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Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 6:19-34
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Our world and the world of the Roman Empire actually have a lot of synchronicity here. Some scholars call the later part of the Roman Empire an age of anxiety.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.
Speaker 1:My name is Bobby, and I'm one of the pastors on the team here. What a magical weekend we are having. Are you keeping your sense of humor about you? No. I hear groaning.
Speaker 1:Calgary, I love this about you. Like, it snows. You carry on. You just carry on. So bless you in that.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's a little harder sometimes to just like keep carrying on to keep your sense of humor about you when you get sick at this time of year. This is the time, right, for germs and snot and, like, mountains of tissues. My little niece was in preschool for one day, just one day. And before she even went back for the second, she was home puking, poor thing. I don't even have kids, but I picked up some sort of nasty little cold.
Speaker 1:And it really slowed me down a couple weeks ago, but I'm back, and I'm feeling good. So that's where we are in the season. Right? We are digging out our mittens. We're fighting off colds, and we're still sort of establishing our fall rhythms.
Speaker 1:So we are a few weeks into our rhythm of the Sermon on the Mount series, which is as good a time as Amy to remember where we are in the Gospel of Matthew and chapter five begins like this. Now when Jesus saw the crowds he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him and he began to teach them. So we have this crowd and we have the disciples. It's a real mixed bag.
Speaker 1:The sermon on the mount is heard by the wealthy and the poor, the elite and the working class, the Roman majority and the Jewish minority, the Sermon on the Mount addresses every one of them. So when people say to you or you even say to yourself, I don't know. Maybe Jesus just isn't for me. Then sit your butt down on this mountainside and just listen. This is a sermon for all of us with metaphors and invitations and a more fully realized humanity.
Speaker 1:So today we are exploring what Jesus says about worry. I mean how much more human could that be? And I'm calling this sermon bent world worries. And we will talk about basic birds, beautiful flowers, dramatic dialogue, and ah, bright wings. But first, let's pray together.
Speaker 1:Loving God, what a world we live in. This week has known all kinds of stress, doubt, all kinds of fear, disappointment. And so we take a moment to settle our hearts, to quiet our minds, to wait, and to wonder. For those of us feeling confused and unsure, will you meet us with Christ's presence? For those of us feeling sad or holding grief, will you meet us with Christ's peace?
Speaker 1:For those of us feeling life's goodness and joy and humor, will you meet us with Christ's generosity? And may we trust the nearness of the spirit to guide us in faith, we pray. Amen. So I've been thinking a lot about clothing lately partly because there's a connection with the passage that we look at today but partly well because especially at this time of year I like clothes, sweaters and all of it. Clothes give me a great deal of joy and are even kind of connected to my own story.
Speaker 1:There was a time when the clothing I wore didn't actually fit me very well. I hid behind a lot of layers, I disappeared behind doll colors. Still do it. But then there was a time when I found clothes that fit well and helped me feel more like myself, more confident. And I love the little boutique in Vancouver and it felt like the people who worked there like really got me and that they kind of loved me too.
Speaker 1:Of course, when I went back to Vancouver after being away for a couple of years, made like a holy pilgrimage to that shop And I thought it would be like this joyous reunion between me and the staff. Like look everybody, long lost Bobby she has returned to our hip and stylish boutique. Well, when I walked into the store, the staff, all of whom I recognize, swiveled their heads and looked at me and their faces read quite clearly, welcome, but also, we have no idea who you are. It turns out that they were just really good at their jobs, and that's fine. But here's the thing about clothing and what it has done for me.
Speaker 1:It's brought me a lot of comfort. When I've been worried about relationships, about my health, about the future, I trust a new black sweater to soothe me. And it does for a moment and then it really doesn't. In an opinion piece from July, remember those warmer days, in the Globe and Mail called The Life Changing Magic of Making Do, Benjamin Less challenges us and our relationship with possessions. Basically, Les says, we have too much stuff and we expect too much from our stuff.
Speaker 1:We can, however, move towards something healthier for ourselves and for the planet if we make do with what we already have. So fix things when they are broken. Borrow instead of buy. Wear out your clothes until they are torn. He makes the case that this is actually a much more interesting way to live, more resourceful.
Speaker 1:Because it turns out that a new sweater is not intended to reduce our worry. Sweaters are meant to cover our bodies and to keep us warm, even provide an encounter with beauty. But address our soul's longing, our mind's worry, Our anxiety in any given moment? No. A sweater can't do all of that.
Speaker 1:What we purchase cannot take away what we worry about. In fact, the more stuff we have, the more we worry about all our stuff. Right? We know this. So in Matthew six twenty five to 34, Jesus repeats the phrase, do not worry, not once, not twice, but three times.
Speaker 1:And these words about worry are treasured long after Jesus and his disciples, long after Jesus is gone, and his disciples are kinda left with the rubble of a destroyed temple and mounting Roman oppression. So let's start with Jesus' first argument against worry. Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life or about your body what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? Okay.
Speaker 1:So let's stop right there. We've got ourselves a therefore and in Greek it's the preposition dia, us that this section is linked to what's gone on before. Jesus has finished telling the crowd, you will find treasure in this life. Money can buy temporary treasures but lasting treasure has no price tag. So if you confuse earth's possessions for heaven's treasures, you will lose your connection with God.
Speaker 1:Now let me say, if anxiety is a part of your mental health reality, then please hear me. I am not diminishing your struggle. With the Sermon on the Mount, we're in the realm of wide spread cultural worry. I'm not saying that this message won't resonate with you if you live with an anxiety disorder or other mental health diagnoses, but I want to be clear here. The Bible might not be enough for all of that.
Speaker 1:Reading a passage in the Bible isn't the cure for anxiety that just won't quit. Sure, it might bring you a bit of peace, but if you have tried on your own to get out ahead of your anxiety and it is an overwhelming struggle, please talk to someone. We have relationships with therapists connected to our community, and we are happy to make a referral if you need a little extra help and support. There is great courage in that choice to take care of yourself. But let me also say, our world and the world of the Roman Empire actually have a lot of synchronicity here.
Speaker 1:Some scholars call the later part of the Roman Empire an age of anxiety. I mean, sounds a bit familiar. Right? The Roman world also had political catastrophes and a great deal of socioeconomic unrest. So this is a text that addresses the human experience of stress and fragility and searching for meaning in all of it.
Speaker 1:Okay. Back to the Sermon on the Mount. The first section on worry is set up with the rabbinic argument known kind of oddly in Latin as argumentum a fortiori. And the argument moves from the lesser to the greater to make a point. So first, birds to make this point about human beings.
Speaker 1: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? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? So in a world bent with worry, Jesus begins with the basics.
Speaker 1:Presence of birds, absence of barns, provision of daily bread. Jesus says, look around you at everything you've already seen. Birds aren't new to you. Barns, they're not new to you, but can you see them with new eyes, with this sacred perspective? Can you see that the birds are cared for?
Speaker 1:So if it's true for the smallest, how much more for the greatest you are cared for. Now the Greek word for look here is emblepo. And it means to look at, to consider, to see clearly. And Kierkegaard wrote a whole book about this kind of noticing. And Kierkegaard said that the birds of the sky in the Sermon on the Mount, they are there as our teachers.
Speaker 1:And what do they teach? Well, again and again Kierkegaard tells us the birds, the trees, the oceans teach silence. So he writes, there is a silence out there. The forest keeps silent even when it whispers. It is nonetheless silent.
Speaker 1:For the trees even where they stand close most closely together keep their word to one another which human beings do so infrequently despite having given their word that this will remain between us. The sea keeps silent even when it rages loudly. It is nonetheless silent. And he goes on like this for a while after calling the sounds of nature a silence of uniformity. And then he finishes the point here.
Speaker 1:When the silence of evening descends upon the countryside and you hear the distant lowing of cattle from the meadow or you hear the familiar voice of the dog from the farmer's house or in my case, the nearby condo, It cannot be said that this lowing or the dog's voice disturbs the silence. No. This is part of the silence. It has a secret and thus a silent understanding with the silence. It increases it.
Speaker 1:From the least to the greatest. We know ourselves and we know the divine in these interactions with silence. And this kind of silence is about not getting ahead of yourself. Not wishing for a life other than the one you're actually living right now. It's acknowledging our interdependence with all living things.
Speaker 1:And the more that we pay attention to this life, not the next or the wished for or the might have been, but the more that we dive into this life and sit quietly at its feet, we will sense something of God's grandeur. And what might God say to you in that silence? How about I see you? I see your worry. I know your basic needs.
Speaker 1:But do you see me? Do you see me in the birds, in the oceans, in the treetops swaying in the wind? Do you see me taking care of all these things? Now does this assurance of God's care apply to everybody? I mean, if you're poor, is this message of provision for you?
Speaker 1:What if you're sick and you're facing a terminal diagnosis? Are you not to worry? What about if you've done something you deeply regret and you can't see a way out? What about worry then? Well, to begin with, let's remember Jesus' people are the poor, the disenfranchised, the lower than the low.
Speaker 1:So yeah, this message is for every one of us. But what's more, the Sermon on the Mount doesn't say we shouldn't worry about each other's needs, so maybe there's the rub. We're so wrapped up in our own worries that we miss the worries of our neighbors, our friends, maybe even the person sleeping beside us in our own bed. Fredrik Bruner says that Jesus presents a comforting command to take our eyes off of ourselves and to throw ourselves into the cause of God's poor and those with great need. Bruner says that at the very least, this message about worry is an anti selfish text.
Speaker 1:Is there something that you can do this week to take the worry of someone around you just down, just down like a notch or two? Can you write a card to say, hey, I love you, and I am thinking about you? Can you offer a smile and a hello to someone you maybe hardly know but you see struggle more than they should? Can you take time to listen to someone's story and not interrupt, even if it bores you or troubles you. Maybe they are just working something out.
Speaker 1:God cares for basic needs, maybe from the palm of your own hand. What a partnership God entrusts to us to care for each other as God cares for birds. So Jesus moves from the birds of the sky to the flowers of the field. And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow.
Speaker 1:They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field which is here today and tomorrow was thrown into the fire, will God not much more clothe you, you of little faith? In a world so bent with worry, Jesus addresses the crowds with an aesthetic argument. He makes a case for beauty.
Speaker 1:The flowers of the field, Solomon in his splendor, beauty for the sake of beauty. And the Greek is actually much more emphatic here. It's see the flowers exclamation point exclamation point. Now we rarely get an aesthetic deliberation in the New Testament. There's a lot of talk, right, about prayer and healing and greed and rest and sin, work, community, obedience, belonging, but beauty?
Speaker 1:We don't get a lot of language about beauty. Even in this comparison comparison between Flowers at the Field and Solomon in his robes, we have the flowers beating out Solomon any day. As if to say, oh, humans, you think you're hot stuff. Well, you had nothing to do with the tiger lily in the prairie field and the lily grows. And maybe you see it and maybe you don't.
Speaker 1:But for its life, God says, I'm glad. For its beauty, I sing. Now, we are descendants of the enlightenment, and we love to think and to reason about stuff. But the contemplative tradition of Christianity leads us in the way of aesthetics. A theology of aesthetics says that beauty is an attribute of God.
Speaker 1:It's what we experience of God with our senses. It's art, it's nature, it's music, it's story, it's dancing, it's fashion. All bringing us closer to the beauty of the creator. Now I'm a big fan of the contemplative tradition to get at the beauty of God. In fact, there were seasons in my life when I thought, you know, I don't know if I can keep doing this Christian thing anymore.
Speaker 1:But the mystics, the saints with quiet souls and imaginative prayers, the mystics, companioned me through hard times and they still do. Through doubt, through heartbreak, through lostness. So it's incredibly important to me as one of the pastors on the team here at Commons that you have space to interact with the beautiful contemplative Christian tradition. So three times a year here at Commons, we offer contemplative prayer events. And the first one is coming up on Saturday, October 19, and it's called Intro to the Mystics.
Speaker 1:And you'll be introduced to the wild and the wonderful works of Julian of Norwich, Saint John of the Cross, Thomas Merton and others. Each mystic offers something to you of God, the beautiful one. So you can register at commons.life. So in the second do not worry argument, Jesus uses beauty to keep worry in check. Clearly, beauty is a big deal.
Speaker 1:Now, it's important to remember that beauty is not the same as perfection. It's not the same. Here, let me tell you the story of a dress. When I got married at the age of 37, I wanted a dress that felt like me. Now I am not one for embellishment.
Speaker 1:My style is more minimal, clean lines, simple fabrics. That is for me. So I reached out to a Canadian designer, Eliza Faulkner, who at the time was living in Vancouver. I had worn her dresses before, and she agreed to make my wedding dress. Now Eliza being Eliza and Bobby being Bobby, we excitedly agreed to put a little color blocking in the back and the shoulders of the dress.
Speaker 1:Everything was perfect. I loved the dress, and I love the connection with Eliza that made it come to life. So just before Jonathan and I were about to have our pictures taken before the ceremony, I put the dress on, I bent over to pull on my boots, and I heard a rip, and I felt the fabric release. The zipper was blown, and no matter how hard we tried, we could not zip that dress back up. So I called Eliza who was then living in Montreal.
Speaker 1:And after much apology, poor woman, she said the solution was simple. Just find a seamstress who could replace the zipper. Unfortunately, she thought the wedding was a week away, not a couple hours away. So she thought fast and she offered a plan b. She said, find a friend who can sew and get that person to sew me into the dress.
Speaker 1:Now don't read too much into that, but that is what we did. I was a little panicked and I couldn't think clearly, so I knew my friend Zoe could think for me. So I called her and I said, Zoe, who do we know who sews? And without hesitation, she said, Jen Milley. So I called Jen Milley and she hauled to get to our downtown hotel arriving with, I kid you not, her sewing tackle box in hand and that woman sewed me into my dress.
Speaker 1:This picture, this picture of beauty is the real deal. The dress mattered to me. And you know, the zipper broke and friends rushed in to save the day. I wouldn't have it any other way. Do you ever feel like this?
Speaker 1:Like, about the world? Like, the planet, it has a maker. It matters. The planet is all we have, and it is warming up. And we are bending over.
Speaker 1:Right? We are bending over, and we break it. And we need policies and a lot of cooperation to save the day. Or, like, there's this idea that you have for your life, and it really matters to you, and it is just not working out how you wanted it to. And you need a little beauty to remind you that God is somehow with you in this.
Speaker 1:Or maybe there's this thing that happened to you a long time ago, and you needed someone to see you in your beauty to protect you. I mean, what could matter more than you weren't seen? You were hurt. And now all you want is for someone to hold you and to remind you that you are whole and you are so worthy of love. Then let the Sermon on the Mount speak to you.
Speaker 1:The birds, the fancy robes, they have nothing on you. Jesus says to us, to you right now, keep your heart wide open. Practice faith. And repeat in that quiet space, do not worry but trust. Do not worry but trust.
Speaker 1:Do not worry, trust. The second time Jesus says to the crowd, do not worry, it's actually quite dramatic, and it's dramatized with direct speech. There's nothing quite like a little dramatic dialogue to make the point. We are the blessed ones who have movie dialogue to show us how important dramatic speech is to make a point, Like when Meg Ryan's character says to Tom Hanks' character in my all time favorite movie, you've got mail proudly. I wanted it to be you.
Speaker 1:I wanted it to be you so badly. Or the haunting moment when Jack Nicholson and a few good men says to Tom Cruise, you can't handle the truth or the godfathers leave the gun, take the cannoli. Also a line in You've Got Mail. Dramatic dialogue sticks. And we find it here in the Sermon on the Mount.
Speaker 1:Do not worry saying, what shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear? For the pagans run after all these things and your heavenly father knows you need them. Now the word that is missing in the NIV here is the word all.
Speaker 1:The Greek reads more like this, your heavenly father knows you need these things, all of them. So it's not frivolous to want, to need, to acquire some stuff in this world. But Jesus says, to anyone who will listen be different from those who build their whole life around what they own. The dramatic thing about worry is that if we leave worry unchecked, if we feed it with our fear and with our insecurity, if we let it bully us instead of teach us what really matters, Worry will keep us from really living. While we are preoccupied with what we purchase, our life is passing us by, and nothing is more dramatic than that.
Speaker 1:So after Jesus says, the divine knows you need all these things, he says, but seek first God's kingdom and God's righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. And in the language of the Sermon on the Mount, the kingdom is the reality we are living towards. It's the fullness of God as a day to day reality. And righteousness is how we get there. And the Greek word for righteousness also means justice.
Speaker 1:And I know no other way to resist worry than to work for the world that Jesus ushered in. It's a truth telling, a power challenging, and amend all things new world. And as if we needed to be reminded one last time, Jesus says again, therefore do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Now is it just me or is this a little bit anticlimactic?
Speaker 1:Like Jesus kind of just admits defeat here. Okay, you guys. I know. I told you not to worry, but I know you. I know you'll worry.
Speaker 1:I know. And so maybe it is anticlimactic. Isn't real life kind of like that too? So the invitation is just always here. Come away from the temporary things that you cling to for comfort.
Speaker 1:Set aside the stuff that your money can buy. Make do. Make do with what you have. Keep faith. Which is kind of a fancy way of saying just keep your eyes, your senses open to God who is everywhere.
Speaker 1:Gerard Manley Hopkins said that says that the world is charged with the grandeur of God. And yes, his poem says, we make a mess of it. Hopkins says, as we trod, as we trod, as we trod. But just as the lights in the West go out, oh, morning. The light in East Springs because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and with, ah, bright wings.
Speaker 1:In other words, in a world that is so bent with worry, God has not given up on us yet. So today, may you frame your basic needs in light of the birds that fly and that sing. And today, may you hold your need for beauty alongside something so simple and so surprising. And together, may we work for a world that mends and reminds us the divine is near. The divine cares for us all.
Speaker 1:Please join me in prayer. Loving God, we thank you for your presence. It was never diminished or shut out by the chaos of this life. So Jesus, you invite us to live, to live as you lived. That doesn't mean we're spared from hard times.
Speaker 1:Doesn't mean we're beyond the reach of temptation. Doesn't mean we're not afraid of being alone? And so we think of the ways that our worry can teach us about our needs, our basic needs, our need for beauty, our need to work together, to be together for the good of all creation. So spirit of the living God present with us now in our brokenness, even in our worry, Will you meet us in all of these places and heal us of all that harms us. Amen.