Pastor Detweiler’s sermon for May 25:

Sandhill cranes offer insight into the Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 6:24-34

One of the things I enjoy about riding my bike in Wisconsin is that if I go to the right places I get to hear and watch sandhill cranes. We do not have them in the East. Apparently, they are only in a few states because of their migratory patterns, and Wisconsin is one of them. I’ve been told that they are pre-historic – from the time of the dinosaurs. Their flight, with their large, slow-moving wings, and their plaintive call, make them very intriguing. I have never seen only one at a time. If I see or hear one in the sky, soon there will be more on the ground or in the air.

I wonder how they have survived through all the ages, and even now. They do not move very quickly, so it seems they might be a good pick for predators. But they don’t seem to be too worried. I can get a lot closer to them in a field than I can to deer.

When I read today’s gospel I think of the sandhill cranes.

“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”

We may not be able to add anything to our lives by worrying, but that doesn’t stop us. Anxiety or worry is the gnawing addiction of our day and is fed by the media because it sells. Human beings weigh losses more heavily than gains, so we tend to focus on what we have lost or might lose. Will I have enough money to pay the bills this month? Will I have a job next month? What kind of future do I have? Will my family be OK? Is it safe for my children walk to the bus alone? Will someone steal my identity? Will someone steal my credit card number and use it?

This is to be a teaching about the grace of following Christ, but we can easily hear it as judgment. What matters is our focus. Who or what do we serve? What is most important to us? Are we focused on ourselves or on God?

After my sister died when I was 9, my mother’s tendency to worry got worse, not better. She made sure my brother and I were aware of everything that could go wrong, any way we could be seriously injured or killed. (My kids joke I did the same to them.) Losing a child is the worst nightmare of every parent. It happened in our family, so I learned about weighing risks and appreciating the blessings we have as an antidote to constant worry. I also learned that there are many things we cannot control and that God’s promises are not that nothing will go wrong and no one will die. Instead, he promises that nothing can separate us from his love in Christ, a love shown especially in Jesus’ death for us, and embodied in the community of faith we call the Church.

Jesus in today’s reinforced the point of our focus:

“And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin,yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you — you of little faith?”

We do not need great faith, just simple trust in God’s gracious providing for us, and a focus on what is really important.

Jesus describes that succinctly:

“But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

The coming kingdom of God is our goal – that is what is really important – it is on it that we are to be focused. How can we do that?

Let’s go back to the birds of the air, or my sand hill cranes. Jesus uses the birds and lilies as examples because they unselfconsciously participate in the life of God. They do not worry because they do not see themselves as separate from each other or from God the way humans do. In the account of creation in Genesis, Adam and Eve only became aware of their separateness – they became self-conscious – after they disobeyed God. In their natural state they participated in God’s own life.

We who are baptized have that participation in the life of God restored. He comes to us in his Son and enlivens us through his Spirit, who is the giver of life. He comes to us through his Son and by his Spirit to draw us to himself in Holy Communion. This is what St. Paul refers to when he says in today’s second lesson that we are “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.”

Paul says it even more explicitly at the end of chapter 8 of Romans. After saying that

“the suffering of this present time is not worth comparing to the glory about to be revealed to us,” he says “for I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We belong to God in Christ through the Spirit. We can try to separate ourselves from him, but we live our lives in him since we have been baptized into Christ.

This understanding of being like the birds and the lilies – living our lives in God’s life – makes all the difference when we face trouble or death.

Arne was diagnosed with cancer. His many friends and family worried, but he seemed not to. To their expressions of worry he responded with a smile; “The Lord has always taken care of me and will now.” He didn’t mean he was sure he would survive, and people who knew him well understood that. Arne, from middle age on, had evidenced confidence and trust in God – an awareness of living in God from which nothing could separate him. This time was to be no different.

We who are baptized participate in the life of God. He comes to us in his Son and enlivens us through his Spirit, who is the giver of life. He comes to us through his Son and by his Spirit to draw us to himself in Holy Communion. This is how we are “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.”

Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”