The readings for this Sunday's service are James 4:11-12 and Matthew 6:24-34.
This is our fourth and final week of the Martha Stearns Marshall Month of Preaching. The first week we introduced the series’ namesake. In your bulletin you should find a little something about her again. Two weeks Liz Jones spoke of Nannie Helen Burroughs and how to have a living faith. Revive us again, she said. Susan Soric shared the wisdom of Helen Barrett Montgomery and her ongoing work of justice for all people. Give what you have, she said. This morning I want to speak about two contemporary Baptist women, both who have shaped my ministry and my life a great deal: Rev Judy Bledsoe Bailey and Rev. Carol McVetty. Rev. Judy Bledsoe Bailey was the chaplain for the Baptist Student Union at my undergraduate university, the University of Richmond. She was a constant and gentle guide as I was beginning to understand what it meant to walk with Christ in this world. Whenever I turn to our Gospel lesson from this morning, I think about her and thank God for her love and ministry to so many students throughout the years. One evening as we gathered together, Judy led us through a very simple exercise. We were supposed to share with one another our favorite verse of scripture and tell one another why that verse mattered to us. It seems simple enough, but I knew nothing of the Bible and would never have thought to have a favorite verse. It was awkward to say the least. But as these things often happen, I frantically flipped through the pages of my Bible in hopes of finding something that wouldn’t embarrass me. It’s a gamble to flip open the pages and drop your finger and hope to land on…say…Proverbs 11:22 – Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without good sense. That would not have been a good start on my journey with that particular fellowship. Fortunately we had been spending some time in Matthew’s Gospel and this passage from chapter six was available to me. Judy pointed out that this is not a poem about some Disney-fied understanding of nature. There aren’t birds singing four-part harmony living the easy life in total security. The flowers don’t join hands in a circle dance in the middle of the meadow. Jesus is not so naïve and would certainly not ask us to be. Nature is not easy. Life is never without risk. As Judy showed me that evening, we are called to live in this present moment, to give our lives to the concerns of this moment. There is more than enough right here right now to beg all of our creativity, our love, our energy, and our faith. Why do we need to saddle ourselves with the imagined burdens of some unknown future that may or may not come to pass? We are called, says Jesus, to “strive first for the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness.†God will take care of the rest. God will take care of the rest. Worry cannot save us. Anxiety cannot save us. It is God who saves us. All we are asked to do is to be present in this moment. And that, if we are honest with ourselves is enough. God will take care of the rest. All of the anxiety of leaving home, of trying to articulate my desire for my life in the choice of a major, the competition to have the best ideas, the brightest hopes, to be able to say “I will be This Person when I graduate†were all set in stark contrast for me. These were powerful words for a college Freshman to hear, liberating really, and they have stayed with me over the last 23 years. We can live with our eyes on the prize so completely that we forget to watch where we are. All we can think about is where we imagine we’re going and all the troubles that may or may not come. So we dig in. We entrench. We hamstring ourselves with preparation before we even set out on the journey. We can even talk ourselves out of love and happiness with our so-called preparations. We can cut ourselves off from others…hurt one another. This is what James warns us about as well. He reminds us of the temptation to speak evil of one another. Out of anxiety and fear we’ll say almost anything. We’ll judge one another against what we think is supposed to happen somewhere down the line. People almost always fall short of such outcomes. Being judged in this way, says James, is to speak evil against one another. “So who, then, are [we] to judge our neighbor?†It’s a challenge of being human. We do have a sense of cause and effect. We do (occasionally) learn from the past and can in this way “predict†the future. We know what it is to prepare and how important that is. We can and do plan. But if you recall, Jesus has some specific ideas about what we store and where we store it. Jesus warns us against getting ahead of ourselves. Previous to this passage in Matthew’s Gospel is another well known verse. Matthew 6:19-21 reads: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Some translations read: For wherever your treasure lies, there will you find your God. We struggle, suggests Jesus, to figure out what’s important and often we substitute the urgent for the important and can find ourselves a little lost in the process. We are so easily distracted by the urgent that we can forget what is most important. But if we can hold up what is important we will find that the urgent has a context and within that context is the answer to our most urgent questions and concerns. How do we each live a life that is unattached to specific outcomes? How do we live as a congregation so that we do nothing but strive for the Kingdom of God? Rev. Carol McVetty is one of the English language pastors at North Shore Baptist Church. North Shore is the congregation that ordained me. Some of you might recall that she was asked to preach for my installation service here in September of 2006. She gave us our theme for the ensuing months. “Stir what ya’ got.†We bought spoons and made sure that members of our fellowship at that time took one home. On each spoon was a tag that read: “Stir what ya’ got.†With all of our exploration over the years since, I have often returned to this sermon. You see, even though Carol was not preaching from our text this morning, she was holding it up for us nonetheless. She told us of how Christianity was no longer at the center of community life. She said that we now find ourselves at the margins of community. And so, she said: [Our] job is to keep on handing out spoons so you all can ‘Stir what ya got!’ And while I’m at it, saving this church is not the point. The point is to live as a mission outpost, a Christ-like community with a call from God. That’s what I mean when I say ‘Stir what ya’ got.’ By God’s grace you already have everything you need to be effective from the margins. You have the Gospel. You have the power of God’s Holy Spirit. You have a God-given mission. … Stir it up until you are grabbed by that unique part of God’s great mission that is yours and carried by the power of God into the future. We have, said Carol, the Gospel. That’s what we have. And it’s all we need. Seek the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness. So, here we are today at the edge of a cliff. It’s not a comfortable place to be. In the last five years we have tried again and again to take that leap. If you think about it, it doesn’t take much to step off. It just takes a little shimmy to the edge. You don’t have to jump for gravity to take its hold. But it does take trust… …It takes the willingness to live in the present moment not in the past not in the future but right here, right now… Right here we have all we need. Right now we possess the Kingdom of God. Right here we already are community. Right now we have Grace. Right here we are held up in love. Right now the Spirit is moving. Right here Jesus calls us. Right now we are Christ’s Body. Right here. Right now. We are God’s People. God will take care of the rest
