Sermon on Matthew 6:25-33
This sermon was preached as the Stewardship/Pledge Drive Kickoff Sermon at St. James Church, Upper Montclair, NJ in the Fall of 2011.
Good morning. It is great to see you all, and I’m grateful for this opportunity to share the gospel with you this morning for the launch of our Pledge Drive. Today’s gospel reading from Matthew is familiar to me in my life. It reminds me of my Sunday School days, singing the praise song based on this text: Seek Ye First the kingdom of God……maybe you’re familiar with it. (sing portion of the song)
Removed from the context of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew, there is potentially a dangerous misunderstanding with that song. When I was a kid, the way I took that song was to say if I am a good little Christian, God will provide everything I want and need. Today there are preachers who will give you that same message. If you are a faithful Christian, God will provide. Some who preach this “prosperity gospel” will say that God wants you to have everything you want in life, regardless of how it impacts His creation. Those who are poor or suffering injustice simply need to be more faithful in asking for what they want. Is this what Jesus is saying when he tells us not to be anxious?
This teaching from Jesus is situated in the Sermon on the Mount, a sermon filled with what are often called the “hard teachings” of Jesus. This is surely one of Jesus’ hardest teachings. Do not worry about your life. What one of us has gone a single day without being worried about our own lives? For many in our society, a day is a series of one thing to worry about after another. We wake up and worry about getting ready for work on time. We worry about making it to the gym before work because we’re worried about our health and how we look. We worry about how we dress. We worry about getting the kids off to school. We worry about our finances. We worry about problems at work. We worry about our jobs, our mortgage, our families, our responsibilities…..after all, that’s the responsible thing, right? (smile)
Jesus’ teaching in this passage seems so far removed from our world that it cannot possibly apply to us. Today we live in a market driven society with an economy on the brink of yet another recession. In our next Presidential election, the economy will be issue #1. Our society is a complex web of capitalist competition, of businesses trying to survive, creating jobs that in turn feed families, of loans used to pay for the constantly increasing price of homes so that we have shelter. In today’s climate of a 9.1% unemployment rate, a $14 trillion dollar national debt, which is over $47,000 per citizen by the way, and now a European economy on the verge of collapse, how we can do anything but worry about how we will continue to eat, drink, and provide for our families? How can we do anything but worry about money? Wouldn’t it simply be bad stewardship to ignore these facts and simply trust in God to provide? Can Jesus really be calling us today in Montclair to seek only after God’s kingdom and to not be anxious about anything else?
If we are going to unlock the meaning of this passage for us today, we need to ask what does Jesus mean when he says to seek after God’s kingdom and righteousness. If it isn’t to be good little Christian boys and girls, going to church and Sunday School and being nice the other 6 days of the week, then what is Jesus talking about?
In our reading from 2 Corinthians this morning Paul used the same curious word, righteousness. Paul wrote “He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor, His righteousness endures forever.” Paul here is quoting the Psalms. Often times we think of God’s action in the Old Testament, and we hear God characterized as angry or vengeful. But the Hebrews thought the complete opposite of God. Their God was the Creator, the Provider, the One who led them out of Egypt and provided manna from heaven. God’s righteousness was shown in feeding the poor and caring for the marginalized. The God of the Hebrew people is the God who is always freely pouring out his grace and love, providing for those in need and calling His people to care generously for others.
The God of the Bible is the self-giving one. It was self-giving love that led God to create the world. It was self-giving love that led the Son of God to die, and it is self-giving love that calls us to the water of new life in baptism and to the Feast of our Lord, the Eucharist, always open to those who come to be renewed in that new life. “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Everyone who thirsts come to the waters, and you that have no money, come buy and eat!” The God of both Jew and Christian is the God who endlessly pours out himself to us in love.
In our first hymn this morning we sang that Creation itself cries out to God in praise in response to that love. And that is truly what stewardship is all about: our response to the God of endless giving and abundance. In today’s readings, that Fount of Every Blessing is calling us to follow him, to model our own lives in his fashion. This is the hard teaching of Jesus this morning: to follow in his footsteps. On Jesus’ path he did not care at all about his own life. That path led him to the Garden of Gethsemene where he prayed “not my will, but yours be done.” That path led him to death on a cross.
Stewardship is not about being apathetic toward our things and one another, it is about modeling ourselves after our Lord, who was willing to give everything, including his life for what he loved and cherished, his Creation. Stewardship is about relating to our things and one another the way God relates to them, seeing them the way God sees them, and loving them the way God loves them. Stewardship is about seeking God’s righteousness, the right relationship with each other, with the whole world, and all of Creation. Jesus’ commitment to Creation led him to die for it, and today he is calling us to offer our whole selves as well in giving abundantly, giving our whole lives to one another, to a hurting environment, and to those in desperate need.
Stewardship is farmers in Iowa giving their excess crops to drought victims in Texas. It is the tremendous outpouring of time and money to victims of hurricane Irene and the victims of the Japanese earthquakes. It is starting a new parish wellness ministry here, so that we can better care for ourselves and one another. Stewardship is dedicating ourselves to the community of St. James’, of loving one another here, and being the hands and feet of Jesus in this town… and as far away as Panama. Stewardship is being the kind of community that models itself after Christ’s self-giving love.
After our service today, we will gather in the Parish Hall to consider how we work together to create that kind of community here, what resources, skills, and gifts we have to build up our Church, our town and our World for the kingdom of God. Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift: to follow in his footsteps here in this place.