May 25, 2005 - "Seeking the Kingdom of God in an Age of Anxiety"

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky

Pentecost 2
May 25, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SEEKING THE KINGDOM OF GOD
IN AN AGE OF ANXIETY

Isaiah 49:8-16a; Psalm 131; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Matthew 6:19-34

We are living in an age of anxiety, more intensely so than we have in a long time. Gas prices, the housing market, the credit collapse, natural disasters, the devastation of war, and the day to day struggles we all face all come together and wrap our hearts in knots.

If Jesus ever sounded naive and irrelevant, right next to “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies” is the line we hear from the gospel today: “Don’t be anxious.”

I want to say, “Jesus, I have a 14 year old, a 10 year old, and a 2 year old, and I’m the pastor of a crazy congregation. Don’t be anxious?”

How would you respond to Jesus?

“Jesus, I have aging parents or a sick spouse to take care of and my child is making terrible decisions. Don’t be anxious?”

“Jesus, I’m off to college and uncertain what to do with my life. Don’t be anxious?”

“Jesus, my company is laying people off of work or my business is failing or I can’t pay my bills. Don’t be anxious?”

“Jesus, I’m in a new country. I don’t fully understand the language and customs. I am mistreated at my job, but there’s no other place to work. Don’t be anxious?”

“Jesus, I live in Burma. A cyclone has decimated my village. My little girl is sick and if aid does not come soon she will die. Don’t be anxious?”

“Jesus, I live in China. An earthquake has destroyed my home and my business, and I’ve not yet found all the members of my family. Don’t be anxious?”

“Yes,” Jesus said. “Don’t be anxious.”

Now, in fairness to Jesus and all preachers, I want us to be careful not to lift a few words out of the middle of a sermon and judge him. Let’s see what else he has to say and what alternatives he has to offer.

These words of Jesus are set in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. Following words on giving, praying, and fasting - spiritual practices that help us relinquish control of our lives and possessions and appetites - Jesus says:

1. Keep check on your heart (6:19-21)

Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal.

How often are our lives, our emotions, our energies bound up in things a moth could eat, rust could ruin, or a thief could steal? Many of us have been captured by the tyranny of things. We are possessed by our possessions.

Jesus offers an alternative:

Instead, store up treasures in the kingdom of heaven.

Things that cannot rust or be stolen, like friends, family, church, acts of justice and love.

Why should we be concerned about our treasures? Because Jesus said:

Where your treasure is there your heart will be.

In order to release our lives from the anxious knots in which we find ourselves tied, Jesus suggests we keep check on our hearts. And we do that by treasuring the right things. Not concerning ourselves with possessions that can be stolen.

That means among other things I have to let go of my anxiety over the condition of my books and not be devastated when they get wet or the corners get bent. I’m sure God wants me to take care of God’s fine gift of books, but not be torn up over a torn page. And believe me, that is a deep spiritual struggle for me. Just ask my wife. We must not place ultimate value on those things that will not last. We must keep check on our hearts by treasuring the right things.

2. Keep check on your eyes (6:22-23)

Also, let us keep check on our eyes. Jesus said:

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.

For those of us with the good fortune of sight, what we see with our eyes makes its way into our heart. And that’s what Jesus is talking about here: the eyes of the heart. In Ephesians, Paul prays for the enlightening of the eyes of our hearts (Eph 1:18).

It seems Jesus is saying if your eyes are focused on the right things, your heart will be healthy and full of light to see as God sees. If your eyes are focused on the wrong things, your heart will be unhealthy and full of darkness, unable to see as God sees.

It’s a matter of “seeing” rightly. The eyes of our heart can be clouded; they can distort what we see, leading us to look at the world through the eyes of an anxious heart: Will I have enough? Will I get what I need? Jesus teaches us to look at the world in God’s light with a mind-set of trustfulness in God to provide what we need. So let’s keep check on our hearts and our eyes. The eyes of our hearts.

3. Keep check on your loyalties (6:24)

Let us also keep check on our loyalties. Jesus states for us an obvious universal truth that we all too often ignore at our great peril. He says:

No one can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and earthly treasures.

We cannot serve God and money, God and wealth, God and material possessions, God and the market.

Steve Shoemaker has said that American religion is “Dowism.” Not of the Asian religious variety, but D-O-W “Dowism” - the worship of the Dow Jones average, trusting the free market to be the salvation of the world. The Dow Jones average is important. Many of our retirements are tied to it. We need to make good judgments with our investments. But the market is not our God. Our lives do not consist of the prices at the end of the day.

If increasing and protecting your wealth is your religion, greed and anxiety will follow you all the days of your life. But to serve God is to open your hands to freely give and freely receive and freely release your anxious heart.

4. Keep check on the birds and the lilies
and the God who cares for them (6:25-32)

To help us live in such freedom Jesus tells us in addition to keeping check on our hearts and eyes and loyalties, to also keep check on the birds of the air and the lilies of the field and the God who cares for them and us all.

We had a great time last Sunday as we worshiped outdoors and our youth led us to seriously consider our care for the earth. We would do well to be outside again today to better experience these words of Jesus.

Wendell Berry says of the Bible: “I don’t think it is enough appreciated how much of an outdoor book the Bible really is . . . It is best read and understood outdoors. . . Passages that within walls seem improbable or incredible, outdoors seem merely natural. This is because outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread.” [1]

When you read closely you see that a fair amount of what happens in the Bible takes place outdoors. Jesus himself did most of his work under an open sky. His teaching made free use of what his listeners could witness in nature: the wind in the trees, a farmer sowing seed, or in today’s passage, birds and wildflowers.

Look at the birds of air, Jesus said. Consider the lilies of the field.
No doubt he meant the birds that were soaring above them or singing around them there on the flowered covered hills of Galilee.

I think Jesus did this because he knows such words like “don’t be anxious” are empty. They never work by themselves. So he shows us the beauty of flowers and the freedom of birds in the hopes that they will touch us deeply enough to release us out from under our anxiety.

His instructions are to look thoughtfully and ponder deeply God’s provision and extravagant beauty of creation. The birds do not sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet woven into the very tapestry of creation is God’s gracious provision for the birds. The lilies grow and neither toil nor spin and are clothed in such beauty. Jesus says we are of greater lasting value than the birds and lilies, yet God makes provision for them.

And yet it is hard to read these words and not think of those who starve and go unclothed. I think the point Jesus would make is that God has made provision for all the earth. Since Jesus’ day we have polluted that provision and governments have been established that restrict access to those in need. We think of those who are suffering as a result of the cyclone in Burma. God’s wants those people fed, but the Burmese government has been slow to allow access of food to them. And then the Chinese earthquake is beyond comprehension.

How do hear these words of Jesus in these days of anxiety?

First, let’s acknowledge that there is a worry - perhaps we could call it a caring concern - a concern over those in desperate need, a concern over the character of our nation and the condition of our world - such concern is a sign of care that often drives people to good action. Such concern is a Christian virtue.

But there is a worry, more accurately characterized as anxiety, that puts us in a state of paralysis. The root of the word “anxiety” means “to choke.” Anxiety constricts blood vessels and it constricts faith. And when Jesus says, “Don’t be anxious,” he’s talking about an obsessive worry that eats away at your life.

There is the anxiety of basic provision. God knows what we need to eat and drink and wear and is always at work in the world through the daily miracles of farms and gardens and through the generosity of others making provision. Last week Joel Osteen was in town. He went so far as to say that God would make the gas in our car go further. I don’t know about that, but I do believe God is at work for our basic provision.

5. Keep check on today (6:34)

Beyond the anxiety for basic provision, there are more broader, abstract anxieties, the dread that is grounded in not knowing anything of what the future may bring: Will the people we love be happy and safe? What kind of death will we die? What other losses await us? Will there be enough of what we need? Jesus says, Don’t be anxious about tomorrow. Tomorrow will bring enough troubles of its own.
Reminds me of the time Charlie Brown said: “I’ve made a new commitment. From now on I’ll dread just one day at a time.” Sometimes that’s the best we can do.

Jesus says, “Don’t be anxious about what tomorrow may or may not bring. Today’s troubles are enough. Just keep check on today.”

6. Pursue the kingdom of God (6:25, 33)


But this text and this entire Sermon on the Mount is about more than our needs. It’s really about turning our focus away from ourselves and toward the kingdom of God. Jesus said,

Don’t be anxious 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?

And the answer is yes. Life through God’s eyes is about justice and compassion and hope and love.

Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God, set your heart on what needs to be done in this world, and God will provide what you need.” Because when we seek first God’s kingdom, we will be at work caring about the needs of one another, making just social injustices, crossing into Burma with food and water at the risk of our lives, raising money to water Malawi, making sure refugees are able to make a home here with friends and basic provision.

If you want to calm your anxious heart, as best you can with God’s help, seek an undivided heart. That’s what Jesus was saying earlier. Seek an undivided heart. A heart with one master, not two. You can’t serve the kingdom of God and the kingdom of possessions. To live free from the anxiety that chokes the life out of us calls us to place our hands over our hearts and say, “I pledge my full and undivided allegiance to the kingdom of God.”

An allegiance to the kingdom of God turns the eyes of our hearts toward the massive suffering of the world. And in so doing, turns our focus away from our own needs. I will not worry so much about my food and clothes if I look out upon the deep needs of the world and do what I must do to alleviate the sufferings I see there.

And I will do what I can today with hope and courage and faith in the God who loves and cares for us all. That’s what I will do today. And when tomorrow comes, I will do what I can tomorrow.

But for now I will sit at God’s table and take bread and wine and offer thanks for God’s daily provision. And I will walk outside and look at the birds of the air and consider the beauty of God’s creation and realize I am part of something big and glorious. And I will realize that the God who holds this world in caring provision is the God in whose palm my name is inscribed.

I began this sermon sounding like the children of Israel to whom Isaiah was speaking. A people who cried out: “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.”

And the God of all compassion says, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?” Realizing that human mothers can be frail and neglectful, God says, “Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.”

Did you hear about the mother in China this week nursing nine children each day, many of whom are not her own, but babies whose mothers are dead or missing from the earthquake? That is God our compassionate mother who will not forget us, nursing the world with a mother’s milk, all the children of all the world gathered round her. Her heart won’t let her turn anyone away. Because our names and faces are inscribed on the palms of her hands. You will never, never, never be forgotten nor forsaken.

Just like Jesus’ words “Don’t be anxious” often fall empty, my words today may not have eased your anxious heart. So I invite you to the prayer of the psalmist printed for your silent contemplation. Perhaps they are your words today. I invite you into the quiet silence to meet the mothering God providing for us and weaning us from anxiety toward hope, lifting our eyes to see the birds of the air and lifting our hearts to consider the lilies of the field, and directing our lives toward the kingdom of God, bring hope to this age of anxiety. Let us enter into the silence.

DISCIPLINE OF SILENCE

Psalm 131 (Printed as reflection during the silence)
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is within me. O people of God, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore.

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

God of creation,

we look around us and see a world filled with wonder and wickedness, greed and goodness, abundance and scarcity, hell and hope.

With a global economy that is fragile, we have become fragile and anxious.

Teach us, O God, how to live in these days, seeking not so much economic security but your economy of justice and compassion in this world.

Lead us not into the creation of wealth for whomever can take it.
May we be more concerned that all the people of all the world have enough.
Help us wed the free market with a fair market.

Remind us, O God, how greed and injustice and poverty lead to war.
We are reminded this Memorial Day weekend the profound damage of war.
Lives lost. Mothers and fathers taken from children. Fear and emotional harm, physical injury beyond what many of us can comprehend.

So we remember those who have given their lives when our world has gone warring mad. We pray for those who protect the world daily. Grant us the decency and compassion to care for those wounded in war, those who said yes when their country called.

And grant us the heart to remember all the dead and wounded from every country. Remind us that in the kingdom of God there are no national boundaries. We are all your children. All of us brothers and sisters in the human family. We are all of us inscribed on the palms of your hands.

Give us undivided hearts, O God, at rest in your abiding presence, seeking your kingdom, trusting in your daily provision, sharing what we have with others.

Help us hear the simple faith and the hope-filled boldness as we pray as Jesus taught us, saying, “Our Father . . .”

___________________

1. Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community, Pantheon, 1993, 105.

May 4, 2008 - "Sanctuary"

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Ascension Sunday
May 4, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SANCTUARY
A Celebration of 81 Years in the CHBC Sanctuary

Acts 1:1-14; Psalm 47:1, 6-9; 93:5; 68:3-6, 10, 32-35;
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11; Luke 24:44-53

It is true what they say: God does not only dwell in buildings. God is everywhere and can be worshiped anywhere. King Solomon said as much in his prayer of dedication for the Temple: “Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, O God, much less this house that I have built!”

And yet, there is much to be said about profound experiences with God in sacred places. In a world where very little is sacred, or where so many trivial things are considered sacred or have become for us sacred idols, we all need places that are truly sacred.

A sanctuary is such a place. It doesn’t have to be a sanctuary. There are many sacred places other than sanctuaries. But I believe we need places like this where we can come to participate in the most sacred act in all of human living - the worship of the living God.

I believe it is good and right to put the very best of what we have into places dedicated for the worship of Almighty God. Great detail and importance is given in scripture to the building of temples, places for the worship of the Holy One. The finest of everything was to be used. It was built for the glory of God, and only the best and most glorious would do.

Down through the centuries, magnificent cathedrals and sanctuaries of worship have been constructed to the glory of God. One ancient cathedral, to show evidence of its purpose of glorying God, used the best and most intricate brick and stone on the outside at the very top of the cathedral, not to be seen by the human eye, only the eyes of God.

In our sacred spaces we desire beauty. Worship is greatly enhanced when we see beauty. We all need places of beauty that remind us of the beauty of God and evoke worship from us.

A few years ago I took a trip to Washington DC with twenty-six fifth graders. As we walked into the National Cathedral I overheard a ten year old girl say, “This is beyond Wow!” Walking into a place like that you cannot help but say to yourself, “This is a holy place meant for the worship of God.”

I love the beauty of this space. And many people in the past eighty years have given their best to make this a place of beauty. Giving sacrificially of their money, some even mortgaging their homes. Others using their hands to repair and restore. Others preparing the space for the Holy to enter. Today we give thanks to God for them and for their faithfulness.

But even the grandeur of cathedrals and the beauty of sanctuaries and all the sacrifice that makes this space available does not mean worship always takes place. It is easy to make of this hour something other than the worship of God.

Religious advertisements and catalogs come to the church every few days filled with books and ideas on how to liven up worship. They have titles like “Worship That Will Turn Your Big Church Into a Really Big Church.” Many of the books have to do with punching up your preaching: “Fifty Funny Stories for the Pulpit,” “Sad, Sappy Stories Guaranteed to Make Them Cry,” “Safe, Simple, Shallow Sermons,” “Alliterative Outlines that Gladden, Glorify, and Glitter Gracefully,” and for the less articulate preachers, “Sermons That You Can Mime.” They also address other elements of worship like, “Hymns That You Can Whistle.”

It reminds me of the Garrison Keillor story of a touring evangelist who brings her “Gospel Birds” to Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church. She comes out in a white robe with colored birds all along both arms. They fly across the sanctuary in “V” formation. At the time of offering, members of the congregation hold up their dollar bills and the birds fly from pew to pew to pick them up. The show also features a re-enactment of the Noah’s ark story in which the birds, dressed up as other animals, enter the ark two by two. [1]

A couple of weeks ago we actually had our own gospel bird in here - a pigeon had flown into the sanctuary through an open window. Bill chased it around but we never found it. So you could be surprised today in worship. Some of you have been asking for a little more spontaneity in worship. Well the opportunity is here. I’m just kidding. Bill got it out. We think.

The cynical among us, and we know who we are, think that it’s easier than ever to miss the point. Why do we keep coming to worship every Sunday? If we’re here to be entertained, then we ought to admit that this isn’t much of a show. If we’re here for self-improvement, then we need to know that therapy might be more useful. If we come here in order to feel good, then breakfast in bed with the newspaper or a good novel might be a better choice.

We are called first and foremost to be a house of prayer and worship for all people. The only reason good enough to bring us here is the worship of God. There are secondary purposes: being together, building community, sharing concerns. But first and foremost, we are here to lift up our hearts to the One Who Made Us in order to be transformed by the One Who Is Redeeming Us. If not, we’re missing the point.

As we reflect upon our church living into a new century of life together, worship and prayer must be at the very center. In worship and prayer we find our vision and our strength to be the people of God. Jesus made it clear when he said, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.

Worship, above all else, is prayer. Every element of worship should be designed to help you pray. To help you say to God, “I love you, God” and “thank you, God” and “help me, God” and “God, please help these others.”

All true worship is prayer, helping you offer yourself to God, and helping you listen for God. The church is to be a house of prayer and worship where we come to seek God, to know God, and to love God.

It is important to know that such prayerful worship can be a dangerous activity. You never know what might happen to change your life. Perhaps we should post large signs on the doors of the sanctuary that say, “Enter at your own risk!” For Jesus just might walk in and start overturning hearts and lives, never to be the same again.

You may want to keep your children away. They might just listen one day and hear a call to something different than what you have planned for them. Don’t let the beauty fool you: Houses of prayer and worship are dangerous places.

They are also places of joy when they are houses of prayer for all people. Only then are they true sanctuaries. God’s house of prayer is not a house for the morally and spiritually superior. It is a house of prayer for all people. The true church is the church that opens its doors of worship, prayer and fellowship to all and extends the welcome of Christ to all without distinction and with no hierarchy of sins and sinners. No one is excluded from God’s house. No one is a second class citizen within its walls or beyond them. Whosoever will come we must welcome as Christ welcomes. The true church is a house of prayer for all people.

I am grateful that so many people throughout the years have found the welcome of Christ in this house of prayer when they could not find it any where else. I would much rather be a part of a community guilty of welcoming too many than turning away any whom God loves.

Such inclusivity brings the joy of the gospel into our midst, and it fills our worship with a gladness beyond the walls of this world. It is a reminder that we are all children of God in need of grace.

Theologian Karl Barth said about preaching what is also true about the entirety of worship. He says, “Never lose a sense of humor about yourself.” A sense of humor in worship is not only a sign of humility but also a celebration that signifies the gospel’s great good news. “With Easter,” says Jurgen Moltmann, “the laughter of the redeemed. . . begins. Because God in Christ has broken the power of sin and death, congregations and preachers are free to laugh at themselves. They can mock hell and dance on the grave of death and sin.” Joy. And great laughter.

Tom Long, who teaches preaching at Candler School of Theology at Emory in Atlanta, tells of growing up us a child and worshiping in a small clapboard church in the red-clay farming land of rural Georgia. They were a congregation of simple folk, farmers and schoolteachers mainly, and the ministers led worship wearing inexpensive and ill-fitting dark suits, believing that robes were a sign of ostentation. (Can you imagine people thinking such?)

During the heavy heat of the summer months, Sunday worship included the waving of funeral home fans and the swatting of gnats. All the windows and doors of the sanctuary were opened wide to accept whatever merciful breezes might blow through.

On some Sundays, however, it was not a draft that blew in the church door but a neighborhood dog, a stray hound of indecipherable lineage who somehow found the worship service irresistible. He was not there every Sunday, but his summer appearances were frequent enough that some joked he had a better attendance record in worship than many of the church officers.

The ushers knew better than to try to run him off. They tried it only once and that drove him bounding toward the pulpit. So while the congregation sang hymns, the dog would sniff around at the ankles of the worshipers. Ushers would step around him on their way to take up the offering, and during the prayers of the people the dog would wander aimlessly about the room. He was an endless source of laughter and entertainment for the children, and he occasionally served as a handy and spontaneous sermon illustration with such references as “no more sense of right and wrong than that dog over there.”

Long reflects on that time. I give you his words:

Looking back on it now, I realize what a trial it must have been for our ministers to attempt to lead worship and to preach on those Sundays when this mongrel was scampering around the building and nuzzling the feet of the congregation. I readily confess that I do not covet similar circumstances for myself, but there was something wonderful about those times as well. Whatever else it may mean, a dog loose in worship unmasks all pretense and undermines false dignity. It was clear to us all that the grace and joy and power present in our communion, and these were present in abundance, were not of our own making. We were, after all, people of little worldly standing who could not keep even our most solemn moments free of stray dogs. I want to believe that even our dark-suited, serious-faced ministers were aware of the poetic connection between a congregation of simple farmers and teachers in their Sunday best with a hound absurdly loose in their midst and a gathering of frail human beings astonishingly saved by the grace of God, grace they did not control but could only receive as a gift. If so, then in some deep and silent place within them they were surely taken with rich and cleansing laughter - and if they were, they were better (Christians and) preachers of the gospel for it. [2]

There have been high and holy moments of transformation and laughter in this place. And we are better Christians for them.

This sanctuary has been a holy place for literally thousands of people. A great cloud of witnesses gather here every week. When Paul Duke preached here a few weeks ago afterwards he said he could actually see the faces of the past scattered around this room and where they used to sit.

What a sacred space! What a holy history!

Built 81 years ago, this house of worship has been a sacred place for many of us.

We have been married here.
We have grieved here.
(Hopefully not at the same time.)

We have laughed and cried here.

We have heard the summons to follow Christ in this place and been washed in the waters of baptism.

We have come to cast our anxiety upon God and have found hands beneath us and arms around us. We discovered in this place that the One Who Made Us is the One Who Loves Us Most.

We have come here week after week in search of transcendence, something beyond ourselves, and raised our heads and seen God’s shining face.

In this place, we have come face to face with our own sin and felt the touch of grace and forgiveness upon our tongues in bread and wine, and upon our hearts in a spoken word, a moment of silence, a song, a prayer, a hymn, an anthem.

We have come, as the psalms instruct us, to lift songs to God with hearts full of joy, accompanied by the triumphant sounds of organ and trumpet or the gentle strings of guitar and cello.

And as Jesus did the disciples, we have felt Christ lift his hands and bless us and our children.

We have come to offer prayers for those we know who are suffering.

And, like the disciples, praying and waiting for the Spirit to come at Pentecost, many of us have found our calling in this place to go where God sends us and the courage to be a person for God out in the world.

That’s what happens when we meet God in authentic worship. Tears of repentance. Songs of joy. Cries of grief. Moments of transformation. Sounds of silence. A touch of healing and blessing. And yes, laughter. The great laughter of redemption.

If these walls could speak . . . Who says they don’t?

___________________

1. Garrison Keillor, “Gospel Birds,” audio book, 1989.
2. Thomas Long, The Witness of Preaching, 16-17.