Text: Matt 6:24-34
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
Our Lord, in His Sermon on the Mount, links two things together: loving money, and worrying.
First, He warns us: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
And it’s very easy to assume that Jesus means “somebody else” needs to hear this lesson, certainly not us. For we are not wealthy. Surely, this advice is for Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, the people who are rich, who can light cigars with hundred dollar bills just for the fun of it. We might think of Ebenezer Scrooge, who loved his money and hated his fellow man. We might even assume that someone who is rich must love his money and therefore cannot serve God.
But our Lord takes this warning in a surprising direction.
He immediately says that we must not “be anxious about [our] life, what [we] will eat or what [we] will drink, nor about [our] body, what [we] will put on.”
Our Lord equates serving money with anxiety. But who doesn’t have anxiety from time to time? Doctors prescribe medication for it. Some people have anxiety attacks. Many of us have sleepless nights worrying about our family, our friends, our health, our career, and yes, money. We worry about how we will pay for things. We worry about our children’s future. We worry about whether or not we will see inflation, or a collapse in the government, or war, or more pandemics. We are anxious about many things, indeed. And our Lord gently, but firmly, calls us to live instead by faith.
But what does any of this have to do with serving money?
Well, we worry about food and clothing and drink, and shelter and career and investments – because it is our fallen nature to put our faith in such things. Indeed, we want to be wise, and so we should. We do well to think how to manage our money and be good stewards. We should indeed plan and invest and save. We ought to raise our children to do the same. But when anxiety creeps in, it doesn’t indicate a money problem, but rather a faith problem. This is why our Lord scolds us – though gently – by calling us “you of little faith.”
But our Lord doesn’t call us to blind faith. He gives us examples to comfort us, to ease our anxiety, to lead us gently to where we can trust in Him instead of being crippled by worry. “Look at the birds of the air,” says our Lord. “They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of much more value than they?”
How often we forget that God is our Creator, and He is also the One who sustains the ongoing life in this world according to His will and His mercy – and most of all, according to His love.
It is the Lord’s nature to provide for us – both naturally and supernaturally, in ways that make logical sense and in ways that can only be explained by divine providence. And so faith gives us the ability to take a deep breath, to pray, and to carry on believing that the Lord God, the Creator of the universe, has not forgotten us nor forsaken us. He certainly has things under control much more than we of little faith.
And when we forget, let us look to the evidence all around us, things like birds. For even nature itself is under our Lord’s care. And as Jesus asks rhetorically, are you not of more value than they? For you have been created in the image of God. Our Lord took human form, not that of a bird. And our Lord Jesus Christ died for you, forgave your sins, and gave you the free gift of everlasting life. In His providence, He brought you to the baptismal font. And He has brought you hear today, dear friends, to hear this specific Word. This moment has been part of His plan before the foundation of the world. He has it all under control.
And what good does worry do anyway? Does it make you live even an hour longer?
Our Lord also cautions us against getting too worked up about material possessions. For “consider the lilies of the field,” says our Lord, “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.” In other words, look at the flowers. God created them and they have been reproducing for thousands of years according to God’s plan, giving us beauty and color. Not even the richest kings and barons of corporations are decked out as well as what you see in nature. And these are just plants, dear friends, alive today, and tossed in the garbage tomorrow.
But you are of infinitely more value. For God created you to live forever. That’s why it was His will that you were baptized, why you are here to hear the Word of God, and why you were brought to this altar where the body and blood of Jesus are given to us as a free gift.
So who is worth more? The beautiful flowers, or each and every human being for whom Christ died? For God clothes you with more than colorful petals or beautifully tailored clothing. For Jesus arrays you with the robe of His righteousness, covering your sins, and welcoming you to eternal glory.
Yes, God has this all worked out. It is all covered. And no matter what happens in this fallen world, Jesus has already called you by name, already died in your place, already baptized you and promised that even in death, you will rise again in the flesh to live forever.
And so our Lord encourages us not to be anxious, not to ask where the food and drink will come from, and where we get money to buy clothing and other necessities of life. Our Lord says that it’s the unbelievers – like the worshippers of money instead of the disciples of Jesus – who “seek after all these things.”
For remember, “your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all.”
Therefore, we Christians are to make our Christian life the highest priority, trusting that God will provide for us: “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” The Christian life is by grace. So the things we need are not attributable to our own money, but rather are seen as gifts from the God who loves us.
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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