February 27, 2011 - Epiphany + 8

God Provides What We Need
Matthew 6:24-34
Epiphany + 8 – February 27, 2011

One of my favorite stories when I was a kid was the book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I know, the title doesn't sound like it's much to love, huh? But I loved it then, and I still love it now, because it tells it like it is. Poor Alexander has one heck of a day – a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It starts off bad, when he wakes up to discover that the gum that was in his mouth when he went to bed is now in his hair – and his day just goes downhill from there. He can't do anything right for his teacher, his best friend informs him that Alexander is now only his 3rd best friend, he has to go to the dentist after school – and guess who is the only one of the 3 boys in his family who has a cavity? He gets into a fight with his brothers – and he's the only one who gets in trouble. He messes up his dad's office when they go to pick him up from work. There are lima beans for dinner & kissing on TV, his bath was too hot, he got soap in his eyes, the cat wants to sleep with his brother. And all through the story, Alexander says, “I am having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day; I'm moving to Australia,” as if Australia is a magical land where nothing bad ever happens – and all the while, he feels like no one is listening. Poor Alexander. And I always took comfort at the end of the book, when his mother says to him, “Some days are like that. Even in Australia.”

So perhaps it won't surprise you to find out that this passage from the gospel is one of my favorites, that this last verse has always brought me comfort. “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.” Today's trouble is enough for today.

On the surface, these aren't terribly comforting words. But I appreciate that Jesus, like Alexander's mother, tells it like it is. There is trouble today, and that trouble is big enough to occupy you for now. Don't borrow trouble from tomorrow.

But even if there's some comfort in knowing that Jesus acknowledges that we face trouble, it's a hard passage to hear (have you been noticing that lots of the Sermon on the Mount is hard to hear, and even harder to live by?). Hard to hear, because over and over in this part of the gospel, despite knowing that there's trouble, Jesus says, “Do not worry.”

There it is in verse 25: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.”

And again in verse 31: “Therefore do not worry, saying 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?'”

And finally one more time in verse 34: “So do not worry about tomorrow...”

Do not worry. Do not worry. Do not worry. That's what Jesus says, and yet we do. We worry a lot. Perhaps not so much where our next meal will come from or when we'll get our next drink of water or how we'll find clothes to wear, at least not most of us, most of the time, but we find plenty of other things to worry about: our kids, our parents, our spouses; our jobs, our homes, our health; our credit cards, our bank accounts, our retirement fund. With all the uncertainty in the world, we think, “How can we not worry?”

Or maybe you run into the question that I run up against in this passage. I never once have had to worry about food or drink or clothing or any of the essentials of life. I have always known plenty; even when I have worried that I won't have what I need, I have always had more than enough. Always. But there are people around the world for whom that is not true, people in this country who are hungry or homeless, people around the globe who don't know where their next meal is coming from, who don't have access to clean water, who are lucky to own one decent set of clothes, let alone a change of clothing. So when I read this passage, I think, “Okay Jesus, it's one thing for you to tell me not to worry. That's hard enough for me, but what about the people whose whole life is a struggle, whose best days are worse that Alexander's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day? How can you say, 'Don't worry' to them?”

I'll get back to that in a minute, because God has something to say about that, but first let's look again at what Jesus says after he tells his listeners not to worry. “Look at the birds of the air,” Jesus say – they don't plant or harvest or gather food to store up for later, but God feeds them. “Consider the lilies of the field.” They don't toil or spin, but God dresses them more exquisitely than the finest human clothes. If God takes care of birds and flowers, Jesus asks, won't God take care of you? You worry about all of these things – and God knows that you need them, and God will provide what you need. We can trust the God who gives so abundantly to the birds and the flowers to supply us with what we need. This is the same God who spoke order of the chaos before creation, when earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep (Gen. 1), the God who said “Let there be light,” and there was light. This is the God who comforted the people of Israel when they were exiles living in a foreign land and felt that the Lord had forgotten and forsaken them, reminding them that God could no more forget them than a mother could forget her nursing child, that they are inscribed on the very palm of God's hand (Isaiah 49). This is the God who was with Jesus on his most terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, as Jesus hung on a cross for the sake of the world, the God who on the third day turned that most terrible of days into a cause for great joy as God raised Jesus from the grave to resurrection life. This God, the one who brings peace into chaos, light into darkness, life out of death, this is the God Jesus calls us to trust. This is the God Jesus invites us to put our faith in, so that we won't have to worry, because this God loves us and cares for us, and knows what we need.

This is the God we serve - an infinite God filled with infinite love for all of creation. This God invites us to rely on God's ability and desire to provide all that we need – so that we can stop being “so preoccupied with getting, so we can respond to God's giving” (The Message, Mt. 6:31). When we start to see how much God has already given, how much God daily provides for us, when we trust that God will continue to meet our needs, that's when we are able to turn our attention from worry & instead join God's work in the world, striving for the kingdom of God here and now – the kingdom Jesus brought near, the kingdom that is now, but not yet.

And that's how we get back to the people whose whole lives are filled with terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. Some days are like that, but that doesn't mean that's what God wants. God's kingdom, remember, is the place where God's will is done, where the hungry are fed, and the thirsty are given something to drink, where the naked are clothed, and the stranger is welcomed, and the sick and imprisoned are visited. When we stop worrying so much about ourselves, that's God setting us free to be partners in bringing the kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. That's God setting us free to be the answer to others' questions about “what shall we eat or drink or wear” - because we are there as the hands and feet of Jesus to provide for their needs, sharing out of God's abundance. When we strive for God's kingdom and God's righteousness, we become God's answer to someone else's prayer, because we stop worrying and start working for justice and equity; we start living mercy and compassion.

That is what God longs for. That's God's will for our world. May we be filled with this deep trust so that we can do what Jesus says: stop worrying and start working for God's kingdom.

Amen.