Matthew 6:25-34
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?
26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin.
29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these.
30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?
31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen
Dear congregation,
Do you also know such moments when you are completely satisfied with God and the world? A moment full of gratitude and great amazement at how many wonderful things there are to see and experience in our world?
Often it doesn't take much. It can be the constant sound of the waves on a walk by the sea - the water comes and goes. It follows its destiny. It comes and goes - regardless of what is going through the walker's head. It can be in the garden: one morning the Clivia and Strelitzia bloom again after the winter. They blossom - regardless of what the observer is experiencing that day. They glow in the sun and create a moment of admiration. It can be the moment when I hold a child in my arms - small and fragile and yet so perfect. So safe and secure in my arms - as if life could not harm it.
If you started to think about what moments these are in your life and we took the time to list them all, we would be busy for a long time. And I ask you to take time, today or at some point this week, to treasure these moments in your memory. They are great, valuable treasures.
‘Behold the lilies of the field’ - more splendidly dressed than Solomon.
These moments are so particularly precious, precisely because we know and experience that our lives are and will always be under threat. We humans are fragile beings.
We are beings who are capable of good and evil and therefore we encounter both in the world. Evil often has an overwhelming effect. Our brain absorbs negative experiences 7 times more strongly than good news. That makes sense. A moment like this, with a child in our arms or so content by the sea - is a moment in which we are calm - we can switch off - rest and relax. We are simply completely in the moment. As if nothing could harm us.
But the negative: it's challenging. It awakens fear. And fear is a powerful force. The brain goes on alert, wakes up the body: this is how nature has set it up and it takes a long time for the human brain to get used to the modern world. Brain research knows that our human brain in the 21st century still reacts as it did in the time of the sabre tigers. As soon as we hear something threatening, the whole organism is on alert. It is needed to deal with the danger. And because we experience this time and time again: how quickly good things perish and how lastingly evil destroys, we humans are beings who worry.
In German, we have quite a few words that all deal with something similar: namely the desire to avert evil - to recognise evil in time and escape it: Sorgen. Worry. To care for. Provide.
Worry wants to get a grip on the evil we encounter. Worry is the understandable desire to do everything we can to ensure that we and our loved ones, our world, are well.
But Jesus puts his finger in a deep wound:
‘Who among you, with all his worry, can prolong his life but a little while?’
Well, we modern people, two thousand years after Jesus, can already do a lot to prolong life. Jesus would certainly be surprised if he could see that.
We can do something: eat healthily, avoid stress, ...
But in principle, it has remained the same as it was felt back then and as Jesus addresses it: we humans remain at the mercy of death. We remain at the mercy of evil. And that is why, despite all our worries, the worries that rob us of sleep and the loving care - no matter how hard we try, we cannot get a grip on our lives.
Neither Solomon as a great ruler nor Peter as a middle-class fisherman, neither the farmer who gets everything he can out of his field nor the prudent and cautious businessman who protects himself.
Neither the person who has a good pension nor the person who lives from hand to mouth - no one can change the fact that our lives are and will remain under threat. Not even the best government in the world.
Jesus puts his finger in this wound of humanity: the wound that drives science and occupies philosophers. The wound that tempts politicians to make big promises.
The wound of our lives remains death and all the experiences that come with it - experiences of powerlessness and the certainty that we humans - however well we organise our lives - are ultimately not completely the architect of our own happiness or unhappiness.
Of course I would advise everyone, and I try to do so myself to the best of my knowledge and belief, that I organise my life well, positively and that I use my vitality to help others and myself to be well. Of course, I try to avoid being a burden on others or neglecting my responsibilities wherever possible. Of course I care about preserving creation and overcoming injustice.
But I do all of this in the knowledge that I won't add a margin to my life by doing this.
Jesus not only puts his finger in this wound - he also offers healing.
How can we live so that this wound, this death, does not throw us off course?
People who have been asked at the end of their lives whether they regret something and what they regret have rarely, in fact never, answered: we wanted to own more or accumulate even more wealth, or our house should have been bigger. Most people in the social group to which we almost all belong: with some degree of prosperity. These people have other regrets: more time with the children - less worrying about what cannot be changed. More commitment to a better world - more time by the sea, for the strelitzia that blooms, for the child in your arms.
The verses in today's sermon text are part of the Sermon on the Mount. It is a speech in which Jesus deals with the threats in life and shows us a way to live a ‘good life’ in the midst of these threats. He calls it the kingdom of God.
A good life is a life in which I am not ruled by my fears, but can trust in and rely on God in every situation.
A good life is a life where I come to the point where I know: I have enough. I have done enough. I have provided enough. I have enough, basically much more than I need.
A good life is a life in which, despite threats, despite experiences of death in various forms, I enjoy and recognise the moments when I am completely at peace with God, the world and myself.
A good life is a life where I don't just think about myself and am preoccupied with my fears, but look beyond them and take care of my fellow human beings.
A good life is a life where I am given the wisdom to know what I can and cannot influence.
It is a life where I also recognise the limits of the powerful and know that even a king or a government can only get a limited grip on our lives and our world.
A good life is a life where I can make someone's life easier for a moment.
A good life is the life that Jesus describes as the kingdom of God. Seek first to be at peace with God and yourselves. Seek to maintain trust and hope. Seek to ensure that justice is not a foreign concept.
Seek to stand by those who are at the mercy of others and are experiencing death right now.
Jesus describes this again and again: the entire Gospel is full of stories of how the kingdom of God can be experienced in heaven and on earth.
Stories full of hope: time and again moments in which something of the new world lights up that we long for so much in difficult moments. Moments in which we are lifted up and live with confidence and comfort. Dancing merrily and celebrating with joie de vivre.
Yes, every day has its own worries: in other words, we do not know the future and we have very limited influence over it - we will not add a span to our lives.
Have you ever heard of a bird that said its life was too short at the end?
Have you heard a lily moan that it is fading away?
Look - they live and they die and so they are part of the good creation.
Don't worry about tomorrow. Worry about today.
Rejoice with the happy and weep with the sad: be grateful for the moments when you can say: Thank you for this good morning. Thank you for this day.
Thank you for trust in the midst of a threatened world.
Collect these experiences as precious treasures. They are valuable in difficult times when neither money nor status count.
This is what Jesus means when he recommends: store up treasures in heaven.
Seek first the kingdom of God, then you will often feel: everything else has fallen to me. Thank you for that.
Amen
May the peace of God, which is higher than our understanding, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.