Seventeenth Pentecost
Sunday, September 27, 2020
Creation Season Year A
Forest
Matthew 6: 25-33
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Amen.
Believe it or not, on my cell phone, I have a voicemail message from 2017.
I passionately protect this message - especially whenever I have to buy a new phone and have all of my data from the old phone transferred over. Believe me, before I sign on any dotted line or let any sales rep touch my old phone, I make sure to tell him that the voice mail message from December 2017 is sacred.
And it’s sacred because the message is from one of my best friends who called just two months before she died from cancer.
At the time, I was unable to pick up the phone, and super sorry that I had missed her call. But now I am so grateful because I have a lasting record of her voice.
And most especially, a recording of her voice telling me she loves me.
It’s funny because I felt a similar feeling of sacredness as I was reading today’s Gospel lesson from Matthew.
I suppose that’s one of the beautiful things about scripture – especially the Gospels – is that within their pages we find similar sacred messages from Jesus. The messages are written down, of course, not audible, but the words contained within Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are still messages to Jesus’ friends and to all those he encountered along the way during his short life and even shorter ministry.
Today’s message was left for us by Matthew probably sometime around 85AD, which makes my 2017 message seem laughably recent. But the reading still has a powerful feel to it, especially as we sit outside our building to worship here on the front lawn. Matthew’s words are just bursting with Jesus’ loving presence for us.
Jesus tells us, ‘do not worry. Do not worry about your life, about what you will eat or what you will drink. Do not worry about what you will wear. Do not worry about the coronavirus, the quarantine, the jobs report, the virtual schooling; do not even worry about the election. BECAUSE, first and foremost, I LOVE YOU.
Just listen to the birds in the air and swell with God’s love.
Gaze at the flowers and swell with God’s love.
Walk on the grass of the fields – barefoot - and swell with God’s love.’
God’s constant, powerful, and life-giving love is the message we need to hear, and it is THE message we need to save and listen to, over and over again, during these days.
But here’s the truth or maybe the twist of God’s message, which I have learned (or am learning) through my friend Brenda’s 2017 voicemail. And that message is that if, for some reason my phone dies and technology fails me (yes, we all know that happens!) and for some reason her message gets deleted – I know that I will still be connected to her. We were honest friends and running partners. We had inside jokes, and a long history together. So I know that any time I go out for a run or a walk on the trails outside that I will be connected to her. That anytime I think about one of our inside jokes, I will be connected to her. That anytime, the calendar turns to one of our special days, I will be connected to her. Our love cannot be contained – and is NOT contained – in the 1:30 clip of her voice on my phone. It is contained in the love we had and still have for one another.
The same is true of God’s love. Yes, it’s hard not to worry about our lives right now. The truth is our ‘plate of worry’ right now is being filled, perhaps by the largest buffet I’ve ever seen! And yet, the birds still sing. The flowers still bloom. The grass still grows. And God still loves us.
When we notice and rest in those gifts from God is when God’s love for us and in us swells and expands. Let your waist line grow. Let your heart grow. Not from the buffet of worry, but from the deep and endless well of God’s love. I think we can all agree that that is exactly what our world needs right now. Our God knows exactly what we need.
We have NOTHING to lose. Just love to gain.
Amen.
