Sermon - Trinity XV - Matthew 6:24-34

In Jesus’ sermon on the mount, from which today’s Gospel lesson is taken, Jesus calls Christians out of the world from their worldly sinful ways of life, to a holy life in Christ. So Jesus calls us out the worldly ways of anger, lust, divorce, retaliation, hatred, greed, etc. But here Jesus calls us Christians out of the world of anxious worry to life in Christ where we seek first the kingdom of God.

Jesus says to us: “do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.” So Jesus gently directs our attention to both birds and flowers. “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

With this illustration, Jesus invites you to imagine sparrows and robins driving little tractors. Bluebirds out there sowing the seed in their green or red tractors, the finches sitting behind the wheel of a combine bringing in the harvest, or the blackbirds driving a semi load to the grain bins in front of the barn. It’s an utterly ridiculous picture, birds can’t drive tractors, they’re birdbrained and don’t have the capacity for this, they don’t even have fingers. 

Yet, our heavenly Father feeds them. The birds are not filled with anxiety about food. They wake up in the morning with an empty belly and no silo of grain, yet everyday they sing to the Lord God a little song of praise before they fly away to eat that grain of corn which the Lord tucked away just for them that morning. After that, they perch upon a branch, without a clue in the world from where their next bite will come, and sing another little song of praise to the Lord.

Or, “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.” Here Jesus invites you to imagine a daffodil sitting behind a spinning wheel and making yarn, a dandelion toiling over some fabric and thread to craft a shirt. This is even more silly than the farmer birds! Still our heavenly Father clothes these flowers with far finer raiment than even King Solomon could afford. These plants which are eaten by cows and rabbits alike aren’t filled with anxiety for the day, but only care to face the Son of God and praise the Lord.

Jesus doesn’t just say consider the lilies, but He instructs us to learn from the lilies. Yes, birds which are sold two for a penny, and flowers that get stomped on by little children teach us something so simple and basic that even they know it: “do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” This ought to make us blush that even the birds and flowers understand this and we don’t. 

“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 God and mammon.” Whatever anxious worry we have, it breaks the first commandment: You shall have no other gods. 

Worrying and anxiousness are sins actually. And like all sins, anxiety is pointless, it doesn’t get you anywhere! “Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” By being anxious we can’t add even a single second to our span of life. When we’re anxious about things in this world, it’s a sin because we’re trusting in mammon, earthly wealth, in place of God.

How many of us fill our daydreams with winning the lottery, winning publishers clearing house, having a huge mansion on the beach, surrounded by good looking men or women, wearing the cleanest new clothes, driving the shiniest new car, eating prime cuts of meat every meal, and drinking only the most expensive liquors. We daydreamed all that and more in just the first minute of the sermon!

If you don’t care for all of that extravagance, maybe your dreams and worries are a little more simple and basic. Maybe you’re anxious how you’ll pay the medical bills at the end of the month, if you have enough to pay for that unexpected car repair, how you’ll get those leaks in your roof fixed before the next major storm. You’re not worried about luxury, you’re just worried about keeping the lights on and some food in your belly.

Whatever your worries and daydreams, be they for luxury or basic necessities, do not be anxious about them. “Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” If you’re anxious and worried about mammon, doing everything you can to keep that mammon coming, then you’ve made a god out of mammon. 

By no means is it a sinful thing to work! By no means is it a sinful thing to earn money and be wealthy and have nice things! In fact God commands us to work, He commands us to labor and sweat from dawn to dusk, and all wealth we have is a gift from God. But our mammon is meant to serve us and others, not for us to serve it.

It’s good to have a job and work, it’s good to earn money. But all of that mammon is designed to serve us. When we make money, we should be its master and command it to serve those who have need of it. When we have a house, we should be its master and use it to shelter our family. But, when we serve mammon, it becomes our master and we work and work just so that we can have more mammon.

What a terrible god mammon is anyways! It’s weak and powerless to help us, it needs us to serve it constantly, and it’s always threatening to leaving us. Mammon rots and decays when it’s wet and muggy, mammon freezes and breaks when it’s cold, mammon rusts and falls apart over time, mammon burns up to ashes, mammon is a terrible god always in need of our service to keep it alive. When we die, mammon completely abandons us in favor of someone else. 

Don’t think you care about mammon to the point that it’s become your god? What if you went a day, a week, a month, years without mammon? No food, no clothes, no money, no house. But what if you went that same amount of time without God and His abundant treasures? No Bible, no Jesus, no hymns, no sacrament. Or what if going on a long trip, you realize you left the front door open with all of your most valuable treasures sitting in plain sight? What if going on a long trip, you realize you left your Bible at home and none other Bibles would be available until you returned?

I don’t have to tell you how you would answer those questions, we both already know how any of us would answer them. How foolish and pitiful we are, not even as faithful as the birds and the flowers. We’re filled with worry and anxiety for everything around us, no better than the faithless heathens which surround us!

But Jesus doesn’t call us heathens, does He. He doesn’t call us faithless, He doesn’t call us brood of vipers, He doesn’t even call us stupid. He says, “O you of little faith.” This isn’t an insult by any means! Almost like a term of endearment, really! Though our faith may be little and weak, it is still faith and it still saves and it still makes us God’s children.

Jesus tells us not to be anxious, but instead to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” “If God so clothes the grass of the field… will He not much more clothe you.” God cares for us. He shows this in that He cares for us in the most significant and important manner. He took on human flesh and blood in the person of Jesus. He saw our little faith, our grave anxieties, our many failures, and He took them to calvary. 

Our almighty Lord God provides for our lack of faith by being faithful unto death for us. He gives us the gift of eternal life and brings us from death to life. When mammon rusts, rots, burns, and abandons us, leaving us for dead, our Lord never leaves our side. He cannot be defeated, and He will never decay and turn to dust, He is the One who created all mammon and He is the one who will provide us with the mammon we need to support this life.

If God has loved us with such generosity, then He will most certainly provide for us for all of our days here on earth. He is the one who feeds us, gives us drink, and clothes our bodies. There are times when in His wisdom He permits mammon to rust and rot, in that way He teaches us to trust not in mammon but in Him alone as our God. 

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” There are already plenty of things to make each day difficult, there’s no need to increase misery by being worried and anxious as well. Instead, seek comfort and refuge in the kingdom of God. Don’t let those anxious thoughts take hold in your mind, dispel them with prayer and replace them with God’s Word. When worry begins to take root, open the scriptures and listen to God’s soothing voice. “Do not be anxious,” He says. Be at peace. Be comforted. For your peace doesn’t come from the untrustworthy world or mammon, your peace comes from Jesus who is Himself the author of peace.