High Risk! High Reward!

Text: Matthew 6:24-34
Theme: “High Risk! High Reward!”
Eighth Sunday After the Epiphany
February 27, 2011
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

IN THE NAME OF JESUS


24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[e]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

In this week’s installment from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells: “Do not worry about your life.” If you have questions or comments about this, I invite you to take them up with the Lord. Don’t ask me; I only work here! Again, lest we didn’t hear it the first time, Jesus said: “Do not worry about your life.” About the best I can offer is t his: Go out this week and live your life with great enthusiasm; experience your week all footloose and fancy free! Shame on you if you worry! Don’t wish it were that simple?

Like much else, you can look at this one of two ways. First, you hear this command and can be forgiven for thinking that Jesus has gone looney-tunes on us. He’s nuts! Perhaps our man Jesus is just tired and overworked. Maybe he’s having a rough day. We’ve all had those from time to time. Everyone knows that it is impossible not to worry about your life. I mean, aside from family members and close friends, if you’re not going to worry about your life, who is? We grown-ups would do well to sit at the feet of the little ones a bit more. They have much to teach us. Little children don’t worry that much if at all. That comes later when you reach a certain age of accountability or arrive at a more sophisticated level of maturity. Then it’s proper and appropriate to worry. The Bible says that “Man is born to trouble as sparks fly upward.” If there is trouble, then there is worry – either before or after the trouble. Demanding that we not worry is like telling the sun not to shine; it’s like Rush Limbaugh coming out in support of Obamacare; it’s like Nancy Pelosi calling for a huge tax cut for the rich. Folks, it just isn’t going to happen. So, as we have observed, one way of looking at the command of Jesus, is to say that Jesus has a few neurons flaking off; his elevator doesn’t make it to the top floor; he’s a couple of tacos shy of a combination plate.


There’s a second way to look at our Lord’s imperative, “Do not worry.” It’s a more religious way. Jesus made a rule, and rules are meant to be followed. End of discussion. Don’t talk the about the reasoning or motive behind the rule. Neither argue about the outcome of not obeying or even obeying the rule. A few years back at a Bible class, the pastor asked: “What do you think the Bible is?” A regular respondent replied – with an air of confidence: “It’s God’s book of instructions.” If that’s true, then coming to church and attending church school is little more than receiving our marching orders for the week and then going out to accomplish them. Folks limited to thinking this way have no problem whatsoever when Jesus issues rules. When Jesus issues rules, they determine that Jesus is doing just what He should be doing.

So with the first way, we have a Jesus who is, at best, unrealistic, and, at worst, mildly insane. Not good. With the second, we find a Jesus who enables us to slip back into the ways of the Old Covenant which is all about playing by the rules. But that would only show that we are no longer trusting the New Covenant. Again, it’s not good.

Thus, we are back at square one. What do we make of it when Jesus says “Do not worry about your life”? We good Presbyterians, I think, can get the hang of that – up to a point. We are aware of our human condition: sinful. We are aware of what Christ came to do: to save us from our sinful condition by grace alone through faith alone. We rejoice – and rightly so! – at that great blood-bought redemption earned for us by Jesus Christ.

But life – life in the here and now and not in the sweet bye and bye -- isn’t all one round of rejoicing after another. We still live in a world where a young child lies this very morning in the ICU of Children’s Medical in Dallas due to injuries sustained in a freak accident; we live in a world where one out of every one hundred fifty children born be will be autistic; we live in a world where a dictator can order troops to fire on his own people; we live in a world where the killing of innocents is condoned in a “holy war” for God’s honor, and we fear that we might anger those forces. We live in a world where cancer is random, political arguments are heated, and economic uncertainties are so palpable you can cut them with a knife. We live in a world where a government crumbles, the stock market tumbles, and the price of a barrel of crude goes up, up, up. We live in a world where prayer has been reduced to individual or collective bargaining with God. We live in a world where freedom of religion is becoming synonymous with freedom from religion. Meanwhile, darker forces with theocratic notions are more than content to wait in the wings for the next opportunity to pounce – with guns, missles, nukes, hijacked planes, anthrax, C4, Semtex, you name it. They way many folks cope with this is too whistle through their lives, updating their Facebook status with the latest pleasantries, and living in a state of carefree denial.

Two weeks ago yesterday, I stood in front of the pope’s altar in St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. Hundreds upon hundreds – if not thousands! – of people were wandering around that huge edifice taking it all in. They gazed spellbound at the art, the magnificent baldachino above the altar, and the images, and the statues, and the words of Jesus and St. Peter chiseled into granite and gilded in gold along the ceiling . Meanwhile, over in the left transept of that great basilica, a priest was conducting mass. Less than twenty people participated in that service while hundreds of others looked on amused and, for the most part, disinterested. Many of the rest, it seemed, were practicing the religion of “Sheila-ism”.

Have you ever heard of “Sheila-ism”? In 1985, a Cal-Berkely sociologist by the name of Robert Bellah wrote a book titled Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. In it, he told of a young nurse by the name of Sheila Larson. As Bellah relates, Sheila Larson was a believer in God but, in the end, her faith was in herself. Sheila said: “My faith has carried me a long way. It’s Sheila-ism – just my own little voice.”

It all suggested to me that I live in a world that has essentially moved beyond Christianity into what I’m not sure. My hunch is that it’s a social Darwinism where survival belongs to the fittest – with the fittest being defined as those with the best genes, the most money, the real estate, the mineral rights, the bursting stock portfolio, the flashiest clothes, and the finest food. This is not to say that there isn’t respect for Christianity or its place in the ebb and flow of history. This is not to say that there isn’t even admiration for the contributions Christianity has made to the arts, to literature, and to human experience in general. Only a few minutes away from the basilica, I found my own neck straining with countless other necks as we took in the work of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. Appreciating art is all well and good, but such an appreciation – it seems needless to say – is not the antidote to worry. It’s only a distraction from it. Neither is Sheila-ism. And what is there to say about Sheila-ism as nations and even state governments in the United States are enveloped in a tide of collective revolution?

Once more, we are back at square one. “Do not worry about your life,” says Jesus. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

But we pause to listen to Jesus and then pick up right where we left off – worrying about carbohydrates and calories and polyunsaturated fats. Show me a slow news day, and I’ll show you another report about what foods are good for you what foods are not so good.

“Any why do you worry about clothes?” asks Jesus. “See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith.”

That we worry about clothes – and are even obsessed by clothes – is evident all around us. Styles and trends and fashion fads are splashed across the internet, magazines, and retail aisles everywhere. The world may be falling apart, but we’re going to be dressed for the occasion it seems.

It makes no difference at what area of your life you look it; it makes no difference what events in the world are transpiring. Around the corner lurks the specter of worry. Jesus, stating the obvious, says “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”

Okay, Jesus. I’ve had about enough. I give up. I deny it no longer. I accept that worry has hit me like a category 5 hurricane. What, pray tell, do you suggest as an alternative?

Are you ready? Jesus is. He’s only too ready to answer. He says: “Seek first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

This is the truth – both simple and profound – that is the antidote to worry. When the order of first importance in your life is seeking God’s Kingdom, there is no time for worry. Your mind and your spirit are focused elsewhere. In everything you think, say, or do, you seek the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness. And better yet, you don’t have to seek very much or look very far. Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God is at hand; the kingdom of heaven is near.” It’s as near as the sound of God’s Word banging into your ear drums, as near as the person sitting next to you, as close as the bread and wine you take into your mouth in the Lord’s Supper.

Jesus proposes something that is, as they say, “high risk and high reward.” It’s high risk because worry is so familiar. To not worry is unfamiliar. We’re not used to it. But this is where your faith in God comes in – faith that God is sovereign and God is gracious and that all things are going to work together for your good, my good, and our good. That’s a high reward, and it’s ours as a gift!

Seek first the kingdom of God. Lord, we believe. Help, Thou, our unbelief.

Amen.