ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

SECOND SUNDAY BEFORE LENT, 2007
Evensong & Benediction
Fr Alan Moses

"So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today." Matthew 6.34

Worry about the future, whether it be about the care of our elderly relatives, or saving for our own pensions, or the future of the planet as we contemplate the consequences of global warming, is very much a feature of modern life.

So what Jesus has to say in tonight's passage from the Sermon on the Mount can seem to us so much romantic nonsense. It sounds impractical and improvident. We find it disturbing. What, if anything, are we to make of it? It is worth recalling first of all that Jesus was not speaking from some ivory tower. He had much more direct experience of the kind of poverty we normally only know from our television screens or newspapers. He lived in a society in which a large numbers of people lived on the brink of economic disaster much of the time. One bad harvest could spell catastrophe.

In the Sermon, Jesus has just been talking about discipleship and money, the impossibility of serving two masters: God and mammon - that is God and wealth. Part of what he has to say is drawn from the common sense wisdom of the time. His hearers then would know that they could not add to the length of their lives by worrying. We know now, from medical science, that the effect of our anxiety and stress is more likely both to shorten our lifespan and to reduce its quality.

Jesus is talking just about ordinary life but about the nature of discipleship. Those who become his disciples: who do not store up treasures for themselves on earth; who are generous with what they have, who serve God and not mammon, will not be cushioned from risk but exposed to it; after all he was. So discipleship can bring anxiety. It is not just life in the world which can generate anxiety; religious dedication can do so too. A rabbi had said:

"How can a man be sitting and studying when he does not know where his food and drink will come from nor where he can get his clothes and coverings?"

If it was true, as the great Rabbi Hillel said, "The more possessions, the more care", it was also true that "the less possessions, the more care". Those who have little can be as obsessed with what they do not have as the rich can be dominated by what they have.

There is a recurring refrain in Jesus' words: "Do not worry....". This is better translated as "Do not fret about"; "Do not be preoccupied with", rather than in the sense of the Authorised Version's "take no thought for the morrow"

We are warned against excessive worry, not advised to be careless. Jesus' sayings are not naïve and romantic statements that overlook the harsh realities of life. He is not suggesting that we do not plant crops or weave clothes - or whatever our equivalent might be - but if we plant and weave in order to "store up treasures on earth", then our lives will be insecure. We could perhaps know that the desire to be secure is doomed to frustration - even if we were not disciples of Jesus - but that wisdom is transformed in the light of him who has come to call and form a people capable of praying for their daily bread. They are able to do so because their lives have been transformed through the call to be a disciple, making it possible for them to live knowing that God has given them all they need.

"Consider the lilies". This is not the language of common sense but of poetry and imagination. And this is where things get more difficult. Common sense we can live with. But here Jesus is making an imaginative appeal which goes beyond the wisdom of the world. He uses poetic exaggeration to instill in us an attitude to God. Those who truly know God as revealed in Jesus cannot worry about these things in the way that Gentiles - those who do not know God - will. They still have to take reasonable care of themselves and of those for whom they are responsible - but such concerns have to be seen in the light of their dedication to the kingdom of God and its righteousness.

Jesus points us to the life of discipleship which is one of trust and simplicity. In contrast to being possessed by possessions - he tells us that we can only be freed from them by him. Jesus' recommendation that we not worry about tomorrow is not just good advice. It reflects the nature of the kingdom which he came to inaugurate.

Abundance, not scarcity, is the mark of that kingdom, of God's care for creation. But our desire to live without fear works to create a world of fear based on the assumption that there is never enough. Such a world cannot help but be one of injustice and violence because we assume that under conditions of scarcity our only chance of survival is to have more. We can only have more if we take it from others.

Those who follow Jesus are taught to care for one another through small acts of care and mercy because God's care and mercy are without limit. The abundance which is the mark of God's rule must be shown through the lives of people who have learned that they can trust God and one another. Such trust is not an irrational, lonely gesture of defiance against the chaos of life, but a witness to the very character of God's care for creation.

At Candlemas I preached at Fairacres, the Convent of the Sisters of the Love of God in Oxford. The occasion was not just the feast but the life vows of an oblate sister - one who lives in the world under rule. A religious community lives under vows, one of which is poverty. This is the renunciation of private ownership of possessions. This community does not live on the street. It needs housing, it needs to feed itself. It must provide care for the elderly and the sick among its members. While its life is simple, it does have to take some thought for the morrow. but it also spends its time in contemplation of him who frees us from our captivity to possessions; who frees us to trust and share with others as we learn to trust in God. In the convent grounds there is a garden. In it the sisters are able both to plant so that they can eat, but also to consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field and be reminded of the graciousness of God.

We are coming once again to the season of Lent which through its traditional discipline of fasting and abstinence, of giving up things, aids us in being freed by the grace of God from our slavery to possessions, the things of this world. Through almsgiving we learn generosity to share our abundance. The lesson which a community like Fairacres, or the lives of many of the saints, teaches us is that what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount is not romantic and unreal; but true to the every nature of things and so good for us and those around us.