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.
These past two Sundays the Word of the LORD has exhorted you to live in the freedom of the Gospel, in love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness toward your brother and sister in Christ, your friends and neighbors, and even your enemies. This is not a preaching of the Law, but the fruit of the Gospel, the fruit of faith that has set you free from the coercion and condemnation of the Law and cleansed you from guilt and fear.
When you are profoundly aware of the love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness you have received from the LORD in Jesus Christ, you desire to show the same toward others. You no longer need to be coerced or guilted into loving action, but are encouraged and equipped to love in thought, word, and deed. This is the freedom your LORD created and redeemed you to have, not to live as a slave or prisoner in fear and resentment, but as a child of God, free to love, give, and share without fear.
Then why are you so anxious and afraid? Why do you worry about what you will eat and drink, what you will wear, or where you will live? Why are you terrified by wars and rumors of wars abroad and political wars at home? Why do you fear losing your so-called freedoms and rights? Your LORD and God has already set you free in Jesus Christ and given you true freedom, along with all that you need to support your body and life.
Some rights and freedoms are indeed God-given. The right to life, the responsibility to defend oneself and one's family, and the liberty to live and labor within God's created order are rooted in God's Word and His ordering of creation. Other rights and freedoms are established by men. They are written into constitutions and laws, interpreted and protected by lawyers and judges, and enforced by governments.
The distinction matters. The rights themselves may be good gifts, but the particular ways in which men define, protect, or exercise those rights are not God. And if your fear, love, and trust are placed in those rights and freedoms above and before God, if the thing you would die for is preserving them and the thing you fear most is losing them, then you just might have an idolatrous fear, love, and trust in them.
Especially today, when so many of the freedoms we cherish seem threatened, we are vulnerable to this temptation. We must therefore be on guard, repent, trust in the LORD and His Word, receive His gifts, and walk in His Spirit, Truth, and Light.
Jesus compares fear and anxiety to slavery, and rightly so. “No servant can serve two masters.” A slave has one master. When you give yourself over to fear and anxiety about earthly cares, possessions, and values, you have made yourself their slave. And if they are your master, the LORD cannot be your Master as well.
Your LORD's First Commandment is, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” The LORD is a jealous God. He will not share you with other gods, which are truly idols and demons. What is it that you need that your LORD does not graciously provide? Food, clothing, shelter? Your body and soul, your members, reason, and senses, which He still preserves? Husband, wife, and children? Jesus has taught you to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Does the LORD not answer that prayer, providing everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body? Food, drink, clothing, house and home, money and goods, family, faithful rulers and good government, good weather, peace, health, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like?
Look at the birds and the flowers, Jesus says. They neither reap nor sow nor worry about food or clothing, yet the LORD provides for them. How much more will He provide for you whom He created in His own image and redeemed through His Son, Jesus Christ, who became your brother and shared your flesh and blood and all your human needs? You were not created to live in anxiety and fear, but in faith and trust in the LORD.
Our First Parents' sin was also a matter of fear, love, and trust. They loved the gifts of God more than the Giver. They feared losing them more than they feared the LORD. Their trust was no longer in God but in themselves. They had become gods unto themselves. And that is what you do when you worry anxiously and fearfully about not having, losing what you have, or what might happen to you. You cast yourself into slavery to anxiety and fear, which is worship of a false god, another master.
But that is not the life to which the LORD has called you. He has created you, called you, and equipped you to work in His creation and care for its inhabitants. You cannot faithfully serve as a steward of God's creation while enslaved to anxiety and fear. No servant can serve two masters. You are called to be a light to the world dwelling in darkness. How can you be a light when you are turned in upon yourself in anxiety and fear? That is how the Gentiles, the unbelieving world, lives. But not you, children of God, children of the Light.
St. Paul likewise distinguishes between the way of the Spirit and the way of the flesh. The way of the Spirit is humility, peace, contentment, patience, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, gentleness, and charity. Paul warns, “God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.” Whoever sows to the flesh will reap corruption; whoever sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life.
You are called and equipped to work in this world. Yet while your new man desires the things of God, your flesh remains weak, with its passions, desires, fears, and anxieties. When you serve them, you sow to your flesh. But when you live in the freedom of the Gospel and walk by the Spirit, you sow to the Spirit. This is not a one-and-done sort of thing. St. Paul exhorts you to “live by the Spirit” and to “walk by the Spirit.” Living and walking are ongoing, lifelong activities. Beware of anxiety and fear that tempt you to become proud, greedy, and selfish, robbing you of contentment, comfort, and peace. “Do not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
Elijah had every reason, according to the flesh, to give up. So did the widow of Zarephath. The land was stricken by drought and famine. Elijah could have feared starvation. The widow was preparing what she believed would be her final meal before she and her son died. Yet neither gave in to fear. The widow obeyed the Word of the LORD spoken through Elijah. She baked a cake first for him and then for herself and her son. Together, in fear, love, and trust in the LORD, they ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, and the jug of oil was not empty, until the LORD sent rain upon the earth.
It is no different with you, O you of little faith. Even now your LORD takes your meager offerings of bread and wine and presses them into holy use, feeding you with the sin-forgiving, faith-sustaining, life-giving body and blood of Jesus. He hears your prayer for daily bread and provides all that you need for your body and life, and more, so that you may share with those less fortunate.
Do not be afraid. The LORD is for you. The LORD is with you. The LORD will never leave you or forsake you, and nothing can separate you from His love for you in Jesus Christ. He has led you out of slavery to anxiety, worry, and fear, and out of slavery to sin, death, and the grave, through the waters of Holy Baptism.
Come, eat His body. Come, drink His blood. The jar of flour will not be spent and the jug of oil will not be empty until He returns for you and takes you home. Until then, your true Master has work for you to do: love one another, show mercy to one another, be humble and not proud, and readily forgive, even your enemies, as you have been forgiven in the mercy of the LORD shown to you in Jesus Christ.
“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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