Holy Abandon

sermon by Torin Eikler

Leviticus 23:33-43      Matthew 6:25-34

 

 

At different times in our lives, different things seem to live in the front of our minds.  When I was in High School, I was focused on what was cool (even though I probably wasn’t).  In college, conversations about the meaning of life and what I was going to do with it seemed to catch my attention.  Later on, I was caught up in all the problems with society and the environment and the possible solutions to those issues.  And at this point in my life I seem to be tuned in to the word parenting (I wouldn’t know why…).  So, last week when I heard a story on the radio about the rise and fall of oppressive parenting, my ears tuned right in.

It was a misdirection, though.  The story wasn’t really about parenting.  It was about the discovery of a new gene or complex of genes that can have an effect on parenting styles as well as many other parts of our lives.  The gene could be called the resilience gene, I suppose, but given our tendency to focus on the negative possibilities, the commentators were talking about it as the worry gene.  It seems that this gene has a pretty big hand in determining how we react to the stresses and threats that come at us from the outside.  Some people are pretty good at taking them in stride.  Others have a visceral response that can come out in any number of ways, including hoarding, taking out their insecurity on others, and self-medication among others.

The link to parenting came in the way that some parents have become more oppressive in the face of the added uncertainty brought by the recession, but focus of the conversation was how understanding this gene could help us to deal with the growing number of illnesses and social problems that seemed to be linked to stress.  If we could somehow control the way it changes our physical and emotional responses (perhaps with drugs or gene therapy), we might be able to reduce the amount that people worry about the future.  That would reduce our stress levels.  And that would make us healthier and happier people.

 

The way that Jesus was speaking to the people gathered for the Sermon on the Mount makes me think he was addressing a similar problem in his own culture.  Maybe the people were stressed out about the Roman occupation.  It wasn’t a great situation for them with soldier in evidence all over the territory, oppressive taxes, and other requirements that could be imposed at any time.  On top of that, there was a feeling in the air that the Messiah was coming soon to set Israel free, and imagining the confrontation between such a leader and the empire would certainly have raised the stress level.

It could also have been that the people were simply worried about how they were going to survive.  There wasn’t as much surplus food around back then, and there was no real social net other than alms-giving to support those who found themselves on the bottom of the economic pyramid.  Most people weren’t too far from the possibility of homelessness and starvation.

And to these stressed out, worried people Jesus says, essentially, “Don’t worry.”  That’s all.  Don’t worry.  Don’t let your anxiety about the future take over your life so much that you become preoccupied with getting enough to eat or what to wear.  Don’t let that happen because life is about more than that and if you focus too much on providing for the future, you will miss out.

I’m sure there were a lot of people there who would have been thinking, “okay … that sounds good, but it doesn’t make it any easier to find dinner for tomorrow.”  That’s kind of our reaction when people say things like this to us, isn’t it.  It’s easy to say, “don’t worry,” but it is a lot harder to let things go when the future is uncertain.

But before they even have much chance to think that objection, Jesus takes them down a different path.  Think about the birds of the sky and the weeds in the fields.  They don’t worry.  They do what they need to do to get through the day, but they don’t squirrel away food or gather up leaves and feathers for the future.  They get all that they need from the God who created them, and they trust that it will be enough.  If God takes care of them, won’t God take care of you too?

 

Ah, those rhetorical questions.  Sometimes they have easy answers and sometimes they have no answers, but they always get you thinking.  I think that must be why Jesus was so fond of them.  Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  Well yes, but ….  If God supplies the birds, … will God not also supply you who are worth much more than birds?  That makes sense, but …. 

It’s hard for us to understand how to answer those questions.  We are so keyed in to our need to take care of ourselves.  We are taught from the time we are little that we can only really rely on ourselves.  Or, that even when there are other people around who could help out, we should do our best not to let them.  We certainly should ask them unless we absolutely have to.  How are we supposed to imagine that we don’t need to be so self-sufficient let alone go so far as to believe that all we need to do is rely on God.

The people gathered on that mountain probably had some of the same issues.  Their culture was definitely more communal … or “familial” at least.  So, they were used to thinking in terms of families working together to support each other.  I think it would still have been hard, though, to hear the promise of God’s care as real and significant except ….  Except that there is the story of the forty years wandering in the wilderness.

That story was a part of the history of Jews, and for them it wasn’t just a story in a book.  They kept it alive and fresh by remembering and celebrating the Festival of Booths.  Every year, they built huts out of flimsy materials – temporary housing that was only strong enough to last a week.  They lived in those huts for part of each day, eating and sleeping there under a roof open to the stars, gathering there to pray and tell the stories of the people on their long journey to the Promised Land – telling stories of exactly how God supplied the people with all that they needed on the way.

But it wasn’t just about God’s care for the people.  The festival of booths is nestled in between two others: a season of repentance and a celebration of the story of God’s intimate involvement with the people as told in the scriptures.  All three together remind the people of how they learned to trust in God and listen to what God wanted them to do.  During those 40 years in the wilderness, they learned to abandon everything they had learned about taking care of their own needs and their own futures and to rely on following God.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole scene – the sermon on the mount, I mean - if that whole scene took place just before or just after the three festivals.  Even if it didn’t, going through those weeks of remembering and celebrating every year would have kept the experience near the surface.  And Jesus’ words, “seek first the kingdom of God” would have played right into the people’s awareness.  They would have reminded them not just of the teachings about relying on God but also of the actual experience of the people … experience that proved for them just how true it could be that listening for and following the guiding voice of God was all they really needed to worry about.  I think they might have heard the words as encouragement – that they might have heard Jesus saying, “Let go of your worry and your fear, and God will take care of you.  Let go and hear God rejoicing over the birds and the flowers – over all creation – and, especially, over you.”

 

I wonder … do we have a memory or an experience that brings us to the same place?  I don’t mean individually, now.  I’m sure some of us have had those moments.  …  I mean as a community of faith.  Are there moments in our history that we can look back to … moments that can remind us of how God cares for us.  And not just how God cares for us all the time, but times when we have chosen (or been forced to) abandon our own desire to be self-sufficient, when we have chosen to rely wholly on God, when we, as a community, have let go of our worries about the future and focused on following the Spirit’s leading voice into paths where God has provided all that we need.

If there are those stories, I haven’t heard them ….  Though, I wonder if we aren’t in one of those times right now.  Maybe this is a moment when we need to let go of our worries about the future … to set aside our need to plan and control.  I think that might free us from some of our preoccupation and anxiety … free us to listen and to step forward in trust and hope. 

 

When I was in Brethren Volunteer Service I knew a woman who was a worrier.  If you didn’t really know her, it would have seemed like she moved through life just like most of us do, but that wasn’t really the case.  She did her work well.  In fact, she was exceptionally good at planning and taking care of details.  She spent time with friends and had other interests that filled her time.  But she was never really joyful, and when she faced bigger life choices or came upon opportunities that would have been expensive or required a large commitment of her time and energy, she struggled.

It wasn’t that she completely froze up, but she had such a hard time making those decisions.  Her worry about what she should do and how her decisions would affect the future bogged her down so much that she that she missed out on many wonderful experiences and let quite a few opportunities that might have made her quite happy and fulfilled pass her by.  Sometimes, her preoccupation with providing a secure future for herself even blinded her to doors that were open to work or life changes that might have made her quite happy and fulfilled.

I went to a concert with this woman once (her parents were supporters of the band and so the tickets were free).  She really enjoyed all of the music, but toward the end, the group performed a song called “Abandon” that changed her life.

The lyrics included the phrase: “Abandon … hear God rejoicing over you.”

It repeated those words over and over:

          “Abandon hear God rejoicing over you. 

                   Abandon … hear God rejoicing over you.

                         Abandon ….”

After that concert, she did just that….  Oh, she didn’t give up thinking about or planning for the future.  She still worried about it some, and I think that’s okay.  I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking care for our futures.  The problems come when we hold on too tightly and there’s no room for God there.

That’s what she let go of … her need to control everything.  And as she grew more and more comfortable in her trust, as she let God take care of more and more parts of her life, she became more and more comfortable with herself and content with her life.  She found joy and hope in the midst of holy abandon.

 

I hope that we, as a congregation, can find our way to that same place – the place where we balance our need to prepare for the future with a letting-go of our preoccupation with control.  I see us taking steps toward that, but we have a long way to go.  I am trusting that the Spirit will lead us through and into holy abandon … if we can just let go a little more … and a little more … and a little more.  And there, … there we will see ourselves for what we are – a wonderful creation of God.  There, … there we will hear God rejoicing over us.