The Reverend Barbara K. Briggs
May 25, 2008
The Second Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 3, Year A

“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.  you cannot serve God and wealth.”  This is just one of Jesus’ talks about money.  It is also his teaching about the importance of choosing where we put our trust.

Jesus talks about money more than he talks about any other single subject.  Throughout the Gospel there are stories and teachings about money and how we use it.  Tax collectors are warned not to extort it; the rich young man is invited to give it all away in order to love Jesus more fully and follow him; Zachaeus, the little man who climbed a tree in order to see Jesus, is inspired to shift his attachment from money to Jesus and decides to give his money to those he had cheated.

Jesus is not shy about the subject of money.  Money is an important part of his teaching because it is an important part of life.  In fact, we cannot live without it.  I wonder if his audience got as fidgety as we can get when the subject is brought to our attention – especially in church.  We tend to associate church talk about money with the request for a donation.  This is not what I want to talk about, and this is not what Jesus is talking about in this morning’s Gospel.  Since money is an integral part of our life and of our spiritual health, Jesus wants us to develop a healthy attitude toward it.  “If a person gets her attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in her life.”

When Jesus gathers the crowd and teaches them about a right relationship with money, he is at the same time talking about a right relationship with God, self and others.  The crowd there listening to him is comprised of poor peasants who have just enough to get by.  In fact, according to Jesus, all of us are “poor”.  For the hungry are not only those people who lack bread, but those who lack love.  The thirsty are not simply those who need water; you and I may thirst for righteousness.  The naked are not simply those who seek to be clothed; you and I may long to be clothed in dignity, with a sense of being worthwhile or really wanted by someone. 

The point Jesus is making is that we are not to excessively worry or be anxious about our needs in life.  We need food and clothing.  We know this and Jesus knows this.  What we do not need is to be overly anxious about it.  Jesus does not tell us to be unanxious about others’ food, but to be unanxious about our own.  He is not saying, “Do not worry about others’ lives, what they will eat or what they will drink or about their body, what they will wear,” but it is only when we can stop worrying about ourselves that we can give attention to others.  It doesn’t take a lot of money to keep us from seeing God and others.
Even just a little money can come between us and God.

Here is a good question to ask ourselves:  in any given day, do we think more of God or more about how we are managing our money?  Where does the bulk of our attention go – toward increasing our income or toward deepening our relationship with God?

Where am I putting my attention?

Jesus tells us, “Do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’  Indeed, your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  It’s all about where we choose to put our trust.

Andrew couldn’t sleep:  he was too excited, and too anxious about going to school for the first time and riding the bus all by himself.  He got out of bed and went down stairs.  He found his grandfather reading a book in the chair by the window, and crawled up into his lap.  His grandfather asked him what was the matter.  Andrew told him that he couldn’t sleep because he was anxious about his first day at school.  His grandfather reassured him and then asked if he wanted to hear a little story.  Andrew nodded his head, yes.

“It’s as if there are two wild animals inside me; one is trusting and loves to play.  She lives in peace and happiness with whatever the day brings.  She is only afraid when there is real danger and seems not to worry about anything at all.

“But the other wild animal, ah!  She is full of fear.  The littlest thing will set her into a fit of anxiety.  She is anxious all the time, for no reason.  She cannot think or make decisions or even act because her fear and anxiety are too great.

“It is hard to live with these two wild things inside me, for both of them try to get their way.”

Andrew looked intently into his Grandfather’s eye and asked him which one wins.

The Grandfather said quietly, “The one I feed.”

Rather than construct our own safety net, we are invited to center our lives in God.  Centering in God is a powerful antidote to anxiety.  Our ability to see and therefore to make healthy choices for our life is reduced by excessive anxiety.  If we are anxious about securing our own well-being, whether through family, possessions, honor, or religion, we become blind to the glory of God all around us.  It is not that God is absent.  It is that we do not see.

We are being invited to shift our attention from what we can do to what God is doing for us.  God is holding us as precious children, inviting us to let go of our own security system in order to replace it with God’s love and care.  So, then, we need to ask ourselves, if I let go, will God catch me?  Is God trustworthy?  Can I trust God for my life?  And if we are tempted to answer “yes,” we are in for a wonderful and surprising adventure, and I can’t wait to see where it will lead us.

Amen+

© Copyright 2008 by the Reverend Barbara K. Briggs