Even though I didn’t follow the lectionary this week, the timing of my sermon couldn’t have been better. The daffodils are just coming into bloom and I was bouncing off of Jesus’ admonition to pay attention to the flowers. Here’s where it took me.
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Last week, as we gathered at the empty tomb, we heard the angel say what angels always seem to say when they show up: “Don’t be afraid.” This from a celestial being beaming like unfiltered sunshine so bright that it knocked the guards out.
But that’s not how fear works.
As I have said before, I think the angels (or maybe the translators) would be more effective saying, “Keep moving through the fear,” as a way of reminding us that fear is one-dimensional, where courage runs deeper and is more complex.
Our passage this morning, as we return to the Sermon on the Mount, begins with Jesus saying, “Don’t worry about your life.” I might give Jesus the same note as I gave the angels: that’s not how worry works. It’s not that easy to turn off. We might do better to hear, “Keep moving through your worry,” because it, too, is one-dimensional. We might even say it’s a form of fear because we are scared of what we can’t control.
To only hear the don’ts—don’t be afraid; don’t worry—makes them both sound life harsh commands. I don’t think either Jesus or the angels intended them that way. They weren’t trying to correct behavior, like saying, “Sit up straight,” or “Spit out your gum.” They were issuing invitations, offering a different way of looking at the situation, so let’s see if it is an invitation we can hear this morning.
The sentence that opens our passage reads, “Because of this, I say to you, don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or drink, or about your body, what you will have to wear,” reminding us that we are picking up in the middle of the sermon. “Because of this” means Jesus was making a connection to what he had just said, which was:
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be loyal to the one and have contempt for the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
So, because we can’t serve both God and property or wealth, don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will wear. The invitation is to a deeper trust in God. To push through our worry about whether or not we will have enough means deciding we are not controlled by a cost-benefit analysis when we make choices about the kind of people we want to be in the world. Jesus even asked the question:
Isn’t life a greater thing than food, and the body a greater thing than clothing?
And then he went on the talk about two things: birds and flowers:
Take a good look at the birds in the sky: They don’t sow seed or harvest grain or gather crops into barns; but God feeds them. Aren’t you worth far more than they are? Who among you by worrying can add a single moment to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? Observe and learn from the lilies in the field how beautifully they grow. They don’t exhaust themselves out with work, and they don’t spin thread. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all of his splendor was dressed as well as one of these flowers.
Seeing the daffodils in our flower bed this morning as I let the pups out made me think there could not be a better morning to read those words. Yesterday morning there was a little bird with a big voice who was singing to beat the band. And they are not alone. We could add the squirrels that dance across the the tops of the picket fence with such grace, or the chipmunks who dart in and out of our stone wall. I would even add Loretta, our crazy little rescue pup, who can spend hours frolicking in the yard, throwing her toy up in the air and catching it, and then making a victory lap to proclaim her triumph.
Everyone one seemed “lost in wonder, love, and praise,” as the old hymn says. I found myself wondering why I was the only one thinking about all that I had to do. Maybe it was because I was the only one who had a list of things that I had to do—promises to keep, obligations to uphold. I don’t know that it would have worked well for me to show up this morning and say, “I didn’t prepare a sermon because I got caught up looking at the flowers.”
Our responsibilities are real. The bills have to be paid. We have people counting on us. And then there’s all the stuff going on in the world that affects us but we can’t control. As I said, concern and worry aren’t synonyms. Still, how do we push beyond our worry to engage our lives in a way that allows us to get lost in wonder, love, and praise?
Jesus’ answer was to trust that to choose relationships over property and power—to live into God’s economy, God’s community—is the way to live beyond our worry. Like the daffodils and the sparrows, we are not here for long. Every last one of us on this planet, whatever the species, are remarkably temporary. Losing ourselves to worry costs us valuable time. The daffodils bloom with abandon because they have two weeks to shine and then they fade away. Let’s do more with the days we have than just build a monument to our anxieties.
Let us also remember that worry and concern are different things. We can be concerned about circumstances and make a plan for how to change things without being consumed or incapacitated by worry. We can change behaviors. We can ask for help. And we can live in the moment.
As I went through this week trying to think of a way to say these things that didn’t sound like a correction or a greeting card, I thought about one of my favorite old movies called That Thing You Do. The story takes place in 1964. Four guys in Erie, Pennsylvania have a band called The Wonders and they get discovered because of their song, “That Thing You Do,” which is a perfect pop song.
The movie came to mind because of one scene in particular. It takes place after they have recorded the single and it has been released to radio stations. Faye, who is the girlfriend of one of the guys in the band, is walking down the sidewalk with her transistor radio playing in her ear when the song comes on. It takes her a second, but then she realizes what is happening and starts running down the street in utter joy to find the others at the appliance store where one of them works and they are all consumed by the moment.
I can watch that scene over and over.
The story arc of the movie follows the band as they become famous and then, rather quickly, things fall apart and they are one hit wonders, which as their manager tells them, is a familiar story. Maybe so, but Faye still had that moment running down the street, lost in wonder and joy.
In her Sixties way, she is Mary running from the tomb to tell the disciples that Christ was alive. It didn’t change any other of the circumstances of her life, and it changed everything.
And it is with that joy in mind that I offer that we are One Hit Wonders. Whether we are talking about ourselves individually or collectively, or speaking about our nation or larger things, we are not here for long. Nothing we can do will change that. And—not but, and—while we are here we have the opportunity to shine, to blossom, to hit the charts and run down the street in joy. Let’s not miss it. Amen.
Peace,
Milton