Living and working with Kingdom values

Sermon preached at Lincoln Cathedral, 19/02/2017 (Second Sunday before Lent)

Matthew 6: 25-end

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink.”

Thanks, Jesus, for that helpful advice.

Is there anyone at all who finds being told not to worry actually makes them stop worrying? Personally, the more I’m told not to worry, the more on edge I get. Over the last few months, plenty of people have been telling me not to worry – about labour, about becoming a parent, about looking after a baby – and the more they tell me in very specific detail the things I don’t need to worry about, the more worried I get. Sometimes about things I hadn’t even registered as potential problems before.

And I don’t think this is just me. Worrying is something we all do – at least at times. Diagnosed cases of debilitating, life-limiting anxiety are rising all the time; and even if our anxieties aren’t bad enough to send us to the doctor, we all know what it feels like to be really, badly, sleeplessly, stressed and worried.

So when Jesus tells us not to worry, we are not really in the mood to listen. We can’t necessarily stop worrying just because we’ve been told to. And we’d need a pretty good reason not to worry.

Is the reason Jesus gives convincing enough?

Jesus tells us not to worry because God looks after everything. We are part of God’s good creation – the creation which God made, day by day, and which God saw, day by day, was very good. And as part of creation, we are upheld by God’s limitless power.

That’s either very profound or incredibly naive.

It’s easy to hear it as trite – as a cliché, as the kind of thing people say while desperately trying to avoid looking at the reality of life.

Don’t worry – God’s got everything under control.

Try telling that to anyone who’s experienced serious illness.

Or family difficulties.

Or shattering bereavement.

Try telling that to the people in this city who are sleeping rough or facing eviction, trying to get a referral to the Community Larder or hang on to their disability benefits.

But sometimes – just sometimes – it’s the people who have experienced those things who tell us not to worry, and that God’s got everything under control.

And when they say that – it’s worth listening. Because even though they experience trouble and worry, pain and distress - they find God there with them. They find Jesus’ instruction not to worry to be a source of strength, not an added reason for guilt.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Dietrich Bonhoeffer lately – for a number of reasons; but let’s encounter him first as someone who found the presence of God even in darkness.

Imprisoned by the Nazi regime, in a prison cell, knowing that he might be executed any day (as in fact, in the end, he was), he still managed to write this:

By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered

And confidently waiting, come what may,

We know that God is with us night and morning

And never fails to greet us each new day.

Bonhoeffer’s phrase “confidently waiting” is like Paul’s in our Romans reading: waiting with eager longing, hoping for what we do not see and waiting for it with patience. Paul – like Bonhoeffer – experienced difficulties, suffering, anxiety. But he too found that God was in control. And he tells us that our experiences of trouble and worry and pain don’t disprove that at all. Yes, the good creation which God made is fallen, and yes, we experience pain because we are part of that fallen creation. But that creation is also redeemed – and we with it. We, and creation, have been saved – and we, and creation, await the fullness of redemption.

But to find out what that means we need to go back to Jesus. Because it’s not a passive thing – sitting still and waiting for God to sort everything out. Jesus tells us to stop worrying – to wait patiently and hopefully – but that this means striving. Striving for the Kingdom. Striving for the righteousness of God. Knowing that God is ultimately the one in control, not despairing when things don’t go our way – but willing to work for the fullness of redemption.

Like Bonhoeffer. He ended up in prison – waiting in patient hope and trust – because of his commitment to strive for righteousness. Living in one of the darkest times of recent history, he trusted in God and in where he saw God calling him – to speak and teach and, eventually, act to oppose the Nazi government and its policies. Striving for the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness.

Bonhoeffer’s calling was like ours – to serve God, to work to bring in the kingdom. And Jesus’ instruction not to worry is about empowering us to fulfil that calling. We can have trust in the goodness of God’s creation; we can have trust in the goodness of God’s kingdom; we can have trust in the goodness of God, who has promised to make everything new and who has already begun that process of redemption of us and of the whole of creation. We can take that trust in God’s power, that hope in God’s fulfilment as our foundation. And that foundation of hope and trust means we don’t need to worry – and instead, can be set free to hear God’s call and to follow it. To work for the Kingdom, not worry about the other things that can preoccupy us.

And what is the Kingdom?

For the whole answer, we need to read the whole of the Gospels. But Jesus reminds us here that the Kingdom of God is linked with God’s righteousness – it’s the place where God’s righteousness has finally come to be. Righteousness is the primary aspect of God: justice, mercy, compassion, the kind of justice where all people, regardless of who they are, are equal and valued.

That’s what we are called to strive for – to work for – to stand up for. We are called not to worry passively about the state the world is in – but to trust that God has it in hand, and building on that foundation of trust and hope, do our part in making that true. We are called to live out the values of God’s kingdom: doing what is right, just and merciful, upholding the rights of all people, recognising that all people are precious and deserving in God’s sight.