Matthew 6:24-34; Galatians 5:25 – 6:10; 1 Kings
17:8-16
In the Name
of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
“I’m about to
prepare the evening meal for my family, so that we might eat it and die.” I
think my wife has said something like that from time to time. But, do you hear
the desperation in the widow’s remark? Do you hear the hopelessness and the
despair in her words? “All I’ve got left is a handful of flour and a little
oil, enough only for my son and I to eat tonight, and now you want me to bake
you a little cake. Well, why not! It all ends the same way anyway. At least it
will come a little quicker!”
We’ve all
felt like that from time to time. The money is tight – no, the money is gone –
but there’s still a pile of bills to be paid. Our little church is in that
position right now! All you see and hear on the news and the internet is the
continuing dissolution of values and morals in America, the uprising and
advance of extremists and people who hate us and want to kill us, drugs and
violence, graphic displays of pornography and sex in every thing from music
awards ceremonies to fast food restaurant commercials. It’s easy to be become anxious
and worried. It’s easy to become overcome by hopelessness and despair. It’s
easy to want to throw in the towel, to give up, to let it all go to hell, to
just let death come, the sooner the better.
You see, you
cannot serve two masters. And, whether you realize it or not, that is exactly
what you are doing. You are serving your master the devil. Well, you’re not
serving God with your fretting, worrying, anxiety, and despair, so just who did
you think you were serving? Jesus says that you cannot serve God and mammon. I
know, our English translation says “money.” Sure, mammon is money, but it is
much more than that. Mammon is all manner of material wealth, and fleeting and
worldly things that we are tempted to possess and amass and put our fear, love,
and trust in. Mammon includes money and possessions, but it also includes fame,
power, popularity, respect, and honor. Understand, these things are not evil or
sinful in themselves, but they are, in truth, God’s blessings upon you.
However, what you do with them, what you make with them, and how you receive
them is what makes the difference. It’s truly a spiritual matter: Do you
receive the LORD’s blessings as gifts over which you have been given
stewardship in your vocations, or do you believe them to be the fruits of your
own labors for which you have merited money and possession, fame, power,
popularity, respect, and honor before your fellow man and before God?
Satan tempts
you towards the latter. Thus St. Paul exhorts you saying, “If we live by the
Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” This is to say, you must walk and
think and choose and decide to use your gifts in the right way, in accordance
with the purpose God entrusted you with them. But, if you give into the devil’s
temptation, then you will become conceited, thinking too highly of yourself and
your fruits, and envious of others and their gifts. Then, God’s gifts become
your master instead of God who gave them to you. Then your fear, love, and
trust is in mammon, and not in God above and before all things. You will be
tempted to believe that you are free and independent, but mammon is no easy
master, but it is a cruel tyrant and you are its slave. And, the fruits that
your master mammon will produce in you are against the Spirit. Therefore, St.
Paul exhorts you to test your own work to see if it is pure and in accord with
God’s will and command.
In this
regard, we are here to help each other. St. Paul also exhorts you saying,
“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual
should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you
too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
You are your brother’s keeper; thus, St. Paul says, “So then, as we have
opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the
household of faith.” They say, charity begins at home. Well, this place is your
spiritual home, and these people are your spiritual brothers and sisters. Right
here, in your family of faith, is where your walking in the Spirit begins and
is honed and perfected so that you will be empowered and well-trained in
guiding others to life in the Spirit.
Now, what
does all this have to do with worry and anxiety? Everything! For, worry and
anxiety are the worship you pay to a false god, to a tyrannical slave master,
to mammon, and to Satan. In contrast, peace and contentment are the fruits of
fear, love, and trust in God above all things, and, they are also the proper
worship of God. In today’s Gospel, Jesus is not speaking something mysterious,
but He is speaking plain old common sense, though in a profoundly perceptive
and ontologically true way. Jesus says, “Do not be anxious about your life,
what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will
put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at
the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet
your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which
of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” No one
improves or extends their life in any way by being anxious and worried. In
fact, you will most certainly shorten your life and make your living less
enjoyable. So, why do it? Why give in to this temptation?
I know it’s
hard. And, your Lord Jesus knows it’s hard too. That’s why He has gathered you
into this family, His body, the Church. You are not alone. And, when you suffer
the affliction of temptation, and even when you fall – especially when you fall
– your brothers and sisters in Christ are supposed to be here to pick you up,
to direct you to the healing oil of Baptism, Confession, and Absolution, and to
the cleansing wine and nourishing food of the Lord’s Supper. And, your LORD
promises you that, until He returns, “The jar of flour shall not be spent, and
the jug of oil shall not be empty.”
Do not be
afraid! Rather, in faith, reach out, go out, do the loving thing, the merciful
thing, the compassionate thing, even if it seems the foolish thing, the
thankless thing, or even the dangerous thing. When the widow expressed her
despair and hopelessness that she was down to her last rations and was about to
die, Elijah directed her to her faith in the LORD and in His promise, “The jar
of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the
day that the LORD sends rain upon the earth.” Elijah said to her, “Do not fear;
go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it
to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son.”
Go and do. Those are words that, as
Lutheran Christians, you have been somewhat conditioned to hear as Law and not
as Gospel. I say to you, that is a good thing. You must always be on guard
against legalism and the slavery to works and the works righteousness that it produces
– a fear, love, and trust, not in God, but in yourself and your own faith,
piety, and works. And, yet, the Holy Scriptures, even the Gospels, the
Apostles, and Jesus Himself regularly command you to go and do.
As I spoke to you two weeks ago concerning Jesus’ Parable of the Good
Samaritan, how you hear and understand Jesus’ go and do has
everything to do with what you believe about Jesus, His Father, and the Holy
Spirit. For the baptized, for the regenerated, for the faithful, for you,
Jesus’ go and do is not a commandment of the Law, but a fruit of
the Gospel. The Holy Spirit equips you to perform these works of love and
service for your brothers and sisters in Christ and for your neighbor, not for
merit before God, but in love of God and the people He loves, and to His glory
above all things. Jesus gives you what you need to go and do, and
He works in you and through you as you go and do them.
However, if
you are filled with anxiety, worry, and fear, then you will be unfruitful, but
not fruitless. You will bear fruit, to be sure, but not the fruit of the True
Vine Jesus, but the fruit of the evil one: pride, envy, jealousy, wrath, lust,
sloth, greed, hatred, etc. Jesus would have you live by the Spirit. Jesus would
have you live, not in slavery and its trappings – fear and bitterness and
resentment –, but in true freedom and its fruits – love, mercy, compassion,
charity, selflessness, etc. “Do not be deceived,” writes St. Paul, “God is not
mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to
his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the
Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”
The answer
lies in Jesus’ words, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness.” You shall have no other gods. You shall fear, love, and trust
in God above all things. “No one can serve two masters.” “You cannot serve God
and mammon.” Do not let yourself be overcome with fear and anxiety,
hopelessness and despair. These are the temptations of the evil one, and your
flesh is weak to withstand them. But, instead, be filled with the gifts of
Jesus – faith and forgiveness, life, now and for eternity – and serve Him by
being served by Him and by serving others with what He has served you. Go
and do this, not in fear, or out of coercion, with resentment or pride,
but go and do them out of freedom and love.
“Seek first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Well, you’ve found it! The kingdom
of God is right here with you now, before your very eyes, to clothe you and to
comfort you and to empower you with His righteousness that you may live without
fear, in love and freedom, all the days of your life, glorifying God the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in service of your brother and sister and your
neighbor in Jesus Christ. Here, “The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the
jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the LORD sends rain upon the
earth.”
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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