Epiphany 8 (Matthew 6:24-34) Do not worry.

Epiphany 8 (Matthew 6:24-34) Do not worry.

No one can serve two masters.

With these words Jesus continues his sermon on the mount. With these words Jesus clarifies yet another aspect of human nature. God created human beings for service.
God the Father created human beings to be in a dependent relationship with God the Son through the indwelling Presence of God the Holy Spirit. Another way of saying this is that the Triune God created us to live and move and have our being in the active, creative, dynamic , holy and unconditional love that is the very nature of God.

God created us to participate in the divine life of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity is a co-eternal relationship of the three persons whose love and holiness form the one God.

God the Father created human beings for relationship. Our primary relationship is in the service of worship we offer God. That is why the first commandment is the foundation for all of the commandments: love God with all of your heart, soul and mind.

The means by which we express love for God and participate in the eternal life of the Holy Trinity is through worship. Jesus reveals to us that for human beings worship and service are inextricably linked.

All means all. Not half. Not occasional. All.

Jesus introduces his teaching on worry by clarifying how God created us to live in peace and with courage. The problem comes when we make a real choice to live our lives from a different place and within a different context.

From his childhood in Egypt and Nazareth, Jesus observed how even the most religious of people cheat life on this one singular important point. In fact, even religious people do not love God with all of our heart and soul and mind.

Even the best of us, the most spiritual of us, have a divided mind that produces a divided loyalty and results in fear, anxiety and worry.
Jesus’ call to worship is a call to an exclusive love of God that produces an inclusive love of other people.

Jesus is not interested in religious debates about God. He is God.

Jesus is also not interested in philosophical debates about truth. He is truth.
Neither is Jesus interested in metaphysical speculations about the meaning of life, the universe and everything. He is life.

Jesus came into the world to reveal to us the problem that keeps us separated, divided and fearful. Jesus reveals to us that we are trying to live life by a wrong principle. That wrong principle is the belief that life is all about me. That principle produces a demand that says: me first. Do it my way. It is the voice of pride and it is the will to power.

That demand results in a terrible underlying fear that I will fail to get what I need and what I want. The fear is the recognition that despite my will to power I lack the actual power to command and control other people, the world around me, and God.

The fear of failure produces an attitude of worry. It is the tendency human beings have to view the rich abundance of this world and see only scarcity. Jesus names our worries: not enough food, not enough to drink, a lack of proper clothes.

Jesus also indicates that underlying our worry about things is a more profound anxiety. That more profound anxiety is that God does not really accept us and will not be there for us. And so, we hedge our bets. We serve God in the formal, occasional and minimal rules of religion. And, we serve wealth: the desire for possessions.

The terrible irony is that through our fear that God is distant and uncaring we distance ourselves from God. Through our desire to hedge our bets and serve the pursuit of material possessions, pleasure and power, we lose the one thing that has both immediate and eternal benefit.

Jesus very clearly warns us that as we live our lives with a divided mind about our priorities and our pursuits we enmesh ourselves in fear, anxiety and worry. Jesus knows this about us through observation. He knows this through original creation.
Jesus warns us that if we seek to serve two masters, God and wealth, we end up isolating God in very narrow categories of religion while we pursue what we believe is far more real and practical in the material world of food and drink and clothes. As we do that, we lose our very soul to the fear, anxiety and worry such a way of living produces.

Jesus reminds us that the first commandment is not an ethereal religious speculation but a fundamental and defining principle that has immediate and eternal consequences.
Jesus doesn’t recommend withdrawal from the world. Jesus tells us that we will enjoy our lives in this world more fully and completely as we choose to love God first and to love God with all of our heart and mind and will.

Jesus says: seek God first. Make the love of God your top priority. And then all of these other things you need and desire will be yours as well. Jesus also warns that the reverse is true. If we place God second to our pursuit of pleasure, possessions and power then we place God last. As we place God last we continue the process of separation from God. We live with ever increasing levels of frustration, demand, pride and despair.

Jesus came to find us where we are. And, he loves us where we are.
Jesus came to find a people lost in separation and confused by a divided mind about the best way to live our lives. He pours forth his own divine love into our lives to interrupt our habits and to confound our preconceived ideas. He does this to liberate us from fear, anxiety and worry.

How would your life be different if you simply took God at his word? How would your way of living change if you asked Jesus to help you make the unconditional holy love of God the most important principle and present reality for you?
What would life feel like when lived with the assurance that God is with you, God is for you, God is immediately and eternally present to you?

That assurance comes from the personal relationship God offers us in Jesus Christ. It can only become real as it becomes our first priority. We cannot say both yes and no to God. We cannot say I believe but I do not have the faith to act on that belief. We cannot keep God distant and hemmed in by narrow religious categories when God himself is far greater than those categories.

Where we direct our time and attention reveals who we acknowledge as our master, the Lord of our lives. Jesus says we need to choose. If we choose anything or any one other than God we also choose a way of living that will produce ever deepening levels of fear, anxiety and worry. If we choose God we choose a way of living that transforms us and liberates us into a life of joy, peace and courage.

Jesus Christ is the one by whom, through whom and for whom God the Father created us. As Jesus encourages us not to worry he offers us the means to live a life set free from worry. Seek God first.

God has already found us in Christ. Make a real choice to allow yourself to be immersed in his love. Make God’s holy unconditional love your first priority. And know that as you do this you will come to discover abundance in the midst of scarcity, faith in the midst of fear, and grace that will transform every worry into courage to live life fully here and now and forever.