The Eighth Sunday after the
Epiphany, Year A, 2011
Matthew 6: 24-34
The Rev. Ronald N.
Johnson
“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?” My first thought on looking at the gospel
reading for today was, “Thank God I don’t have to preach this in
Haiti.” When you are living in absolute poverty, in a refugee
camp without adequate shelter, adequate clothing, adequate food,
adequate medicine and cholera is raging, it is a little hard not to
worry. So, let’s look at what is unquestionably one of the best
known, most beautifully phrased passages to be found in the New
Testament and ask ourselves what Jesus was really saying in this part
of his Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus tells us not to worry
about earthly things, even those things that are core needs: food,
shelter, clothing. He says that there are other things of far
greater importance: righteousness, justice and mercy; things of the
Kingdom. Strive first for the Kingdom of God; in other words,
keep your values in perspective. Your highest value must be your
relationship with God and for Christians that is a relationship bound,
in baptism, to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Years ago, a Lutheran pastor
told me about his younger years, before he came to America, the land of
plenty. An ethnic German, he was born and spent his earlier years
in Eastern Europe and fled west, before the advancing Russian army,
towards the end of World War Two. He and his family lived, until
they were able to immigrate to America, in a refugee camp, in which
hunger was prevalent and there was a shortage of most
necessities. His family was devoutly Christian and they prayed a
lot about their situation. His father often spoke of this passage
in Matthew’s gospel, trying to encourage the family to keep
faith. Helmut, my friend, decided that something more than
praying was in order and became an accomplished thief, stealing food
and other necessities for himself and his family. He told me that
it seemed to him that Jesus had never lived in a refugee camp or he
would never have said not to worry about what you would eat.
It took some growing up, in
maturity and in faith, for my friend to begin to recognize the true
meaning of this passage and to find it a source of inspiration and
faith. And, it was equally hard for him to come to the realization that
stealing, even under those circumstances, was not the thing to
do. What he had done, he came to understand, was to render even
greater suffering on those from whom he stole, in order to alleviate
his own, when the Christian call was to alleviate suffering not just
for himself but for others.
Clearly Jesus was not
indifferent to suffering and made very clear the Christian obligation
to care for the needy: to feed the hungry, to cloth the naked, to show
mercy and bring relief to those who are oppressed. Jesus knew
well that suffering is a reality of life, and for many it is, and
remains, the primary reality. So it is a given that Jesus did not
downplay basic human needs when he said not to be anxious about food,
clothing and shelter. Another reality is that this world in which
we live has always been composed of those who have and those who have
not. Natural wealth is not equally divided, and, when disaster
strikes, even when it strikes across social class, the poor seem to
suffer even more, and have fewer resources by which to cope. For
far too many, life simply is not fair.
The first thing we must
realize is that we cannot equate suffering as God’s punishment for
sin. Suffering may be a ramification of sin, but it is inflicted
by the sinner, not God. It follows, as I said earlier, that the
Christian obligation is to alleviate human suffering in any way that we
can. If we are materially comfortable, then our gospel passage
tells us that we really need to focus on values, and remember that we
cannot serve two masters; we cannot serve God and wealth.
Personal wealth has to be secondary to pursuit of the Kingdom of God,
and the only way we can pursue the Kingdom is by loving justice,
showing mercy and walking humbly with God.
Those who are not among the
comfortable understandably worry about meeting their daily needs, but
being needy is not license to put self above others and to lie, cheat
and steal one’s way to comfort. We live in a difficult world, but
we serve God by serving others and doing all that we can to alleviate
misery wherever and however we can. When we recall the
immeasurable value that God places on all creation but most of all upon
humanity, when we recall God’s own sacrifice for us in Jesus Christ,
and then determine that we will follow in our Savior’s footsteps, we
build the Kingdom for everyone. Amen.