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.