EIGHTH SUNDAY after EPIPHANY

February 27, 2011

Text: Matthew 6:24-34

Pastor Dale G. Bauer 

We’re on the same road we have been for weeks. We are trying to take the road less traveled. That’s what the Sermon on the Mount is all about. And this is the fourth Sunday we’ve been on this road. We looked at:

Knowing our need for God.

Being meek.   

Being peacemakers.

Seeking reconciliation.

Sin and its pervasive character.

Loving our enemies.

Transforming love.

I don’t doubt for a minute your/our sincerity to follow this road. But we now come to a bump in any road: things. The proper place of things in our lives. Jesus is clear about things:

            ... your heavenly Father knows 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.

I once heard a lecture by the treasurer of the national Church who said something strange to my ears:

Christianity is the most materialistic of all the world religions. Jesus never asks you to give up things. He is concerned with what you do with things.

There is no doubt we live in a material world. The world is made up of matter, wonderfully made for our use. Genesis describes the creation of the material earth as we know it and the creation of the animal kingdom. We are given “dominion” over them.

But here is the bump in the road. Rather than us having dominion over things, they have dominion over us.

                                    We believe we possess things;

                                    Actually, they possess us.

Do I believe that? I know that. I believe I am in control of my life. And the things of my life. Except:

Things take constant care. I spent part of my Monday changing the oil on one of my cars. (I can still do that.) That alone brings some measure of fun for me, because my vocation mostly involves my head and my mouth. But keeping the cars going takes a lot of maintenance, not the least of which is tires. (I take no pleasure in going to Discount Tires.) I get stuff in the mail and I’ve got to decide what I keep and what I throw away. Within the last two years I’ve replaced the cooler, roof, and furnace in my home, along with repairing cracks in my stucco, sealing the backyard fence, and keeping the faucets from dripping. I’ve got my fruit trees, grapes, and tomatoes. But I’ve got to prepare the soil, put in the seasonal plants, water them, feed them, nurture them. I’ve got a bike. I’ve got to dig out the goat-heads, keep pressure in the tire, keep the chain clean. I’ve got an I-Mac and an I-Book. Upgrade operating systems, if you can. Edee takes Apple classes to understand the software. The list goes on.

I get emotionally attached to things. Remember, I am the owner of a 35-year-old International Scout. I learned how attached I get to things when I was a pastor at Zion Lutheran Church, Idaho Springs. Our church building was 80 years old, 100% wood, and had just been the object of loving restoration. One fall night, about 3:00 a.m., the neighbor who lived next to the church heard popping sounds, woke up, went back to bed, heard more popping sounds, got up and called us. Our telephone line was busy, so she came over and knocked at the door. I got up and walked out the front door, fell over a pile of asphalt “cold mix,” and as I rolled I could see an orange glow in the furnace room. The building was minutes from ventilating into an inferno. I raced to the firehouse, opened the service door, and then started opening the doors to the fire-truck bays, so that not a second was lost. I put my boots, bunker coat, and helmet on and was on the pumper when it pulled out. I watched as my fellow firefighters put out the fire. Then I sat on a concrete step, physically ill, nauseated, as I reacted to such a close call to a thing, a building.

Buzz of buying. While I never buy impulsively, often look at something I want to buy two or three times, and research using Consumer Reports, I’ll be the first to admit that I get an emotional buzz off of buying something. The buzz is always greater if I get a good deal. The reason Financial Peace University has done so well here is because it changes the buzz of buying to the buzz of saving. Things? They are part of the fabric of being American: if I don’t buy, our consumer economy falters, and people are unemployed. So sometimes I buy something I’m not so sure I need and say, “I am stimulating the economy.”

They define us. What you wear has a lot to do with how you are perceived. Henri Nouwen once described his experience of traveling down a highway in Los Angeles. He said billboards said to him:

Use me, take me, buy me, drink me, smell me, touch me, kiss me, sleep with me.

Okay. Things. They have a mighty grip on us. And when we confess that, half the battle is won. We make choices to buy or not to buy, but we have been trained to make bad choices. Not the kingdom of God first, but everything else, first. Jesus knows we need things, but he also know they preoccupy us.

It is our confession that things have a powerful influence on us that allows us to begin to turn things around. We can focus on what matters:

“What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?”

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Much easier said that done. We are seduced daily by the things we own and the anxieties of life. That is why Christ Jesus gave us the community, the church. This church. We are here to listen to the anxieties our brothers and sisters in Christ have. We are here to remind our brothers and sisters that it is easy to get controlled by our possessions. We are here to remind each other that we need first to be citizens of the kingdom, first.

Amen.