Last Sunday's Sermon (and yes, I sang at the end)

In Times Like These:
Proper 23A: Exodus 32:1-14; Philippians 4:1-9; Matthew 22:1-14
Kristen R. Richardson-Frick
St. Paul’s UMC
October 12, 2008

This is a hard week to preach. Every time I have turned on the computer, the TV, even the radio, all I’ve heard is terrible news. You’ve heard it, too. It’s impossible to escape: talk of a new global Great Depression, people who’ve lost everything in the stock market, talking heads debating constantly what to do or what’s going to happen next. As it has all happened, I have remembered a conversation I had almost 7 years ago, with a man who gave me a free financial planning session because I was his Associate Pastor. As repeated for the fifth time how I needed to invest more of my income each year into the stock market through our 401k plan, I finally asked: “But, what if the stock market is doomed to fall? What if we’re like ancient Rome, and eventually the empire will crash?”

He dismissed my question by laughing, pointing to his chart that showed how all through history the trend of the market was to growth, and telling me my fear was unfounded. Today, I think of him and of financial planners everywhere. I pray for them, because they, too, are feeling the same anxiety that the rest of the world is feeling, or more, as we all wonder if our stock market will indeed eventually fully recover, hoping that it will in time. People everywhere anxiously watch the economic indicators every day, every hour, and it is hard not to panic or fall into depression ourselves. And, in times like these, it is hard not to wonder where God is in it all, what God’s desire for us is. Surely the divine will for our lives is not fear and anxiety, is it?

Enter our Epistle Reading for today. Did you hear it? Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice…The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Did you hear it? Now granted, Paul was not talking to people who were anxious about an economy in crisis. He was not writing to men and women who had lost half their money in a stock market crash. He was not speaking to those whose fears were financial.

But he was indeed addressing people who were afraid for their children’s or grandchildren’s futures in an uncertain world, just as we are. He was indeed speaking to friends in Christ who were up against seemingly impossible odds, just as we are. He was indeed talking to his family in the faith who were trying to understand just where God was and what God wanted from them in their precarious life situations and anxious world, just as we are. And so his words are just as much for us today as they were for Paul’s 1st century congregation. And he makes three main points that I think we, too, need to hear today.

At the end of a letter filled with encouragement and instruction, Paul first urges two women at odds with each other to “be of the same mind in the Lord.” And while at first this may seem like a specific command to two individuals about a particular situation that doesn’t apply to us today, I think it is more than that. We must remember these defining words from the middle of the letter: “Let each of you look not to his own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself…”

Here at the end of the letter, Paul reminds two feuding women, and with them the rest of the congregation, how brothers and sisters in Christ are to think and act: “Be of the same mind in the Lord, have the same mind as the Lord, humble yourself before God and each other. Think not of yourself first, but others.” Today, some of us in this sanctuary may be facing difficult times. We may have lost much of our savings, we may wonder about the future. We may be grieving or facing ill health. But, my friends, there are others too whose futures in jeopardy, perhaps much worse than ours. There are many who have lost, are will lose, their homes, who have no money or job to provide for another place to live. There are men and women with young children to feed and clothe who cannot find work. There are people among us, and around us, who desperately need to know that those who have more resources will be there for them who have less.

Did you know that one of the young men who came last week to our Barnabas breakfast told those of us at the table with him that he could not remember the last time he had eaten bacon? Bacon, my friends, is a luxury. For that man, one Sunday School class cooking bacon was a way to experience the abundant blessing of God. Simple things can make a tremendous difference.

So what does Paul’s direction to two feuding women in Philippi have to say to us today? “Be of one mind in the Lord.” In the Lord, be of one heart and mind. In the Lord, find common ground. In the Lord, humble yourself and look more to the interests of others, who are more in need, than you look to your own interests, which are less. In the Lord, let us unify in the desire of God to care for the widow and the orphan, to care for those in distress, and to take care of one another in our need. In the Lord, let us be one…in caring for each other, and in showing care to God’s other children in need, especially in times like these.

But Paul did not stop with this word. His second word was, in essence, Rejoice in the Lord, for the Lord is near. So “don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything” (CEV), with thanksgiving. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. From these words of Paul comes the old expression that I keep reminding myself: “If you’re gonna worry, don’t pray, and if you’re gonna pray, don’t worry.”

While we may say at first, “That’s easy for you to say, Paul,” it’s important to hear the basis of Paul’s exhortation. Paul doesn’t say, “Rejoice, because everything’s gonna be OK one day.” He doesn’t say, “Throw your cares to the wind and just sit back and relax.” What he says is: “Rejoice in the Lord. Pray about everything, with thanksgiving for what God has done for you in the Lord Jesus.” And again we hear the echo: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

Paul’s point was that we who are in Christ Jesus, who have been born anew in the Lord, have a confidence and a life that nothing in this world can threaten or shake. We who “stand firm” in the Lord are held up by a strength that is not our own, and that is not of this world. We who are “clothed in Christ” and in his righteousness and blood are clothed in a glory that nothing in this world can tarnish. We simply have to remember that we are “in Christ the Lord,” and not in this world. We simply have to act, behave, and think as those that no fears or anxieties of this life can shake. We simply need one thing: to clothe ourselves in Christ and his mind, his holiness, his life, his self-giving love, anew.

When Christ and His mind are our clothing, we know that we will always be clothed correctly to enjoy the wedding feast of the God’s eternal kingdom to which we’ve been mercifully invited, never thrown into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. When Christ and His holiness are our wedding robe, we can be assured that no threat of destruction will unseat us. When Christ and His righteousness, rather than society and its schemes, define our way of walking, talking, trusting, and behaving in this world, we can rejoice with assurance that we are not worshipping some dead golden calf that cannot save us, but rather we are serving and living for the living, active holy Creator and Judge of all.

And this gets us to Paul’s third word to the Philippian church: “Finally, beloved,” he says, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing [to God], whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me [as I have tried to show you by word and deed what it means to be humble and to live with the mind and behavior of Christ Jesus], and the God of peace will be with you.”

My friends, in the midst of all our uncertainty and all the false claims and false idols that have failed us, we still know the One who is true. We know the One who is honorable, and just, and pure. We know the One who is excellent and worthy of praise. And today Paul encourages us to think about Him, to focus on him, to allow our hearts and lives to be clothed in Him, to allow His mind to transform ours until we are one with Him and with each other in His service. What more appropriate word could there be for us, in times like these? “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…think of Christ…and the peace of God will be with you, will guard your hearts and minds. Rejoice! The Lord is near.”

It reminds me of the woman I used to hear singing as I worked with a youth group team on her dilapidated house. She was seventy-something and had spent her life earning next-to-nothing washing richer people’s clothes. She had taken in her handicapped grandchild and cared for him in her home. Her life was hard, and she had almost nothing most of us would consider necessities. But every time I was in a room near her, I’d hear her singing, always the same thing:

Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come?
Why should my heart be lonely and long for heaven and home,
when Jesus us my portion? My constant friend is he:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.

“Let not your heart be troubled,” his tender word I hear,
and resting on his goodness, I lose my doubts and fears;
though by the path he leadeth but one step I may see:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.

Whenever I am tempted, whenever clouds arise,
When song gives place to sighing, when hope within me dies,
I draw the closer to him, from care he sets me free:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.

I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free,
for his eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.