Sermon: 2nd Sunday after Pentecost

As a welcome gift almost two years ago when I took this call, I found a plant on my desk. A family in this congregation wanted me to feel welcome on my first day, and I certainly did when I saw that big beautiful plant on the very first desk I would ever use as a pastor. Little did they know, that this beautiful plant would be a huge source of stress, because, as I have said before, I am less of a gardener and more of a killer. Very few green things live under my care. So, this beautiful plant took on a deeper meaning that morning in my office- I thought of it as a metaphor for my ministry. If I could keep it alive, I could be caring and gentle and kind enough to keep my part in the ministry of God alive. I often forget to water the plant, and only remember when I see some of the little leaves curl up and start dropping brown and shriveled on the table. I thought about this text when I read Jesus words of today- Jesus tells us that even the lilies of the field don’t worry because God cares for them. Plants under my care don’t really fit into this understanding of the natural world, because they should be worried. They knock on death’s door about once a month.
These words of Jesus come at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, when he has been preaching to a crowd of people who had every right to be worried. They were living under the thumb of Roman rule, oppressed and overtaxed, working the fields and the seas for a living and never making much of one. They were forced to give much of what they had to tax collectors, and many lived in poverty. The words of Jesus sound a little shallow for that kind of crowd, just as they sound a little shallow for the crowd we have gathered here in this sanctuary this morning. Jesus tells them and us, not to worry about what we will eat, what we will drink, what we will wear. Jesus didn’t know about gas prices that have soared above 4 dollars a gallon. Jesus didn’t know about higher electric bills, what is being called a global food crisis. Jesus didn’t know about the American economy, he certainly never lived through a recession. So those words, don’t worry, sound a little trite to me, because I am not sure if Jesus is quite understanding the depth of things we have to worry about.
When I read this passage for the first time, I must admit, I started to feel myself get a little angry. I want Jesus to be about comforting me in my worry, not about admonishing me not to worry at all! If the plants in my office can be unafraid, and if I am supposed to see the natural world around me as revealing the care of God, I can’t ignore the fact that if this world and those plants knew what was really happening- they would be worried. Global warming, lack of rain... yes, the natural world doesn’t seem worried, but I think it must be just because they don’t know what could happen!
Jesus isn’t unaware of the plight of the crowd gathered around him that morning so long ago. He points to the birds and the lilies because it is in the creation of God that we can find that simple trust in God’s providential care. There is worry that is due, there is trouble today. But, it is the undue worry that blocks are ability to participate with trust and faith in God’s work in the world. It is the worry about those things we can’t control, the sweating the small stuff, that draws our attention inward instead of outward toward God, building walls around our hearts, and sucking the energy out of us. It is those things we can’t control that make us afraid, that break our connection with God and replace it only with fear.
In the letter from Paul to the Corinthians, he admonishes us to be stewards of the mysteries of God. Stewards of the mystery, and the words of Jesus for today feel most certainly like a mystery to me. In spite of the troubles faced by the crowd gathered that morning, in spite of the troubles we see in our own families, in our own bank accounts, in our own neighborhoods, city and world, we are told to strive for righteousness first, to leave our worry behind. We are told to trust in God’s care for God’s creation, not while pretending that there is no trouble surrounding us, not while skipping out in the fields of flowers, but in the midst of all those things that cause us to worry. The mystery is not that things for followers of Christ are always easy, but, rather, that we trust in spite of the fact that things are scary and uncertain. We carry with us the mystery of being able to trust a God who has met God’s people through time, even if the future seems full of trouble. We carry the mystery with us, and we are to share it with all people in all places. We steward the mystery of God, the mystery of God’s care and God’s love for the people of God. We can’t be the stewards God seeks for us to be when we are bogged down by fear and anxiety. We can’t steward the mystery when we are too afraid to trust in the first place.
We steward that mystery by continuing to trust in God’s care for us through time. We steward the mystery of God by learning to trust despite our circumstances. We steward the mystery of God by striving for God’s kingdom even when we are afraid. We steward the mystery of God when we start to recognize that is not us who are in control but God. We steward the mystery when we can share those moments of trust with the people around us. The mystery of God is tied to the cross- that God so loved us that God gave us Jesus Christ, born a baby in Bethlehem, who lived and taught us how to live, who died to forgive our sins and free us from the power of death for all eternity. Worry shuts us down, worry pushes us to ignore the mystery and rely solely on the reality of our own power. Worry dams up the river of God’s grace poured out for each one of us.
That plant in my office is still alive- I watered it this morning. It too is a part of the mystery, because it reminds me that God calls us to new and different places, even when we are afraid. It reminds me not to worry, because in the midst of all things, God promises to be with us, and never to forget us. So, if that plant can trust and live, even with me as its caregiver- how much more ought we trust the God who knit us together in our mother’s wombs? How much more ought we trust the God who took on humanity in order to free us from sin and death on the cross- who died that we might never worry about eternity? Amen.