WEBVTT 00:00:00.320 --> 00:00:11.039 I bring greetings to you from the Presbytery of East Tennessee, your 58 sister churches, our two campus ministries, and our Presbytery camp. 00:00:11.279 --> 00:00:20.399 It is good to be with you this morning and to be leading worship with this great group of folks who are here on the chancel with me. 00:00:20.719 --> 00:00:25.199 And Rachel, thank you so much for your leadership this morning as well. 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:39.280 Our second scripture reading this morning comes from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter six, and we will read together verses 19 through 21, and then jump ahead to 25 and read through the rest of the chapter. 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:44.640 Listen now for God's word as it comes to us from the Gospel of Matthew. 00:00:46.159 --> 00:00:56.960 Jesus said, Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break in and steal. 00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:09.200 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 00:01:09.680 --> 00:01:14.799 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:27.040 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, or about your body, and what you will wear. 00:01:27.359 --> 00:01:32.719 Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:42.400 Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. 00:01:43.439 --> 00:01:46.719 Are you not of more value than they? 00:01:47.519 --> 00:01:53.840 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 00:01:54.319 --> 00:01:57.200 And why do you worry about clothing? 00:01:57.519 --> 00:02:00.319 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. 00:02:01.120 --> 00:02:03.680 They neither toil nor spin. 00:02:03.920 --> 00:02:12.080 Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:24.319 But if God so clothes the grass of the field which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will God not much more clothe you, you of little faith? 00:02:24.879 --> 00:02:32.080 Therefore, do not worry, saying, What will we eat, or what will we drink, or what will we wear? 00:02:32.560 --> 00:02:41.439 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:51.360 But strive first for the kingdom of God and God's righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 00:02:52.159 --> 00:02:58.639 So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. 00:02:58.960 --> 00:03:02.479 Today's trouble is enough for today. 00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:05.520 This is the word of the Lord. 00:03:17.039 --> 00:03:21.680 Jesus has upended conventional wisdom regarding blessedness. 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:34.240 He has described how life in the kingdom of God is different from the kingdoms of the world, as he urged his listeners to love their enemies and pray in secret. 00:03:34.639 --> 00:03:41.759 Jesus also gave them a very simple but important prayer that we still say each Sunday. 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:44.319 We call it the Lord's Prayer. 00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:56.240 And now we pick up this sermon with Jesus' continued urgency for us to seek the kingdom of God instead of the kingdom of the world. 00:03:56.560 --> 00:04:05.599 Treasures and worry bookend our reading with sayings that have largely become part of our cultural lexicon. 00:04:05.919 --> 00:04:10.000 Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 00:04:10.879 --> 00:04:15.439 Don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. 00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:19.040 Today's trouble is enough for today. 00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:28.480 That first one reminds me of the many religious tidbits my grandmother often shared with all of her family. 00:04:28.959 --> 00:04:34.000 The second one reminds me of Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. 00:04:34.240 --> 00:04:36.240 I can't worry about that today. 00:04:36.399 --> 00:04:38.959 I'll worry about it tomorrow. 00:04:40.319 --> 00:04:41.920 And that's the problem. 00:04:42.399 --> 00:05:07.600 When pieces of scripture make it into our cultural lexicon, they are often stripped of their real power and meaning and become phrases that we were used to comfort or maybe even cajole, but not to seriously and intentionally help us seek the kingdom of God as they were meant to do. 00:05:08.399 --> 00:05:20.560 To be fair, I understand, especially with this part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus seems to think that life will just be so easy if only we trust God. 00:05:21.040 --> 00:05:24.240 The birds don't worry, nor should we. 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:33.519 Treasures on earth, things like clothes and cars and retirement accounts, indeed can be destroyed or stolen. 00:05:33.839 --> 00:05:39.279 But they're also pretty important for living this life here on earth. 00:05:39.519 --> 00:05:49.839 Those treasures in heaven, love, forgiveness, grace, they won't put dinner on the table or pay the college tuition bill that's due. 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:55.439 What is Jesus really trying to do here in this part of the sermon? 00:05:55.759 --> 00:06:04.000 How does where we store our treasures or not worrying help us seek the kingdom of God anyway? 00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:10.480 You know, there's another saying that's part of our cultural lexicon, too. 00:06:10.800 --> 00:06:14.160 God helps she who helps herself. 00:06:16.480 --> 00:06:21.920 Have any of you read Robin Wall Kimmerer's book, Braiding Sweetgrass? 00:06:22.639 --> 00:06:25.360 If you haven't, I encourage you to read it. 00:06:25.439 --> 00:06:34.720 It's one that I will likely reread because there are so many aha moments about life within it. 00:06:35.120 --> 00:06:50.720 And if you have read it, then you probably remember the many ways the author describes an interdependence of the Native American ways of life with creation, the environment, and each other. 00:06:51.040 --> 00:07:05.439 The ways that members of her community would come together to make molasses, I think it was, stirring pots and tending fires and eating together for days, 24 hours a day on end. 00:07:06.240 --> 00:07:13.360 Or you might remember about the trees that they used to make the strips to weave their baskets. 00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:29.360 They knew exactly how to choose the trees to be harvested so that sunlight could still come in and reach the others, and there would always be a steady supply of trees for baskets. 00:07:30.079 --> 00:07:46.879 Or you might even remember the nights that she and so many others of her community would go out to try and save the frogs coming out of hibernation, but needing to cross the street to go to the other side of the road. 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:53.040 They wanted those frogs to remain an important part of the ecosystem. 00:07:54.079 --> 00:08:14.560 Reading that book, I was struck by that interdependence that the author tries hard to live within and through, versus the competition and myth of scarcity that has been the central narrative of our Western North American cultural experience. 00:08:15.199 --> 00:08:24.639 Our cultural experience sees the world as commodities to be exploited, with limited resources to be had. 00:08:25.120 --> 00:08:33.600 Competition, destruction, overuse, and abuse are part and parcel of that experience. 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:48.240 Not so with Robin Wall Kimmerer's experience as a Native American, her culture gave her a different orientation to see the world and to understand our place in it. 00:08:48.559 --> 00:08:59.519 As she tells it in Braiding Sweetgrass, the world is full of gifts to be appreciated, nurtured, cultivated, and shared. 00:09:00.320 --> 00:09:12.080 And that is exactly what I think Jesus is trying to get his listeners to understand in the whole of the Sermon on the Mount, but especially here in the part we read. 00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:19.679 Where our treasures are stored speaks volumes about our orientation in the world. 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:30.960 Are we oriented to the world's way of being, of competition and limited resources, and an I have to get mine first mentality? 00:09:32.000 --> 00:10:02.559 Or are we oriented to God's way of being, to the kingdom of God, where life itself is a gift, creation is a gift to be nurtured and valued and shared, where there is not a limited supply of anything, but a regenerative supply when we live in cooperation and community and interdependence with God, creation, and one another. 00:10:03.120 --> 00:10:11.120 When Jesus says, look at the birds or consider the lilies, he's not pointing to a naive way to be in the world. 00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:13.759 You see, those words, look and consider. 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:20.080 We don't hear it in English, but in Greek, these are really strong verbs. 00:10:20.399 --> 00:10:26.799 Jesus is saying, or shouting, maybe, pay attention, think about this. 00:10:27.759 --> 00:10:36.720 There is more to life than the fearful, anxiety-ridden cultural experience of the world. 00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:43.919 God has created a world that is meant to provide enough for everyone. 00:10:44.879 --> 00:10:48.080 Remember the manna in the desert? 00:10:49.039 --> 00:10:59.919 Do you remember the story of the widow of Zarephath's oil and meal that never ran out when Elijah was with her during an extreme drought and famine? 00:11:00.879 --> 00:11:08.080 Do you remember the little boys' loaves and fishes that fed 5,000 plus the women and children? 00:11:09.360 --> 00:11:13.679 Do you remember the line and the prayer that Jesus taught us? 00:11:14.080 --> 00:11:18.480 Give us this day our daily bread. 00:11:19.600 --> 00:11:42.159 You see, in the kingdom of God, we still need food to eat and clothes to wear and shelter from the heat and the cold, and we can have all of those things without the fear and anxiety of a world of limited resources and hoarding that causes us to only take care of ourselves. 00:11:42.480 --> 00:11:57.360 We can have all of those things without the fear and anxiety, but it requires a reorientation away from the kingdoms of the world and toward the kingdom of God. 00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:08.480 Storing our treasures, our stuff, our power, our money in the world's kingdoms means that we put our primary trust there. 00:12:09.440 --> 00:12:19.200 We understand our primary identity to be caught up in what we produce, in how much we have, in how secure we may feel. 00:12:19.440 --> 00:12:33.200 And friends, there is no storage place big enough to help us feel like we have enough to be loved and valued and secure in the world's kingdoms. 00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:47.600 The more we try, the more anxious we become, the more fearful we become, and the less likely that we are to love and forgive and share and offer grace. 00:12:49.519 --> 00:13:29.840 But when we seek the kingdom of God and understand that our value comes from being a child of God, that we are loved for who we are and not what we do, that our primary identity is of a follower of Jesus Christ, then we have put our trust in God's kingdom and we are able to see how beautiful and how lovely and how interdependent we are with God and creation and one another, and we find rest for our weary hearts and souls. 00:13:31.919 --> 00:13:35.120 Jesus knows we have responsibility. 00:13:35.679 --> 00:13:40.879 Jesus knows that we need food and shelter and even retirement accounts. 00:13:41.200 --> 00:14:01.039 And he knows that God's kingdom ensures that everyone, you and me and our neighbors near and far, and creation itself will have all that we need when we live with and for one another. 00:14:02.399 --> 00:14:22.320 This side of the fulfilled kingdom, we know all too well that the gap between our current reality and the promises of the kingdom of God, we so we heed Jesus' advice to look and consider and not worry about tomorrow. 00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:27.440 Not because there isn't work to do, because there is plenty of work to do. 00:14:27.759 --> 00:14:34.159 Not because we can't make a difference, because we can make an enormous difference. 00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:43.279 We do it so that we remember to take it one step and one day at a time. 00:14:44.240 --> 00:14:47.600 Give us this day our daily bread. 00:14:48.159 --> 00:14:52.240 Gather only what you need of the manna for today. 00:14:53.360 --> 00:14:56.320 Take care of your neighbor today. 00:14:57.519 --> 00:15:00.879 Share of your abundance today. 00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:05.919 Then it will be as Isaiah promised. 00:15:06.720 --> 00:15:13.679 We will be called repairers of the breach and restorers of streets to live in. 00:15:14.639 --> 00:15:33.840 Friends, worry feeds the world's way of anxiety and fearfulness, causing us to hoard and to mistrust each other and to exploit creation's resources to trust the world and ourselves more than we trust God. 00:15:35.200 --> 00:15:49.919 So look and consider how life in the kingdom of God leads to less fear and less anxiety and more love and more forgiveness and more grace and more mercy. 00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:59.600 Jesus isn't offering us a naive way to be in the world here in this part of the Sermon on the Mount. 00:15:59.919 --> 00:16:18.000 He offers us a way oriented toward the interdependence of God, creation, and all of humanity that leads to all of us being whole and thriving and having all that we need. 00:16:19.360 --> 00:16:27.759 Seek first the kingdom of God, and all of these things will be given to you as well. 00:16:28.720 --> 00:16:30.080 May it be so. 00:16:30.799 --> 00:16:31.440 Amen.