Matthew 6:25-34 Jesus reminds his followers to trust only in God
Outside of the church, I find that some of my favorite conversations are at the gym where Andrea and I go together five mornings a week. I told you about “Fantastic Fred” a few weeks ago. This past week I had a conversation with another guy at the gym about trust. It reminded me of the great experience Andrea, Ben and I had on my first sabbatical in 1997. [My brain works this way!] If you’ve been around at least a dozen years you may remember the story. It was the trip of a life time as we drove across the country – to the south, to the west, then north up the Pacific coast.
As we made the turn from Oregon toward the east in early August, we drove through some cold weather in Idaho and Montana. I was thinking winter. So the next time we wandered into a grocery store my eye fell on a box of “Cream of the West.”
This is not your average bland cereal like Cream of Wheat. This is seven grains complete with chaff and hulls. So I bought a box, and when we’d gotten back home and finished that one box I wanted more. I dialed the (800) number on the label and called Billings, Montana, to ask how I could get some.
I spoke to a pleasant woman named Linda and we chatted for a while about Montana, Maine, winter and various other topics. I told her my parents were co-pastors at the Congregational Church at Billings in 1940. She told me they ship Cream of the West all over the country, so I ordered a case. I said “I’ll give you my VISA number.” “Oh,” she replied, “we don’t take credit cards. We’ve been avoiding that as long as we can.”
“Well I guess I can send a check and wait for the cereal.” I know I sounded disappointed. “No need,” Linda answered. “We’ll just enclose an invoice. We’re a little company and I’m the billing department as well as the secretary and shipping clerk.”
“Thanks for trusting me,” I said. My new friend Linda answered: “You can always trust people who eat hot cereal!”
If only it were so simple to tell who’s worthy of trust:
- to seal a deal with a handshake,
- to leave our cars and homes unlocked, or hearts unguarded.
- to believe in the good intentions and integrity of others.
The presumed age of innocence has been replaced with an era of betrayal and mistrust, along with the worry and anxiety that accompany them:
- sexual misconduct by priests in the Roman Catholic Church, and the cover-ups that have followed;
- political gamesmanship at local, state, national and international levels that have been both the cause and the effect of bitterly divided world-views;
- promises that are made, then compromised and broken in our own personal lives.
All around us are reminders that we can’t assume good will, can’t count on the way things have always been. As Ronald Reagan famously said about our relationship with Russia, “Trust… but verify.” Is it safe to trust?
Back to the gym: for months I’ve been aware of a man who works out with heavy weights. He’s small but solid as a rock, and has several tattoos that look home-made; he wears a chain with several medallions including a cross.
We’d never spoken… only nodded on occasion. Last week, as I was working out – with a much gentler routine – he approached me. “You’re a minister, right?” Somebody must have told him ‘cause I sure didn’t look like it in shorts and a t-shirt, all sweaty. I admitted the truth.
“Can God help someone who doesn’t want help?” I thought for a moment… “I think God uses us to help others. Maybe God can use you to help someone else. But even God can’t force someone to accept help when they don’t think they need it.” I told him the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Then he told me more about a young woman who’d been used and abused by others and how she didn’t trust anyone. He said he befriended her because someone had once helped him when his life was a mess and had asked nothing in return. Now he wanted to do the same, but this young woman just wouldn’t trust him; wouldn’t believe that he had no ulterior motive.
Maybe I should have asked him if he eats hot cereal for breakfast. The woman at the Cream of the West factory in Billings, Montana, said you can trust people who eat hot cereal for breakfast!
We want to trust others because we know that living with caution, suspicion, even cynicism eats away at us and often makes matters worse. We’re hungry for a relationship in which trust can be absolute. Some of us are lucky enough to find this with another person. All of us can find this with God.
Today’s Gospel reminds us that God doesn’t fail. The testimony of scripture is consistent:
“Therefore do not worry about your life saying ‘what shall we eat, what shall we drink, what shall we wear.’ But strive first for the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things shall be added to it as well,” taught Jesus.
While we can’t trust all people, all powers and principalities at all times, we claim that God is trust-worthy, in spite of any hard and painful experiences. We may think that modern inventions and technology give us greater security and certainty than our forbears could ever enjoy. But I’d wager few of us feel safer or more trusting than those who have so little:
We must trust in God:
- no less than did those early European settlers who gathered on this hill 280 years ago, and who cleared the land and built the Meetinghouse.
- no less than those today who struggle to move forward after devastating earthquake in New Zealand or the cholera outbreak in Haiti;
- no less than the couple who mark their 25th or 50th wedding anniversary with quiet, pained silence and not with joy;
- no less than the parents who’ve tried every approach they know to guide a struggling child who falls deeper and deeper into loneliness and depression.
When we’re powerless to make life work we have to lean into God’s trustworthiness; there’s nothing else to sustain us. Matthew tells us Jesus looked out over the crowds, and taught them saying: don’t worry about your life. Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else will be added to it.
Oh, really?! Only at great peril do we overlook life’s necessities. It’s no wonder this simple piety has been criticized across the ages. The homeless and hungry, the refugees and the aliens all remind us that there is a reason to be concerned about our daily needs.
But Jesus was offering a middle ground, a central approach. As one commentator said it so well: “Jesus’ commandment forbids both inactive anxiety and anxious activity.” Inactive anxiety means being lazy and worrying about it. Anxious activity means working as though we could save ourselves just by our effort. Jesus said neither path is faithful.
He wasn’t saying we should abandon common sense and reason, or ignore our need for food, clothing and shelter. He wasn’t saying we should sit idly, waiting for a miracle.
He was telling his followers then and now to put our ultimate trust only in God, and to remember that anything created by human hands and hearts can fail: our possessions, abilities, investments, and our relationships. The only source that won’t fail us is God.
We’re partners with God in building our lives and bringing some sense of healing to the world. Remember the picture of the person alone in a boat with the line “trust in God and keep rowing toward shore.” It’s both, really.
And the best way to build up that trust in God is first to look back at God’s trustworthiness.
- Take some time to count your blessings;
- Think about the tough times, the hard places where you only made it through by the grace of God.
- Be honest about the pain, but
- Recognize that God was certainly your companion, and likely your salvation.
- Pray for those who are hungry, thirsty, lonely, forgotten, forsaken, cast out, overlooked, scorned.
- And reach out to them.
Then resolve that you will be worthy of the trust of others:
- Faithfully use the gifts God has given;
- live as an agent who demonstrates compassionate caring for others, as together we create that world that Jesus pointed to – where none of us needs to worry about what to eat or drink or put on.
Seek first the realm of God and God’s righteousness and everything else will be added to it.
And remember to eat your hot cereal; you can always trust someone who eats hot cereal! Amen.