Consider the Lilies
Rev.
Finley Schaef, preaching
Park Slope United Methodist Church, Brooklyn, NY
Sunday,
February 18,
1996
SCRIPTURE The appointed lesson for this day is Matthew 6:24-34
We cannot serve 2 masters, because we will hate one and love the other, or we will be faithful to one and despise the other. We cannot serve God and money. I say to you then: Do not worry about what you are going to eat or drink to stay alive, nor about the clothes that you are going to wear. Isn't life worth more than food, and the body worth more than clothes? Look at the birds in the sky, that do not sow or reap or have granaries; yet God in heaven feeds them. How much more valuable you are than the birds! You can worry all you want, but it won't make you grow! And why do you worry about clothes? Look at how the flowers grow in the fields; they do not work or spin, but not even King Solomon, with all his extravagance, looked so fine. If God dresses the wild grass this way, grass that today is in the field and tomorrow is burned in the oven, how much more will he do for you, O ye of little faith! Therefore do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat? How are we going to clothe ourselves?" God is your mother and father in Heaven and knows that you need all that. Look for the Kingdom of God and for the Garden of God before all else, and the rest will follow.
------Solentiname version above--------
No one can serve 2 Lords, for either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God & mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet God your heavenly Mother and Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one inch to your span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will God not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or What shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek all these things, and God you heavenly Mother and Father knows that you need them all. But seek first God's Kingdom -- seek first God's Commonwealth -- seek first God's Garden -- and all these things will be added unto you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
Questions for the congregation:
In one word, how would we describe yourself?
In one word, how would we describe NYC?
In one word, how would we describe the human race?
In one word, how would we describe everything -- the world! -- wholeness of being! -- reality!
Some might say that reality at its core is violent & destructive -- that death always has the last word. Their scripture would read, "Consider the lilies of the field. They are trampled by wild animals, scattered by the harsh winds, cut down and thrown into ovens. They live short lives and die quickly."
That's one way of thinking about it all.
Probably the most common answer in this age of science is that reality is indifferent -- indifferent to us, uncaring whether we live or die, and certainly uncaring about the kind of life we live. How could such a vast universe care in the least about us tiny human specks on an out-of-the-way planet?
Every now and then you will hear somebody say that ultimately we are alone. No matter how many people are in our lives or how much friendship -- we live our lives in essential alone-ness, and we die lonely deaths. We are essentially un-connected, and the vast universe, expanding into an unimaginable sea of space, is indifferent to our plight and to our existence. "Consider the lilies of the field. Alone in the field, they spring up and wither away and no one cares."
The bible has another point of view. The world is neither cruel at its core; nor is it care-less and indifferent. Jesus had another point of view. No amount of science can shake this religious faith.
Our religious interpretation of the wholeness of reality is, one, not cruel, and, two, not indifferent. Then what is it?
It is hinted at in this verse: "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
* * * * * * *
One of the most mysterious and yet powerful words in our religious language is "grace." When I was in seminary many years ago, the mysterious word "grace" intrigued me and I decided to write a paper on it. But I couldn't write the paper because I couldn't find anything in print about it. That's how much of a mystery it is. But I did end up with a 2-word definition: "free gift." That I remember. "Free" means we don't do something to earn it. But what kind of "gift" are we talking about? We know that it comes from God and it's what we need.
Back in 1992 we were celebrating the 500th anniversary of when Christopher Columbus dropped anchor in Cuba, or was it Haiti? -- on his way to the fabled India. One of the dailies was printing portions of his log, and I was struck to read one day that Columbus wrote about the sea being abundant with fish -- so abundant that they would occasionally fly out of the water and flop onto the deck of his ship.
That's how we Christians picture wholeness of being: reality abounds with what we need like an ocean is full of fish. We say: "God's Creation is gracious."
Grace does not supply us with what conventional wisdom says we need, like fame and fortune, or the cheers of the crowd and free trips for 2 to Hawaii. As the Rolling Stones sing: "You may not get what you want; but if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need."
The power of God is capable of meeting all our deepest needs, by divine grace, the "free gift" from heaven.
So, in a word, we say wholeness of being is not cruel, and we say wholeness of being is not indifferent -- it is gracious! It abounds in what we need.
* * * * * * *
In this passage Jesus also said: "We can't serve God and money." When we serve God, grace abounds. When we serve money -- no grace.
Money has awesome power -- not just to get things done but also to turn people into totally crazed materialists. It also has the power to destroy the spirit of trust between people.
I came across a book called 1-800-AM-I-NUTS by Margo Kaufman. She's got a humorous section in it about money wrecking relationships:
"We need to talk about money," says my husband, Duke. I clench my fists and begin to hyperventilate. Duke and I have a modern attitude about money -- we don't trust each other. "Are you free Monday night?" he asks. "I can't fight Monday night," I reply. The last thing I need to think about right now is how much we spent on Christmas and what's left for taxes.
"We're not going to fight," he says. "We're just going to balance our checkbook and pay some bills," he assures me. I want to believe him, but when I think back on the arguments we've had, it seems as if every one began as some petty monetary crisis. There was the skirmish over how could I pay 75 cents for a can of diet coke when the supermarket had 6-packs on sale for $1.29.
Duke says, "Show me a couple who's been together for longer than 3 months without conflict about money, and I'll show you a his-&-her crypt at Forest Lawn."
Faith in the graciousness of God's Creation has real effects on our soul. For one thing, as the scripture explicitly states, we worry less.
My experience is that money makes people worry and cuts off the flow of grace more than anything else. When we make money our master, we become stingy. I myself have gone through this kind of transition in my life. I began my young adulthood very worried about money -- of course I never had much but that wasn't really the cause. I was always painfully aware of the cost of things and I would get inwardly upset when someone in the family spent money frivolously. In 1975, so acute was my anxiety about money, I enrolled in a class studying "Das Kapital" -- German for Capital! Money! I thought Karl Marx might have the answer to my pain. And I believe, by the grace of God, in some way, he did! This is laughable of course, but when we suffer we do crazy things.
Another word to describe my condition in those days is "cheap." I was not only stingy; I was cheap! Over the years the grace of God worked on me and gradually my fears and worries about money subsided and I have now arrived at a saner place. I am more capable of generosity and sharing. God who is immeasurably generous teaches us, by grace, to become more open and sharing, not only with our material goods but with our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions too. By grace, generosity can become a characteristic of our entire being.
Stinginess is a place where eastern and western religious thought meet. Much eastern religious thought counsels us to "let go" and not try to hold on to the flow of life. When my brother was dying, he was counseled by Vedanta monks to "let go," which, unfortunately, also meant let go of family, meaning don't see them anymore -- don't see me! This was when he was dying. (I now interpret this advice as a move to get him to change his will from his family to the monks and the monastery.)
There's a phrase that has become popular recently -- we even see it as lapel pins: LET GO AND LET GOD. This is good advice -- easier to say than do, of course, but still good advice. This message to LET GO & LET GOD is hidden in today's teachings from the Sermon on the Mount.
It is common in these times of stress to lose our patience and become hysterical. We break under the pressure of a million things to do. Yesterday I lost my patience at the Chinese laundry because I was in a hurry. I wanted to return a book to the library; I wanted to check the sound system here in the sanctuary; I wanted to pick up some clothes at the cleaner and a pair of shoes at the shoemaker; I was worried about a finance report that's due Monday; I wanted to do a million things before my son and his family arrived from upstate. Then the guy who was being so slow apologized and introduced himself. He lived around the corner from the church and he knew me. I apologized too and relaxed and we began to talk. I spent more time talking to him than I thought I had to spare! I learned a lesson: in moments of high stress, we are fully able to relax -- we need to breathe deeply and let go. We need only "consider the lilies of the field."
The same is true of our entire life's work and path. I got a letter from a woman who used to live at the Grail upstate, and then she moved to South Carolina. "Where I am is lovely. But there is such an individual workstyle. I'm going to my sister's house for a month in Texas to reflect and relax. I don't know what the options are, but I trust the journey that got me here this far, and I trust the future."
"The deepest experience the human being can have is the act of trust called faith." [Verna Dozier in The Dream of God -- A Call to Return (p.25)]
Birds don't worry. Flowers don't worry, and they are doing fine. You can do the same. Have faith; put the Kingdom of God as your first priority (or, as we have taken to saying here at PSUMC: "the Garden of God."). The grace of God will carry you through!
Amen.
PSUMC Home Page
| PSUMC News
| Calendar
| Recent Sermons
| Back Sermons