith in me. Because I alone am God. I alone am your Savior – I and no other. And I will be true to my baptismal promise to treat you as a son, as my child. For the sake of my Son, Jesus Christ, for the sake of his holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death – I forgive you. And I will provide for you. I know your weaknesses and your little faith. But a little faith is still saving faith if you rely on the atonement my Son has made on the cross to save you. I will strengthen you and help you. You have my Word! And you have my Son! And you have my Sacraments to bring him to you, with all his strength and with all his comfort.”
And if you’ve never believed in Christ before as your righteousness before God, if you haven’t been baptized into his name, or if you have, but have since walked away from your baptismal faith, then come and see what a good and gracious Father God wants to be to you in Christ Jesus and only in him.
You want proof of the Father’s goodness? Jesus points you to the birds that God feeds without their worrying. Now, the point isn’t that God will do the same for you as he does for the birds, but far more! Because not only are human beings worth far more than birds, having been made in the image of God, but you – you are God’s baptized children, branded with the image of Christ that is being renewed day by day! You have infinite worth before God. You are as valuable to him as the Son of God whose name you bear. So you’d better believe he will give you everything you need to sustain your earthly life, whether by the natural means of work and income or by supernatural means, as he fed Elijah the prophet and the widow and her son who served him.
Then there are the lilies of the field that wear some of the finest clothes in all creation, given to them by God the Father. But still, the point isn’t that God will do the same for you as he does for the flowers, but far more! Because the flowers last a few days before they wither and die and are cut down forever. But you who trust in Christ Jesus, when your days are done on this earth and your body withers and dies – you are not gone forever! You have been given eternal life as a gift! If God cares enough to clothe the flowers that live for a day and die forever, then he surely cares more than enough to make sure that his children will have all they need for their body before it rests in the grave for a little while, until the resurrection from the dead when he will clothe them with the splendor of immortality.
The Father’s care frees us to stop serving our bellies and our bodies, because he’s promised to take care of those things without our worry and without our help. Instead, Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. That means, first and foremost, the kingdom and the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that by faith in him you may have his righteousness as your own. There is no righteousness before God apart from faith in Christ. So seek the things that create and sustain faith – the preaching of the Gospel, the Word, the Sacrament. Seek them and believe in the forgiveness they pronounce.
Seek first his kingdom. That means seek his Word, to hear it and to learn it, but also to do it and to live it. God doesn’t want you to live a “carefree” life. He wants you to care very much about serving him and serving your neighbor.
Seek first his kingdom. That doesn’t mean quit your job or stop looking for employment. It means, don’t seek a job in order to pay the bills or to find fulfillment in your life. Instead, reverse it. Seek a job in order to serve God, in order to further his kingdom. God doesn’t want a certain percentage of your money. God demands all of your money, even as he demands all of your heart. But that doesn’t mean drop your whole paycheck in the offering plate. It means use your money to serve your neighbor. That includes your church. It also includes your family. It also includes the government. It also includes the poor and needy.
The temptation will come to compromise on the things of God if they jeopardize your income or your reputation or your church’s membership numbers. The temptation will come to be silent when you know you should speak, to speak something less than the truth because you know the truth itself will go over like a ton of bricks. That’s seeking first the god of money, the god of popularity, the god of self. But instead, reverse it. Be willing to compromise on anything and everything except the things of God and his kingdom. Serve him and know that the other things will be provided in his way, in his time, sometimes more richly than you could have ever imagined.
It’s not that all trouble will be taken away. No, tomorrow will have plenty of trouble, Jesus says. That is our life and our lot on earth. And your flesh will always war against your spirit, so that care and worry and fear will always be there bubbling up under the surface. That doesn’t mean you’re not a Christian. Our Gospel today is meant for Christians. But in his love, Jesus calls us today to walk in daily repentance and faith. It won’t do you any good to worry about things. But by faith in Jesus, we have a gracious Father who lives in the today and the tomorrow, and who has taken it upon himself to worry about taking care of you. Trust in your Father to provide your daily bread, both today and tomorrow. The cross of Christ is the proof that he cares for you – more than you can possibly imagine. Amen.
