Bible Text: St Matthew 6:24–34 | Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christian Preus
A few months ago Vice President J.D. Vance got into a bit of controversy for using the Bible to claim that America had a duty of love first to its own citizens, and only after that, to citizens of foreign countries. The response from many religious leaders was that the Bible taught no such thing. Love is love, and we are to love everyone the same. In one sense, this is true – we are to love everyone the same. Everyone is made in God’s image, everyone has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son, God wants all to be saved, the Holy Spirit wants to make His home in all. And that means there is a dignity to humanity, to each and every human being, including the illegal immigrant, that we should respect, and love them as ourselves.
But on the other hand, Vance was very right. The human capacity for showing love, practically speaking, is very finite. Think about this way – how many deaths are there in the United States a day? It’s about 8500, a day. How many in the world? 150,000. How many are diagnosed with cancer a day in the United States? About 5600. A day. Are you capable of mourning for all of them? Can you show love and concern for all of them? Of course not. You don’t even know them. But when death takes someone close to you, or a cancer diagnosis or pain or disease hits your brother or sister or mom or dad, then love and care and prayer flow out.
And this is how God set it up. It belongs to Him, because He is Love infinite, to care for the pains and trials of everyone in the world. He cares for the birds of the air. He cares much more for those for whom He has given His only Son. But He makes our world much smaller. He makes nations to be concerned with their own citizens, he makes moms and dads to be concerned with their own children, and if they are concerned with everyone else, they’ll end up neglecting the ones they’re supposed to be caring for.
So the Christian Church has always taught a hierarchy of love. And we see St. Paul spell this out in our epistle lesson. “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Do good to all, but especially to the household of faith, to your fellow Christians. Your fellow Christians, especially those in your own church, are the ones to whom you owe your first duty of love. Because we are bound to each other by ties that are simply tighter than anything else in all the world. Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. We live by His life. St. Paul says earlier in Galatians, “I have died to the world. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Nothing in all the world, no relationship, not of husband and wife, not of mother and daughter, not of community, or country, can compare to the unity we have with the Son of God, which binds us all together as one body.
Then come our families. St. Paul again makes this clear. In 1 Timothy 5, he says that he who doesn’t care for his own family is worse than an unbeliever. Because even an unbeliever knows natural law, knows that if the birds of the air spend all their energy defending their young and feeding them, we should too. This is biblical; it’s also intuitive, obvious. You have finite resources, finite time, finite energy and care, and the people who need it are your own church, your own family and those closest to you.
There is a character in Dickens’ novel Bleak House named Mrs. Jellyby. She’s obsessed with missions in Africa. She spends all her time on it, sending letters, getting updates, finding donors, trying to bring aid to people she’s never met. A wonderful thing to do. Except, she totally neglects her children, who are in rags, and sick and hungry, and she ignores her husband, who tries to work and cook and clean all at the same time and can’t. It’s funny in Dickens, because Mrs. Jellyby is so ridiculous, but it isn’t funny in real life. Mrs. Jellyby is the picture of someone who has her hierarchy of love all wrong (she should be caring for her kids first, and she doesn’t) and it brings disaster on the very people God has called her to love first and foremost.
So when we turn to our Gospel lesson, you see I hope what this has to do with worrying. Jesus says don’t worry. This isn’t some naïve proclamation of the Savior. As Luther says, he doesn’t say don’t work. He says, don’t worry. Jesus is teaching us not to worry about things that are beyond our control. In fact, that is the essence of worry, it’s what distinguishes worry from care. You care about things deeply. You should. God calls you to it. Care about your church and the individual people in it, care about your family, care about your job and doing the best you can do, care about your community, your state, your country. All in its order.
But don’t worry. Worry enters in when you fret about things that you can’t control. [Like the stereotypical retired Republican, who spends all his time watching Fox News and worrying about wars and economics that no amount of worrying will ever solve.]
I was shocked the other night as I was doing my nightly Bible reading before bed. I was reading 1 Peter, the same book of the Bible that tells us to cast all our cares on God, because He cares for us. And Peter’s listing sins, bad sins (or sinners), and he lists four, “murderer,” “thief,” “evildoer,” and then you’re expecting something really sensual to finish it off: drunkard or idolator or fornicator, but no, the last in the list is “busybody,” “meddler in other people’s affairs.” Because when we do this, when we allow ourselves to worry about things outside our sphere, we end up showing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of our God, who is in control. So St. Peter says, “Cast all your care on God,” but he prefaces it by saying, “Humble yourselves.” “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He might exalt you in due time.”
That humility is a realization that our worry won’t change a thing. It won’t add a day to your life. It won’t improve anyone else’s life. It’s a realization that you have a very small sphere, and that’s how God wants it. His is the big sphere. He will handle things outside your control. It’s not for you to worry about.
And Jesus is once again not naïve and He hasn’t called us to be naïve about the cares of life. We can read about Elijah and how he depended day by day on God’s miraculously keeping flour in the jar and oil in the container. We can read about God sending manna day by day to the Israelites and quail for meat. And we can object and say the obvious, that we don’t have that. We don’t have flour miraculously never running out. We need to go to Smith’s to buy the flour and we need to work to get the money to buy the flower, and that takes care and time and planning. And how do I not care about tomorrow? Look at Joseph. He stored up seven years-worth of grain. Shouldn’t I save up for the future?
But that isn’t Jesus’ point. Jesus says don’t worry, not don’t work. Work. And Go ahead and invest. Go ahead and plan for the future. And care about it. But don’t worry about it. There’s a big difference.
I used to think that when Jesus said, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you,” it meant, Just believe in Jesus, and everything will work out. And that’s not wrong. It’s true. You trust in Jesus, you have everlasting life. Everything will work out. God loves you. The One who is in control of absolutely everything, He loves you. He isn’t angry with you, doesn’t have it out for you, He actually cares, and He cares more than you can imagine, about your life and what is best for you. Anything you have done or thought or said that would make you think that He is angry with you or distant from you, it’s all washed away by the blood of His Son, and He cares for you as His own child, because that’s what you are. He put His name on you in your Baptism. He gave you His Spirit. He united you to His Son. He clothed you in His righteousness. He loves you. He sees you as perfect, because the blood of Jesus has washed away all your faults. And that is what you return to day after day after day, so that you can cast your cares daily on Him and know He will provide for everything you need until He brings you to share in His glory forever.
And because this is true, something else is true. You listen to His voice. And He tells you what to care about. Day by day. That’s seeking His Kingdom. Care about what God tells you to care about. Care about your church, care about your family, care about your work and work hard at your job to provide for church and family and others in your life. Don’t make money your god. If you love God, you won’t love money. Instead, use it like the tool it is. Don’t be a slave to it. Don’t let money tell you what to do. Make it your slave, and use it to honor your God. Do what God has called you to do as Christian, husband, wife, father, mother, child, worker, citizen. Do it in that order. And when you fail, confess it to your Father who loves you, and He will every time lift you up and put you on your feet and forgive you and assure you again that He will work all to good.
And as for everything else, leave it to Him. Don’t worry about tomorrow. God will take care of the things outside your control. And the things that are in your control? Well, do what God calls you to do, and you’ll see that even those things are in His control. It’s He who works in you both to will and to do, according to His good pleasure. By Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory now and forever. And you will give that glory to Him, forever, because He has redeemed you by the blood of His Son, and called you by His Spirit. So cast all your cares on Him, financial cares, health cares, family cares, faith cares, work cares, all of it, because He cares for you. In the name of Jesus. Amen.