A sermon by Senior Minister John B. McCall, May 25, 2008
Matthew 6:24-34
Memorial Day has its roots in Decoration Day, established right after the Civil War as a day to mourn the Union soldiers who died in service to their country. It was a day for decorating the cemeteries where the fallen heroes lay. Over time former Confederate states joined us, and May the 30th was chosen date. By the end of the Second World War, Decoration Day was more commonly called “Memorial Day,” and in 1967 the Congress officially adopted that name. The next year, Congress moved it, and most federal holidays, to Mondays to create longer weekends for leisure-hungry Americans.
The meaning of this holiday has become broader over the years. It’s still a time to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers. It’s also customary to remember the everyday saints who rest from the labors… ancestors of countless generations, unknown heroes, public servants and others. It’s also a time for picnics, reunions, and community celebrations.
And, I think, this weekend of Memorial Day is a natural time for us to ask the persistent question posed in today’s Gospel lesson: what really matters most? When all is said and done, when we’re looking back over our own lives, what do you want to be able to say about it? What makes life good and meaningful and fulfilling?
I don’t think we need to cook up some new answer that no one has ever considered before. Wisdom abounds.
• The prophet Micah says God has shown us what is good; it’s to do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with God. (Micah 6:8)
• The ancient wisdom author of Ecclesiastes says we should be happy and enjoy ourselves; that we should eat, drink and take pleasure in all our toil.” (Eccl. 3:12-13) Sounds like a biblical mandate for steaks on the grill and good bottle of wine!
• The religious philosopher William James (1842-1910) says: “The great use of a life is to spend it for something that outlasts us.”
• Stephen Covey says the best purpose in life is to live, to love, to learn and to leave a legacy.
These are all great ideas, all important reminders. And I really think if you managed to follow any of this wise advice you’d be glad you did. But I think Jesus’ teachings give us some of the wisest advice.
Today’s lesson comes from the heart of the great moral teaching called “The Sermon on the Mount.” Matthew devotes chapters 5, 6, and 7 – verse after verse of wise counsel and sage advice that Jesus gave his followers. Scholars think it’s likely these jewels were spoken at various times in various settings, but that Matthew or an earlier author gathered them all together in one place.
Today’s reading from chapter six feels like Jesus’ prescription for how to get the most out of life. It’s part of a larger section that warns against the greatest human temptation. Here Jesus says that you and I and everyone gets tempted into believing that IRA’s and 401K’s and rising stock markets and sub-prime mortgages are the route to true happiness. If we’re just clever enough we can wheel and deal and beat the system and end up happy and satisfied.
Wrong, says Jesus. Why? Because such an attitude about money means you’re putting it ahead of God and nothing good can come from that.
If we think we can feel secure by accumulating wealth, we’re fooling ourselves on two levels. First, because anything you can touch, count, collect, buy or sell is going to fail. Anything made by human hands is going to rust or rot or get stolen by thieves – some of whom wear pin-striped suits.
Just as important, said Jesus, if you spend all your time pursuing wealth and success, thinking they make you secure, then you’ve got it backwards. You’re worshiping wealth rather than worshiping God, serving money rather than serving the Creator.
The answer? Get things back where they belong. Tune your life to harmony with God’s holy purpose. Pay attention to that – to what you believe God wants for you in your life – and then you will see that everything else falls into place.
Two of the people I remember on this Memorial Day Sunday are my father’s parents. They had met at a Bible College on Missouri, married, and then gone to Japan as missionaries in 1908. Grandpa was a Congregational minister from Missouri and grandma an English teacher from Los Angeles. The first year they were in Japan their first child, Merritt, was born. Then my dad was born, then another son who died within a year. Then their daughter, my aunt, was born.
In 1920, their first son, now ten years old, contracted diphtheria and died within two days. I have a poignant letter from my grandfather to his family back in the US, written the day after his son’s death. He referred to today’s verses from Matthew as he wrote:
Dear Ones, especially you who are yet in life’s prime and those of you who are just launching out into life, I want to tell you if I can some of the things I feel deeply now. There is nothing worth while but the Eternal Kingdom. Christ said “Seek ye first the Kingdom and its righ¬teousness and all these other things will be added.” Do we really do that? If we do not we are making an awful mistake… We can make certain professions but I am determined more now than ever before to put God absolutely first. Life here is entirely too short to put so much time on affairs that pertain only to it. The beautiful flowers that Merritt gathered with his own hands are still fresh and sweet standing in a little vase by his and Robert’s pictures but in a few days they will fade: so will all our hopes which are centered in the things of time. One of our young pastors here said “Unless we have a clear call to a deeper consecration through this incident then the sacrifice has been too great.” Will you please pray for us and covet for yourselves a deeper appreciation of the things of God.
He also described my grandmother’s grief as she referred to her son’s death as “a deep pruning that will yield greater growth.” I can’t say that remaining so stoic in the face of such overwhelming loss is the healthiest approach. What I do know is that my grandparents lived what they believed. They truly sought the kingdom of God first, living on next-to-nothing but love, in a small community in Japan where they served a first-generation Christian Church; losing two sons to illness half a world away from their families, and then returning to this country at the start of the Second World War, knowing that people they loved were dying on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.
I remember my grandparents’ Christmas presents, and trying to hide my disappointment when, as a child of 8 or 10, ripped open the wrappings and found a well worn necktie with food spots on it, that they’d bought at a church rummage sale. I had to be a little older to realize the tremendous love that came wrapped in every package. For them, seeking first the kingdom of God meant doing without every luxury, but they always had the necessities and quite a lot more. And they always had enough to share with others – whether another place at the supper table or a 10% tithe to their church. Because the dignity with which they lived came from the confidence that God loved them and would not let them do without anything they really needed.
Seek first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and everything else will be added to it. Jesus tells his skeptical listeners that they can trust in God’s providence, God’s faithful care-giving, because there is ample evidence all around them.
And what was Jesus’ wisdom about seeking first the Kingdom of God? Pretty simple, really. He said to all of us: be single-minded. Keep asking yourself what really matters… what one thing, one emphasis, one focus is at the core of your life? It may be money, it may be power, security, ego, or something else. But whatever it is, that’s your God.
When you focus on your relationship with God there’s less time and energy for money and power and ego and other things. Jesus knew we’d experience withdrawal symptoms when we tried to refocus our lives on God instead of stuff.
We’re all likely to say “if I don’t spend every waking hour trying to earn money or score the big deal, I’m going to starve. If I don’t spend all my time trying to dazzle people they’ll just ignore me.”
Jesus knew that and pointed us all toward the everyday miracles that show God is paying attention and worrying about our well-being, so we don’t have to. Worrying won’t add an inch to your height or a day to your life. Look around you and see the evidence. Everywhere you turn you’ll see the truth that God takes care of Creation. The lilies of the field and the birds of the air bear witness to God’s amazing grace.
Jesus said: the one crucial matter in your life should be seeking out God’s will and living it every day.
• When you get up in the morning ask God to guide and strengthen you.
• When you face a choice ask what Jesus would do.
• When you feel a temptation to do what you know is wrong ask for strength to get through it.
• And, especially, when you’re tempted to worship money or power or ego, or anything other than God, reread this simple and powerful lesson from the Sermon on the Mount.
Don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will have challenges of its own. Let today’s troubles be enough for today.
It’s telling that the Greek word for “anxiety” has the same root as the word for “choke.”** Amen!
** The word translated “anxious” comes from the Greek verb merimnao, meaning “to be divided or distracted.” In Latin the same word is translated anxius, which carries the added nuance of choking or strangling. The word also appears in German as wurgen, from which we derive our English word worry. The tough stuff of anxiety threatens to strangle the life out of us, leaving us asphyxiated by fear and gasping for hope. FMI – see http://www.christianitytoday.com/tc/2005/002/3.28.html