Sermon for Trinity XV
Our only security
Matt. 6:24-34
Trinity XV
September 20, 2009
Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The late Sen. Everett Dirksen once said, “A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” And so you are. But there’s also another side to the coin. We can understand a hundred dollars, or even a thousand. Then thousand provides no problem in comprehension, either. Maybe the same is true for twenty, or thirty, or a hundred thousand. But somewhere around a million, things get a little hazy. And while what Sen. Dirksen said is certainly true, when we start talking about billions, much less trillions, most of us have a difficult time getting a feel for just how much money that is.
Discussions of the deficit tend to be handicapped by the fact that the numbers are so big that we lose our sense of proportion. And while few of us have that problem while balancing our checkbooks, there are some who do. Several months ago a family from Iowa won the Powerball prize, something like ninety million dollars. They said that they wouldn’t allow it to change their lives- that they wouldn’t quit their jobs or anything. But when one of the TV stations interviewed a financial expert from one of the banks, the expert just laughed. Managing that much money, he said, is a full-time job.
There’s a part of me- and probably a part of you, too- that would like to have that problem. But there’s a catch far bigger than the difficulty that comes in comprehending numbers that big. While Jesus had nothing against money as such, he commented more than once on how hard it is for rich people to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The reason, I think, becomes clear when we listen to the thoughts that run through our mind as we contemplate what it would be like to be that family that won the lottery.
No more money worries. No more need to work- unless we wanted to. No limit, as a practical matter, to how big a house we could have, or how expensive a car- or how many of them. We’d be fixed for life!
But it’s very difficult, when one is fixed for life financially, not to trust in money as our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. Poor people have to trust in God. They have nothing else to trust in. And that makes faith a great deal easier for the person who is poor than for the person who is rich. And then, there’s another problem: no amount is ever enough. That’s what the Aramaic word “mammon” refers to- a surplus, a surfeit, more than we need. More. More. And always more. Soon “more” becomes the most important part of our lives. It doesn’t matter how much we have. All that matters is that we have more. We simply cannot have enough.
Jesus tells us in our text not to be anxious about what we will wear, or what we will drink. God provides for the animals and he birds and the plants. And we’re higher on His own list of concerns than they are!
Worry doesn’t help. That’s something we all know at some level. But there’s a part of us that seeks to believe that somehow it must. Last Sunday night the Bears’ Jay Cutler had an absolutely terrible night against the Packers. He threw four interceptions- the most of his career. And all week Chicago sportswriters have been criticizing him for not acting more worried about it. Whether it’s our worries or someone else’s, there’s a part of us that confuses worrying about something with being concerned about it. But they’re not the same thing.
God is very much in favor of prudence. The Book of Proverbs is almost entirely devoted to encouraging it. But prudence means taking precautions and making intelligent decisions, not worrying about outcomes.
One does not sin when one buys in bulk, or makes a prudent investment, or makes plans for the future. No, the problem comes when we concern ourselves, not about what the best thing to do in a particular situation might be or what precautions we might take against this or that mishap, but with outcomes.
Man proposes, the proverb says, but God disposes. The best laid plans o’mice and men, as Rabby Burns put it so well, gang aft aglay- or, for those of you without Scottish roots, often go astray.
God created the good things of this earth to be enjoyed, and to meet our needs. But there is no good thing- whether it be money, or power, or even our own talents and abilities- that cannot be a stumbling block if we forget that they are merely the means God uses to the end of taking care of us. When they, rather than God, become what we trust in to keep us safe and happy and fed and housed and to meet our other needs, we are leaning on a broken reed. One of the few good things about the financial disaster our nation and the world have faced these last couple of years is that we’ve been reminded how little careers and pensions and other human bulwarks against disaster finally mean.
It’s easy for our fallen natures to take the recession and its consequences as evidence that what we needed was more money, a better job, a more profitable career, better investments. But no amount of money will ever make us safe; ask Bernie Madeoff’s victims. Any job can vanish. Any investment will go sour. And they who put their trust in such things finally build on sand. Their lives may look rock solid, but that sand can shift at any moment and send it all tumbling down into ruin.
There is only one Rock that will not move, only one source of security that is truly secure. No, faith in God is not a guarantee of wealth; Jesus Himself was poor. It is not a bulwark against suffering; they nailed Jesus to the cross, and among the things He promises His followers is that their lives, too, will be marked by the cross. The lives of Christians are not protected from sorrow and loss and disappointment and disaster and suffering- nor even, necessarily, from want. But we are promised that in the midst of all these things God will be at work to turn even them to our benefit. We are promised that He will be with us even in the darkest hours of our lives- and that, in the way and at the time that is best for us, he will bring us out of them again, into the sunshine.
No one can serve two masters. We can live our lives putting our faith in things, and storing up material bulwarks against disaster, or we can live them trusting in God to supply, not necessarily everything we want, but everything we need; not necessarily on our schedule, but in the time and in the way that will benefit us the most. Not even our own sin can finally harm us, if our sin is washed away in our baptism. And not even death can harm us, if we belong to the One Who conquered death.
And one constant in the history of the church- and in the lives of individual Christians as well- is that we not only learn to trust God, but get to know Him and draw close to Him and grow in our relationship with Him not in times of prosperity and success and personal happiness, but in the dark valleys of our lives. It is out of the experience of need that we learn to trust in God. It is out of the experience of guilt that we learn about grace. It is out of our lack that we learn that He supplies all we need.
But I must confess nevertheless to being a worrywart myself. My weak and sorry faith is apt to falter in the face of want or sorrow, and when my prospects look bleak, I am tempted to despair. My guess is that you, too, have moments like that. And that’s why we need the Means of Grace- God’s Word, the Blessed Sacrament, and the mutual conversation and consolation of the saints. That’s why we need to be continually reminded of something that every Christian learns over and over again in the course of his or her life, but which somehow we keep forgetting, and have to learn over and over yet again:
Sing, pray, and keep His ways unswerving,
So do thine own part faithfully,
And trust His Word, though undeserving,
Thou yet shalt find it true for thee!
God never yet forsook in need
The soul that trusted Him indeed.
May the peace of God, that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Matt. 6:24-34
Trinity XV
September 20, 2009
Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The late Sen. Everett Dirksen once said, “A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” And so you are. But there’s also another side to the coin. We can understand a hundred dollars, or even a thousand. Then thousand provides no problem in comprehension, either. Maybe the same is true for twenty, or thirty, or a hundred thousand. But somewhere around a million, things get a little hazy. And while what Sen. Dirksen said is certainly true, when we start talking about billions, much less trillions, most of us have a difficult time getting a feel for just how much money that is.
Discussions of the deficit tend to be handicapped by the fact that the numbers are so big that we lose our sense of proportion. And while few of us have that problem while balancing our checkbooks, there are some who do. Several months ago a family from Iowa won the Powerball prize, something like ninety million dollars. They said that they wouldn’t allow it to change their lives- that they wouldn’t quit their jobs or anything. But when one of the TV stations interviewed a financial expert from one of the banks, the expert just laughed. Managing that much money, he said, is a full-time job.
There’s a part of me- and probably a part of you, too- that would like to have that problem. But there’s a catch far bigger than the difficulty that comes in comprehending numbers that big. While Jesus had nothing against money as such, he commented more than once on how hard it is for rich people to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The reason, I think, becomes clear when we listen to the thoughts that run through our mind as we contemplate what it would be like to be that family that won the lottery.
No more money worries. No more need to work- unless we wanted to. No limit, as a practical matter, to how big a house we could have, or how expensive a car- or how many of them. We’d be fixed for life!
But it’s very difficult, when one is fixed for life financially, not to trust in money as our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. Poor people have to trust in God. They have nothing else to trust in. And that makes faith a great deal easier for the person who is poor than for the person who is rich. And then, there’s another problem: no amount is ever enough. That’s what the Aramaic word “mammon” refers to- a surplus, a surfeit, more than we need. More. More. And always more. Soon “more” becomes the most important part of our lives. It doesn’t matter how much we have. All that matters is that we have more. We simply cannot have enough.
Jesus tells us in our text not to be anxious about what we will wear, or what we will drink. God provides for the animals and he birds and the plants. And we’re higher on His own list of concerns than they are!
Worry doesn’t help. That’s something we all know at some level. But there’s a part of us that seeks to believe that somehow it must. Last Sunday night the Bears’ Jay Cutler had an absolutely terrible night against the Packers. He threw four interceptions- the most of his career. And all week Chicago sportswriters have been criticizing him for not acting more worried about it. Whether it’s our worries or someone else’s, there’s a part of us that confuses worrying about something with being concerned about it. But they’re not the same thing.
God is very much in favor of prudence. The Book of Proverbs is almost entirely devoted to encouraging it. But prudence means taking precautions and making intelligent decisions, not worrying about outcomes.
One does not sin when one buys in bulk, or makes a prudent investment, or makes plans for the future. No, the problem comes when we concern ourselves, not about what the best thing to do in a particular situation might be or what precautions we might take against this or that mishap, but with outcomes.
Man proposes, the proverb says, but God disposes. The best laid plans o’mice and men, as Rabby Burns put it so well, gang aft aglay- or, for those of you without Scottish roots, often go astray.
God created the good things of this earth to be enjoyed, and to meet our needs. But there is no good thing- whether it be money, or power, or even our own talents and abilities- that cannot be a stumbling block if we forget that they are merely the means God uses to the end of taking care of us. When they, rather than God, become what we trust in to keep us safe and happy and fed and housed and to meet our other needs, we are leaning on a broken reed. One of the few good things about the financial disaster our nation and the world have faced these last couple of years is that we’ve been reminded how little careers and pensions and other human bulwarks against disaster finally mean.
It’s easy for our fallen natures to take the recession and its consequences as evidence that what we needed was more money, a better job, a more profitable career, better investments. But no amount of money will ever make us safe; ask Bernie Madeoff’s victims. Any job can vanish. Any investment will go sour. And they who put their trust in such things finally build on sand. Their lives may look rock solid, but that sand can shift at any moment and send it all tumbling down into ruin.
There is only one Rock that will not move, only one source of security that is truly secure. No, faith in God is not a guarantee of wealth; Jesus Himself was poor. It is not a bulwark against suffering; they nailed Jesus to the cross, and among the things He promises His followers is that their lives, too, will be marked by the cross. The lives of Christians are not protected from sorrow and loss and disappointment and disaster and suffering- nor even, necessarily, from want. But we are promised that in the midst of all these things God will be at work to turn even them to our benefit. We are promised that He will be with us even in the darkest hours of our lives- and that, in the way and at the time that is best for us, he will bring us out of them again, into the sunshine.
No one can serve two masters. We can live our lives putting our faith in things, and storing up material bulwarks against disaster, or we can live them trusting in God to supply, not necessarily everything we want, but everything we need; not necessarily on our schedule, but in the time and in the way that will benefit us the most. Not even our own sin can finally harm us, if our sin is washed away in our baptism. And not even death can harm us, if we belong to the One Who conquered death.
And one constant in the history of the church- and in the lives of individual Christians as well- is that we not only learn to trust God, but get to know Him and draw close to Him and grow in our relationship with Him not in times of prosperity and success and personal happiness, but in the dark valleys of our lives. It is out of the experience of need that we learn to trust in God. It is out of the experience of guilt that we learn about grace. It is out of our lack that we learn that He supplies all we need.
But I must confess nevertheless to being a worrywart myself. My weak and sorry faith is apt to falter in the face of want or sorrow, and when my prospects look bleak, I am tempted to despair. My guess is that you, too, have moments like that. And that’s why we need the Means of Grace- God’s Word, the Blessed Sacrament, and the mutual conversation and consolation of the saints. That’s why we need to be continually reminded of something that every Christian learns over and over again in the course of his or her life, but which somehow we keep forgetting, and have to learn over and over yet again:
Sing, pray, and keep His ways unswerving,
So do thine own part faithfully,
And trust His Word, though undeserving,
Thou yet shalt find it true for thee!
God never yet forsook in need
The soul that trusted Him indeed.
May the peace of God, that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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