Restoring Integrity to the Words: "Do Not Worry"

Trinity Church, Reno, Nevada

Eight Sunday after Epiphany
Is 49:8-16a
Psalm 131
I Cor 4:1-5
Mt. 6:24-34

In the Gospel today, Jesus says, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink.” Initially I admit that these words are of a little comfort to me. As you know through my new monthly column in the Trinity newsletter I do worry a lot about what I am to eat and drink. As fun as those little restaurant pieces are to write, a literal reading of today’s Gospel risks the loss of a more provocative message. The Good News of today’s Gospel is that God will provide for our most basic needs so that we are free to unreservedly live into the fullness of God’s mission. Jesus knows however that our availability for God’s mission has been diminished due to the way our trust has been scarred by broken human relationships.

The question Jesus asks each of us today is meant to invoke indifference to our most basic human needs. Common definitions of indifference suggest postures of not caring about something. Obviously then not caring is utterly irresponsible and we ought to reject this Gospel as unhelpful to our contemporary human condition. (End of sermon) However, not caring is very different from when we act out of complete trust. Jesus invites us today into this kind of radical trust when we do not even care what it is we will eat. Holy indifference means that we live absolutely convinced that God provides for our needs.

When we live this way then all of our energy is available to be invested as Paul says in the first Corinthians reading, as “servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries”. I have always associated stewardship with prudent preservation of resources not with preservation of God’s mysteries. When I think about stewardship as preservation of scarce resources that seems without fail to increase my anxieties about what I am to eat. The Gospel challenges us to redirect our worries about from what we are to eat to God’s mysteries.

We miss a deeper message behind these readings if we interpret mysteries as some lofty way of thinking theologically or even philosophically about God. The mystery is not exclusively about God as if God was some statue in a museum that draws our idle worship. The Isaiah reading beautifully focuses our attention “I have inscribed you on the palm of my hands”.

The words that precede these state “Can a woman forget her nursing child?” The Psalmist words were “But I still my soul and make it quiet, like a child upon its mother’s breast; my soul is quieted within me.” The mystery we are called to preserve is this sacred trust between God as nursing mother and all humanity.

In this way today’s Gospel attempts to call us back from the chronic loss of trust that we all suffer from through our broken human relationships. When we lack confidence in God and fail to trust God’s fulfillment of our most basic needs then we become anxious and cherish that, which does not nurture us. To be a steward who “preserves God’s mysteries” is the work we all do through our efforts to preserve the honor and dignity of every person. When we act out of our abundance and trust that God will care for our needs then we serve families through Family Promise or Baby Bundles or sack lunches.

My focus so far has been on relationships specifically between God and humanity like that between the nursing mother and her child. If we take this analogy too far then we may be inclined to believe, as often is the case, that our life of faith is solely based on our relationship with God. As a congregation however we are responsible for one another. Not only are we responsible to one another, our individual actions represent and speak for Trinity Church and also for The Episcopal Church. When we are warm and friendly to newcomers, they do not just say that was a lovely person they also say Trinity is a warm and friendly place. Think about it we are all responsible for Trinity Church not just through our pledging and ministries, but the way each and every one of us treats strangers.

In 1787 Absalom Jones and other black members of St. George’s were asked by the senior white ushers to sit in the balcony. The ushers’ poor choices have been remembered as choices St. George’s Church made. If those ushers who sent Absalom Jones and his friends to the balcony thoroughly trusted God then they would have met Absalom Jones and his friends and showed them to the best seats in the church. Instead the ushers’ individual anxieties became an expression of an anxious, unwelcoming, self-centered and even violent church. History does not even remember the names of the ushers. All that has been remembered is the name of the church.

The Episcopal Church has made so many strides of inclusion over the last few centuries and even during the last year. We all do well to celebrate these inclusions too. However, there is much more at stake for congregations as we live into the fullness of God’s mission than just a spirit of inclusiveness and radical hospitality.

We might be the most inclusive church in the world, but if we are anxious about our most basic needs then we will be vulnerable to cherish things of the world more than God’s beloved people. Are we anxious about what we will eat and all other human concerns or do we abundantly invest in God’s beloved people?

A pastor friend of mine who is not an Episcopalian spends much of his ministry knocking on doors and welcoming people to come to his church. He particularly looks to knock on the doors of families with children who might not otherwise afford to go to high school or college. When he visits these families he often gives them money to send a needy son or daughter to college. My pastor friend has done this for many years. He reports that when the funded person graduates from college they never forget their pastor or his church.

Those who return to Reno come to his church and others who live far away send him money to continue his ministry. My friend is convinced that churches grow when they invest more in people than in buildings. My friend’s ministry is counter-intuitive to our anxious human inclinations to worry about our next meal and all that self-centeredness entails. The counter-intuitive move of today’s Gospel is that we honor the sacred trust of being nurturers of God’s beloved like the nursing mother with her child in the Isaiah passage. To invest in people is a profound act of trust that the pastor will have enough to eat so that he may give abundantly without reserve.

I want to tell you now about another good man. My dad had the posture that I think the Gospel is calling all of us into today. I grew up in a working class family. My dad worked three jobs so his five children would trust that their most basic needs were met as well as received the privilege of a college education. My parents never owned a car or a house and never could afford to travel outside of NYC until he retired.

My dad never worried about what it is he was to eat. In fact Dad’s lunch every day of his working life was a jelly sandwich and a couple of socialtea cookies. In the midst of my parents’ obvious lack of wealth, my dad always told us kids that we were his most precious assets. Dad often said, particularly in times of his most dire need, “I am a very lucky man as I have five precious jewels in my two daughters and three sons”. Fifty years later I remember my dad as an unselfish man who gave without reserve all he had. My dad like my Reno pastor friend invested in my future dignity. Today Jesus invites us to transform our anxieties from what it is we are to eat and to preserve, cherish and invest in all God’s beloved, restoring humanity’s trust in God and the Gospel’s integrity.

Raising the stakes a little bit higher (afterall we are in Nevada!), in years to come will history remember Trinity Church and The Episcopal Church as having preserved the dignity of every person as their most precious assets? We know in 1787 St. George’s answer to Absalom Jones dramatically fell short of this godly ideal.

I readily admit to you that this is a very demanding Gospel. Today’s Gospel invites us to completely and without reserve trust God. When we cease to be anxious about what we will eat then we can throw ourselves completely into God’s mission. However remember the Gospel invitation is not just about us. Anxiety of all kinds depletes energy and serves as a distraction from our mission as stewards of God’s mysteries. Untransformed our self-centered anxieties also hurt people like Absalom Jones and risk their trust in God.

When we have successfully restored trust to our daily human relationships it will be more likely for others to believe that God takes care of their most basic needs. The words “do not worry about what you are to eat” represent our unreserved trust in God. Our lifetime work is to preserve that sacred trust when our anxious souls are quieted through our holy indifference and all our energy is free and available to live into the fullness of God’s mission. In the meantime let us thank God for God’s awesome trust in us and in this church! Let us collectively choose to live into this awesome responsibility and be remembered as stewards of God’s mysteries.