Matthew 6:19-21, 24-34
“The Heart of the Matter”
By: Ken Sauer, Pastor of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanoga, TN www.eastridgeumc.com
In his book How Much Is Enough? Hungering For God In An Affluent Culture author and Founder of Bread for the World: Arthur Simon writes about Bryce and Ellen, “a couple in their mid-thirties.
They have two sons and a daughter, and on Sundays the family attends church more often than not.
Bryce manages about twenty people in a medium-sized accounting firm.
He receives a good salary and is on a path that he believes may eventually move him into a circle of company executives, so he goes to work early, often stays late, and usually works some on weekends.
Ellen has a part-time job with a public relations firm, which allows her to manage the kids and take care of the house.
None of this is easy, but it has enabled them to buy a house in an upscale neighborhood and a lot of recreational hardware, including a raft of toys, a couple of TVs for the children’s rooms, and a small yacht.
Bryce and Ellen already talk about one day taking early retirement and moving to a place where they can enjoy year-round outdoor sports.
Though deeply in debt, they are able to make timely payments and take pride in contributing ‘more than most’ to church in dollar amount, which at 2.5 percent of their income is about average for church members.”
Simon continues, “They would be astonished—probably offended—to have anyone suggest that they are beholden to [money].
Yet their plans and dreams, and the dreams they are nourishing in their children, are overwhelmingly directed that way.”
Jesus was no killjoy.
“I have come that they may have life and have it to the full,” He tells us in John chapter 10.
Jesus came to invite us into the Father’s Kingdom.
That is abundant life!
Compared to the life Jesus offers, money in any amount is poverty!!!
You know, has it ever struck you what a basically happy person Jesus was?
We know that the darkness and sadness of all the world descended on Him as He went to the Cross.
We know He wept at the tomb of Lazarus, and that He was sad when people refused to trust in God.
But these are exceptions, the dark patches painted on to the bright background.
As we read a passage like this, we should see that it flows straight out of Jesus’ own experience!
Jesus had watched the birds flying around, high up on the currents of air in the Galilean hills, simply enjoying being alive.
He knew that they never seemed to do the sort of work humans do, and yet they mostly stay alive and well.
He had watched a thousand different kinds of flowers growing—the word “lily” here includes several different plants—and Jesus had held His breath at their fragile beauty.
But one sweep of a sickle or a passing donkey and this wonderful artwork is gone.
Where did this beauty come from?
It didn’t spend hours in front of a mirror putting on make-up.
It didn’t go shopping at the mall to buy expensive clothes.
It was just itself: glorious, God-given, beautiful!
Jesus had a strong, lively sense of the goodness of His Father, the Creator of the world.
He was miles away from those teachers who insisted that the present world was a place of shadows, doom and gloom.
Jesus’ teaching grew out of His own experience.
When Jesus told His followers not to worry about tomorrow, we must assume He led them by example.
Jesus seems to have had the skill of living in the present, celebrating the goodness of God here and now.
And if that’s not a recipe for happiness, I don’t know what is!
And Jesus wanted His followers to be happy as well.
When Jesus urges us to make God our priority, He’s not talking about a god who is distant from the world, who doesn’t care about beauty and life and food and clothes.
He’s talking about the Creator God, Who has filled the world with wonderful and mysterious things, full of beauty and excitement, and Who wants His human creatures to trust Him and love Him and receive their own beauty, energy and excitement from God!!!
But the unknowns of tomorrow tend to cause distress in our souls.
We often obsess over the future.
Yet, when our tomorrows become todays, we come to realize that the time we spent worrying about them was a big, miserable waste of time.
Our Gospel Lesson reminds us that God provides not only for our todays but for our tomorrows as well!
As we come to realize this we are freed to choose a life of joyful discipleship!
Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz, says that God used to be “a swinging speck in the distance; now [God] is close enough I can hear [God] singing.
Soon I will see the lines in [God’s] face.”
When we give our lives to God, the gap between our life and God’s plans lessen, and we find ourselves one step closer to God’s Kingdom.
But how can we give our lives to God when we have so many things clamoring for our attention and devotion?
Alcohol, drugs, work, fashions, food, t-v, music, smart phones, shopping, you name it!
What is the appropriate attitude toward this stuff if we aim to be disciples of Jesus Christ?
Jesus’ hearers were addicted to wealth and possessions.
And this lesson is not directed toward rich people only; poor people can idolize what they don’t have.
The important point all through our lesson for today is the question: are your eyes fixed on God, or on something else?
What is your priority?
God or stuff?
Greed can very easily seep into our souls and take over.
Greed hurts people.
Greed changes us into something we don’t want to be.
Jesus had a lot to say about money, more than we usually think.
How we handle our money is a very important indicator of our faith and trust in God.
And what Jesus says in Matthew Chapter 6 about money is about as strong as anything Jesus had to say.
Notice that Jesus uses the language of slavery.
We cannot choose to have both God and money as our masters.
We can’t truly serve God if we allow money to rule over us.
And Jesus illustrates this point by not talking about money itself, but about things, stuff that money buys—specifically food and clothes.
Both these things are good in themselves.
We need both, but our sinfulness, our lack of faith have corrupted our use of them.
So Jesus offers us freedom.
Jesus calls us to throw off the chains forged by money, clothes, and food.
That’s right clothes, food and money can trap us.
Or perhaps we should say that our insecurity about these things trap us.
Only our trust in God enables us to break free!!!
A math professor in northern Virginia has broken free from the hold money might have had on his life.
Every year he gives away over half of his income.
He makes decisions about where to live and what car to drive based on his commitment to give.
Do we do that?
What a way to live!!!
We are not called to give God our leftovers, but our first fruits.
Clair is really good about this.
She is the budget person in our family, right down to the last nickel.
And our tithes, what we give to the two churches we serve are already figured into every month’s budget.
Last month we didn’t go to a UTC basketball game…
…not because we didn’t have the money in the bank, but because if we had gone we wouldn’t have been able to tithe and stay within our budget.
So this math professor in northern Virginia makes decisions about where to live and what car to drive based on his commitment to give.
How different that is from most of the world!!!
His goal is to donate one million dollars before he retires.
And at age 59, he has already given away almost $800,000!
And not only does he give money, he gives his time, working for God’s Kingdom.
He’s a bachelor and he makes a six-figure salary, so maybe he has an easier time than those of us with family obligations and lower incomes.
Nevertheless, he is a great example of how to break free!!!
His money doesn’t control him.
His friends and colleagues say he is always smiling.
He has turned a burden into a joy!
Jesus tells us to seek first the Kingdom of God, and the values of God’s Kingdom include generosity, self-discipline, selflessness and love for others.
And in pursuing those values we find freedom from the things that enslave us, and an affirmation of the goodness of life lived in God!!!
“You cannot serve both God and Money…
…or “Mammon,” as the older translations say.
Mammon was a way of referring to property and wealth in general, almost as though it were a god—which is precisely Jesus’ point.
We make the same point by saying things like “the almighty dollar” which is dangerously like “Almighty God.”
We joke about money because we are all too aware of its power.
“Money talks,” says the comedian, “but what it mostly says to me is, ‘Good-bye!’”
But what Jesus is saying is that money gives orders.
It bosses us around.
But if you have your priorities right, there is only one Boss, and that is the wonderful and loving God!!!
Jesus was happy and Jesus wants His followers to be the same.
Of course, because we live in a world filled with anxiety, it’s easy to let it rub off on us.
Living totally without worry sounds, to many people, as impossible as living totally without breathing.
Some people are so hooked on worry that if they haven’t got anything to worry about they worry that they’ve forgotten something.
I tend to be like that sometimes.
But here, at the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, is an invitation that surprisingly few of us even try to take up.
Why not learn how to share in the happiness of Jesus Himself?
Seek first God’s Kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Amen.
