Thinking About Tomorrow

Matthew 6:25-34

"So do not worry about tomorrow,” Jesus advises his listeners in the gospel of Matthew, “for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today” (Matthew 6:34). The poignancy of these words comes when we recognize to whom Jesus was speaking. The original audience would have been predominantly poor people forced to struggle for survival. Oppressed by a foreign power they would have had ample reason to worry about the near future. Even the later audience for whom Matthew wrote would have been concerned about their own circumstances. The early church faced persecution and in many cases survived day to day. Deal with the matters at hand, Jesus is saying, and quit looking ahead to what may or may not happen.

At first glance the band Fleetwood Mac seems to offer a significantly different perspective. Their song, “Don’t Stop,” includes the following lyrics:

Why not think about times to come

And not about the things that you’ve done?

If you’re life was bad to you

Just think what tomorrow will do.

Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow,

Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here.

It’ll be better than before,

Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone.

Quit dwelling on the pain of today, the song tells us, because the future offers hope for a better life. Could it be that Jesus’ pessimism has been countered by the optimism of an Anglo/American rock band in the late twentieth century?

No. If we look closely we’ll see the same message in each case, and it is hardly one of gloom. The wider context of Jesus’ remarks in Matthew 6 makes it clear that God will care for God’s people, no matter how poor they may be and no matter how oppressed. Do not worry about tomorrow or the troubles it will bring because the future belongs to God and is a source of grace. Fleetwood Mac may not have been speaking in Christian terms but the message is the same. The future is not to be feared. Focus on what is to come and not on the pain of today.

The apostle Paul puts the same idea this way: “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:24-25). Don’t worry about tomorrow, Jesus says. Don’t stop anticipating the future, sings Fleetwood Mac. Live with hope and patience, says Paul. In each case the message is clear. By God’s grace the best is yet to come.

Prayer: Lord, help us to live the present as those who yearn for the future you alone can bring into existence. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Meddling On The Margins

Leviticus 19:1-18

1 Thessalonians 5:12-28

Matthew 6:19-24

A theme that runs through each of our passages today is the economics of God. In Leviticus God charges the Hebrew people to consider the needs of the poor. “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:9-10). Despite profit margins being what they are God says that we are not entitled to everything our own fields produce. Is this really fair?

Paul says, “And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all” (1 Thessalonians 5:14-15). As we seek to invigorate the lazy we are also to show them patience and love, and respond to their actions with goodness and not evil. Is this really fair?

In the gospel Jesus says, "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” (Matthew 6:24). In other words, if we devote our lives to financial security we will not be as attentive to God’s will. We must be willing to forego the wealth in order to follow God. Is this really fair?

Our culture assumes that we will harvest right up to the very edges (and then some, if we can get away with it). Our culture expects those who are lazy to go without. Our culture says that wealth is a mark of blessing and may be pursued with all diligence, even at the expense of our spiritual health. But God’s will is about justice and truth, about compassion and mutual regard. It is about letting others go first and stepping back so that more may pass. It is about leaving 99 healthy sheep to search out the one that is lost, about raining manna on an ungrateful people, about creating a world of blessing and turning it over to us as its stewards.

God meddles in human affairs. How will we respond?

Prayer: Lord, help us to care for one another and to share more freely from what we have been given. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Small Victories

Leviticus 16:20-34

It may seem less than noteworthy–“And Moses did as the Lord had commanded him” (Leviticus 16:34b)–but it was significant enough for the writer of Leviticus to comment on it. Yes, it pertains to one particular event; yes, in this case Moses was told to pass along instructions and little more; yes, this is not the only time Moses did as he is told. And yet…

With sin being what it is, and with the world offering the many temptations that it does, I think it is important to pause and to rejoice at times like these in the history of God’s people. Moses did as the Lord had commanded him which means that Moses had a choice to do otherwise, that he might have disregarded God’s instructions, but didn’t. Moses did as the Lord had commanded him which means that Moses was in communication with God, hearing and responding to God’s word, allowing God’s voice to guide his steps. Moses did as the Lord had commanded him which means that the will of God was as yet given expression among the people, that faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was still witnessed to.

As I think back over the thousands of faithful people I have known–the members of churches I have served or been a part of, my relatives and in-laws, my friends at school or work or in the neighborhood–I realize just how many of them have done as the Lord commanded them. They weren’t perfect people, none of them, but from time to time, and to the extent that they were able, they found ways to do what they were told. They might have done otherwise, but they heard what God was saying and responded to that call offering witness to the faith through their actions. Take a moment, if you will, and think about some of the people you have known who did what God commanded them to do and what that obedience looked like and what it accomplished. Those are small victories, but they are certainly worth celebrating.

Prayer: Lord, help us to live today as an opportunity to do as you command us. And may your hand rest upon us in the endeavor. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Making the Right Connection

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

According to our gospel reading for today Jesus said, "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:1). Jesus was calling on his listeners to do the right things for the right reasons, to give, pray, and fast not to be recognized by others, but in order to give glory to God.

It all comes down to intent. Jesus would rather us pray in private if the only reason we do so is to call attention to ourselves. If we are going to pray in public we must strive to call attention to God. Generosity can be contagious, but if we are giving money simply to earn favor with others we have missed the point. Acts of devotion can inspire others and encourage them in their own faith, but if all we want is a pat on the back we are misguided. God welcomes our prayer, our giving, our devotion but as signs of a right relationship with God, not as publicity stunts.

Years ago, just as mobile calling was becoming more prevalent, there was a TV commercial in which a man made quite a production out of talking on his cell phone. He pretended to talk to a stock broker but in reality he had dialed his home number. On the other end of the line the man’s daughter could be heard yelling, “Mom, Dad’s doing it again!” Of course it was all an act put on for the benefit of those seated nearby. If our prayers, our generosity, our acts of devotion leave us disconnected from God and not attuned to God’s will for our lives then we need to hang up and redial. Otherwise it’s a wasted call.

Prayer: Lord, help us to live to your glory and not to our own. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sorting Through the Junk

1 Thessalonians 2:13-20
Like most of you I receive a tremendous amount of mail. Some of it comes to my home but a lot of it comes to the church where I am pastor. Each and every item that I receive is designed to grab my attention with the hope that I will respond in some way to what it says. The trick, of course, is to sort out the important stuff from what we usually call “junk mail.” Paul commends his readers in Thessalonica for their ability to separate the “junk mail” from that which most deserves their attention. “We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God's word, which is also at work in you believers” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

There are an almost limitless number of words addressed to each of us on any given day. The vast majority of them are what Paul would term as “human.” They may be important, may convey needed information, but the words that give us life and light and hope are the ones that come from God, and the ability to discern those words from among the others is essential. The Thessalonians had made the distinction and as a result they had been led to faith in God through Jesus Christ. How hard do we work at sorting out the words, looking for God’s message in a sea of noise? How much time do we put into study and prayer, into contemplation and reflection so that when God’s word comes we are ready to receive it?

I’m sure that on occasion I have missed some important item of mail mixed in with the junk. I may have thrown away a bill or a letter from a friend because I didn’t recognize it at such. May I never confuse human words for God’s word, and may I never overlook that which God wants me to hear.

Prayer: Lord, give us the wisdom to discern your word for us and to live according to it. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Face to Face…Or Not

Exodus 33:1-23

What a fascinating account we find in our reading from Exodus for today. “Moses said, ‘Show me your glory, I pray.’ And [the Lord] said, ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, 'The LORD'…But,’ he said, ‘you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.’ And the LORD continued, ‘See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen’” (Exodus 33:18-23).

Add this encounter to the list that includes Abraham’s meeting with God by the Oaks of Mamre (Genesis 18), Isaiah’s experience in the temple (Isaiah 6:1-8), Ezekiel on the bank of the River Chebar (Ezekiel 1), and the stories from Eden when God walked in the garden in the cool of the evening and sought out Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8f). Only in this case God’s glory is too great for Moses to bear, so God will place the divine hand over Moses’s face until God has passed at which point Moses may see God’s back. God’s hand…God’s back…God’s face! Let that sink in for a second.

What great comfort is to be found in the thought of God’s presence in the midst of humanity calling, leading, teaching, correcting, judging, nurturing and so forth. Time after time God is willing to be encountered and comprehended by men and women. In the fullness of time, of course, God took the form of Jesus Christ and became fully immersed in human life. In Jesus we continue to see God at work calling, leading, teaching, correcting, judging, nurturing and so forth. Only in this case we need not divert our eyes, even from the light of Easter morning.

May each of us have the opportunity to know the presence of God today. May each of us be guided by God’s will as though by the divine hand. May each of us follow in God’s footsteps and know God’s love as a present reality. Does God really have a hand, a back, a face? That’s not really the point. The point is that God is real, and close, and able to be known. Thanks be to God.

Prayer: Lord, may we see you today as you would be seen. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Yeah, Right

Exodus 32:21-34 1

Thessalonians 1:1-10

Aaron got caught red-handed. He had aided the people in their revolt against God but then he made excuses to his brother, Moses. “And Aaron said, ‘Do not let the anger of my lord burn hot; you know the people, that they are bent on evil. They said to me, 'Make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. 'So I said to them, 'Whoever has gold, take it off'; so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!’" (Exodus 32:22-24). Blame it on the people, he says, and the fire. They put in the gold and out came the calf, honest! Aaron comes off sounding like a child who broke a widow: “Don’t blame me. The ball did it.” But the truth is at the fist hint of trouble Aaron joined with those who rejected God in favor of something of their own creation.

The epistle lesson for today offers an interesting contrast to the Exodus passage. “For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God…” (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Here we find the gospel taking root among those who had previously worshiped false deities. The members of the Thessalonian church could have held onto their previous habits, could have hedged their bets by keeping an idol or two stashed nearby for emergencies. But they chose to serve a “living and true God.” Where we see Aaron all too quickly turning away from the Lord, these men and women have turned toward God – even in the face of persecution.

There is a challenge here for us. Do we remain faithful to the God by whose grace we live? Or do we turn away at the first opportunity, creating false realities for ourselves? Are we willing to face the hardships that come with steadfast faith? Or are we determined to follow Aaron down the path of idolatry? The choice is ours.

Prayer: Lord, help us to be faithful in all we do. In Jesus' name. Amen.