Our Single Purpose (Matthew 6: 25-33)  

(A sermon preached November 26, 2006 at University United Methodist Church, East Lansing MI by Kennetha Bigham-Tsai)

Our lives are often fraught with worry. We worry about our finances and about our jobs. We worry about relationships and personalities-- about whether someone will like us, or love us, or approve of us. We worry about our bodies—our size—or how we look. We read the newspapers, and we worry about world affairs-- about terrorism, the environment, and the national economy. Our lives are full of worry and anxiety and stress. And we know no way out of this angst.

Our culture would have us believe that the way out of all of this worry can be found in a drink, a drug, a relationship, or that great panacea of all ills—chocolate. Or perhaps, our culture tells us; our solution can be found in having more money or more things.

Indeed, marketers often will tell us that the solution to our worries is some new product that will make us more beautiful, more successful, or generally happier. Indeed, retailers of late, especially, would have us believe that the end to our worries is in properly celebrating the great national holiday that has just passed—“Black Friday”--the day after Thanksgiving when the stores open at 5am (or earlier) and when the fist fights break out in the toy isle.[1] This is the day when retailers would tell us that the end of all worries must be in that new blouse, the perfect toy, that right video game, or the home entertainment center purchased at a “rock bottom--this day only” price.

These are the things that retailers and our culture would have us believe are the solutions to our worries and to our anxieties. Yet our text in Matthew suggests that our solutions cannot be found in the mall, the refrigerator, the bar, in the bank account or at the health club.  Instead, our text suggests that an end to anxiety and worry comes from living out a type of discipleship that gets the focus off of us and our material needs and onto God. Our text suggests that the end to worry and anxiety comes from living out a single purpose in our lives—a single purpose realized when we seek first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness.

Before we get into a discussion about this single purpose, I must tell you a few things about this text.  Our text for today is in a section of the Gospel of Matthew called the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has called the disciples and invited them and a crowd of others to the side of a mountain. There he begins to teach. And his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount is fundamentally about Christian discipleship. It is fundamentally about how to be his disciples—how to follow in his footsteps with the realization that with him and his ministry the kingdom of God has indeed arrived.

He teaches his listeners how to live as kingdom people and as Christian disciples. He tells them to forgive one another and to eschew harsh judgment. He speaks of the just treatment of women, of honesty in relationships, and of the love of enemies. He talks also about ways to worship God through acts of humble piety—sincere prayer and giving, and fasting done in secret. And then he speaks of money, and tells them that they cannot serve both God and wealth, (cf. Mat 6: 24).

And then our passage for today begins. And, here Jesus tells his listeners not to worry about their material needs. He tells them to focus their attention elsewhere.  Look closely at what the text says about where that attention should be focused.

“Do not worry about your lives. Do not worry about what you will eat or what you will drink or about your body, what you will wear. Look up and away from yourselves. Look at God’s creation. Look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the fields. They neither sow nor reap, nor spin nor toil, and God provides for them and clothes them in splendor that rivals kings,” (cf. Mat 6: 25-29).

This text in Matthew suggests that, as a solution to worry, we look up and away from ourselves and at God’s creation. Implicit behind this suggestion is the idea that when we look up and way from ourselves--when we consider and observe and look at the beauty of the creation around us--then we will see, not just the beauty of flowers in the fields or the birds of the air--but also God’s providential care for creation. The grass and the lilies and the birds suddenly can become for us evidence of God’s care for all things—God’s care which also is extended toward us.  

Friends this looking up and away from ourselves and at God’s providential care of creation is a way to increase our faith and find peace. It is a way out of lives of fretful worry and anxiety. But there is another way to do this as well—a practice I think is especially appropriate for this particular time of year.

One way that I often get my focus off of myself and my problems and worries and concerns and back onto God is through gratitude. Such gratitude is in the great biblical tradition of praise that is enshrined in many of our psalms.

In the spirit of the psalmists, I often seek to get the focus off of myself and onto God by practicing a litany of thanks. I look at the world around me, and I thank God. I thank God for the beauty of trees and of flowers. I thank God for the grass that prevents the erosion of the soil. I thank God for water and for air. I thank God for the food on the table and the many workers who helped provide it. I thank God for the beauty and abundance around me.

And then I thank God for those I love--for my family and friends and for all those who keep me from feeling alone in the world. And I thank God for all of you and for this church and for the ministry to which God has called me.

I look for and find reasons to thank God, not just at Thanksgiving, but at all times of the year. I do this because practicing gratitude to God gets the focus off of me and off of my limitations and concerns. It gets the focus off of me and off of the ways in which I am powerless over my life and over the lives of others. It gets the focus off of me and onto God and onto God’s provision and care.

When I thank God for the grass and for the lilies of the field, then I realize that God created and cares for and holds providence over all the land. When I thank God for my family, then I realize that God called this family into being and holds providential care over all of its members. When I thank God for this church, then my shoulders feel lighter, because I realize that this church and its ministry are under God’s providential care, not mine, and that God’s Spirit is at work right now in this church and in all of your lives. When I thank God for all that is around me, then the focus is off of me and my limitations and onto God and God’s unlimited power and care for the whole of creation.

As Christian disciples we are called to live lives in which we keep the focus off of ourselves and on God—lives in which we trust in God’s provision and cease our worrying—lives in which we practice sincere gratitude for God’s care.

But friends, there is even more to this type of God-focused living and discipleship. For to say that as Christian disciples we are called to get the focus off of ourselves and onto God is also to say that we are called to displace our material needs from the center of our lives. This is what this text means when it says that we are to strive first for the kingdom of God and for God’s righteousness. Our needs—even our very valid needs--are not be at the center of our lives or of our striving. Our needs, while still important, are not to be at the center of our desires. Instead, we are to put God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness at the center of our lives. We are to seek and desire, and strive and work for God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness first, above and beyond all other concerns. We are to make this our single purpose.

But what does it mean to strive for God’s kingdom and for God’s righteousness? Let me begin to try to define a little bit of that for you today. God’s kingdom is that now and not yet in which we would be at one with God and at peace with one another. God’s kingdom is about relationship. It is about a relationship with God marked by surrender to God’s love and provision. It is about a relationship of trust in which we trust God to provide for us, and so we don’t have to control our circumstances, other people, and everything around us. It is about a relationship in which we trust God so completely that we are not driven by our own fears and insecurities. It is about being in right relationship with God, then with each other and with the earth.

It is about shalom—which means more than peace. For shalom, in the Hebrew sense, is not just about tranquility and the cessation of conflict, but about rightness in relationships. Shalom has to do with right relationships with God and with others. It means living holy and God-focused lives and in compassionate and loving community with one another—community marked by common caring and by justice.

Friends striving for such right relationships of shalom is what it means to strive for God’s kingdom and for God’s righteousness. And if we strive to live in relationships of shalom—if we strive for God’s kingdom and for God’s righteousness--then our lives will not be fraught with worry and with anxiety, and our needs will be met.   

But wait a minute. Does this text really promise that if we strive for God’s kingdom and for God’s righteousness—for relationships of shalom with God and with others—does this text really mean that all of our material needs will be met?  It says, “Strive first for the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well,” (Mat 6: 33).

What does this mean in light of the reality that many people do not have what they need materially? What does this mean in light of the homelessness and poverty that are realities in our present world? For one thing, this means that the kingdom of God is also not yet. It is not yet fully realized, and so we live with injustice, and sin, and poverty and all kinds of suffering. And friends, this means as well that God’s promise of provision perhaps is not solely about material wellbeing.  Perhaps our text for today points to something beyond our material needs. Perhaps this text suggests that our material wellbeing, while important, is of less consequence than the wellbeing of our spirits. And in that sense, this text suggests that God does feed and clothe us—but perhaps God feeds us with the Spirit and clothes us in Christ.

Perhaps God’s promise of provision and care is really a promise of the Holy Spirit which is God’s transforming presence at work in our world and in our lives. Perhaps God’s promise of provision and care is really a promise of transformation through the Spirit—transformation from the mundane earthly clothes of our material lives to a spiritual splendor that exceeds the beauty of the flowers of the fields. Perhaps God’s promise means that we are to be fed by the Spirit and clothed in Christ so that we can be transformed and become like Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, (cf. Galatians 3:27).

And in this sense, all of our needs will be met and we will have peace with ourselves in the midst of any circumstance that confronts us, for we will no longer depend upon our limited selves. We will no longer feel alone and at a loss in the world. And we will no longer feel powerless and fearful in the face of poverty, injustice, and war. Instead, we will depend upon and trust God as Christ did. And, we will live in the constant presence of God as Christ did. We will be clothed with Christ’s compassion and with his power and we will reach out in confidence to be a healing presence in our world, just as Christ did.  

And our focus will no longer be on ourselves and on our worries and concerns. But our focus will be on God and on God’s loving care and provision for the whole world acted out and realized in and through our lives. And then we will have realized this central call of the Gospel—this single purpose for our lives--to desire and to strive for God’s kingdom and for God’s righteousness--to live in relationships of shalom with God with others and with the earth.

May you be clothed in Christ and in the Spirit and so be transformed. May all of your desires center on God so that you might be free of worry and have peace. Shalom and Amen.