RVCC Pastor's Sermon

Sermon - May 25, 2008

“Seek First The Kingdom Of God”

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Matthew 6:24-34

Recently I spent a few days in Washington, DC – visiting with our son, Padraic, and doing the tourist thing. Though Joe and I had lived just over the river in Arlington for a few years before the kids were born, I had not been back to our nation’s capital for quite some time.

I had some “old favorites” that I wanted to revisit, like the Lincoln Memorial, as well as some buildings I have never been to before. And so my tourist morning started out with a brisk walk from the Smithsonian metro stop past the Washington Monument, and on to the World War II Memorial, which was completed just a couple of years ago.

I was eager to see how the so-called “Greatest Generation” would capture in bronze and stone the experience of Pearl Harbor, the Battle of the Bulge, D-Day, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, and all the islands, plains, and beaches that so visibly and poignantly defined their lives – and therefore, in some ways certainly, my life as well, having grown up nurtured in part by a very proud Marine Corps veteran.

The memorial is grandiose, impressive, and classic in style – with fountains, two enormous cupolas, and a variety of famous and inspirational quotations etched into the granite scattered about the site. However, most moving to me was watching an elderly couple huddled together under an umbrella in the morning rain, gazing at the wall of stars – gold stars – so many of them fanning out behind a pool which on a clear and calm day would serve as a reflector and so bring those stars even closer to those of us who stared at them silently – each one representing men and women – real people with names and faces and families - who had lost their lives throughout Europe, Africa, and the South Pacific.

I thought of my father who to this day still gets tears in his eyes on the very rare occasions that he quietly remembers men he knew overseas. And I realized that whether you are someone who sees in the gold stars a half-forgotten face or hears the sound of far off laughter – or whether you run your hand gently over the name of someone on the Viet Nam memorial wall, the touch of your fingers bringing back to life for just a moment the scruff of a cheek in need of shaving, well, in a very important way - “We have shared the incommunicable experience of war”- as Oliver Wendell Holmes noted once in a Memorial Day speech.

And so, with that common human experience, we come together each Memorial Day weekend to reflect upon our legacy of war. We have our parades. We wave our little flags, and we decorate our cemeteries with red geraniums. However, sometimes I wonder if we focus too much – even here in church – on the memorial part of the day – on remembering the dead. Not that doing so is bad or inappropriate, mind you. However, it is only part of the meaning and challenge of the holiday for us, particularly us who claim to be followers of the Prince of Peace and defenders of a Gospel message of justice and reconciliation.

You see, each year the President of the United States issues a proclamation that says in part: “In respect for their devotion to America, the Congress, by a joint resolution approved on May 11, 1950, as amended (64 Stat. 158), has requested the President to issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe each Memorial Day as a day of prayer for permanent peace,”

Memorial Day, then, is meant not only to remember those who died in war, but it is also a day to pray for peace and to work for lasting peace – and so perhaps, for the hour that we come together to worship the Prince of Peace himself, that should be our focus as well.

And so we turn to a small portion of the Sermon on the Mount, its essence recorded in both Matthew and Luke. There, if we read thoroughly, we will find Jesus the Rabbi blessing the peacemakers in the Beatitudes. We will also discover him challenging his listeners to love their enemies while turning the other cheek and to selflessly offer their coats to those who have none.

We also come across today’s lesson when Jesus conjures up images of well-fed birds and lilies in the field more beautiful than all the wealth of King Solomon could buy. Look all around you, Jesus says. Do not be anxious. God will provide for you.

Is this some “don’t worry, be happy” Pollyanna sort of scriptural platitude? Hardly – I mean, when can we remember Jesus speaking any sort of platitude? No, as William Loader writes, “Jesus' challenge is not a mandate for stupidity and irresponsible planning. It is about having a clear goal and setting up the path in a way that takes us there.”

You see, amidst the lilies in the field, there is an implied question – and an answer. What makes us worry? What makes us anxious? Just where does our security lie? Is it in defending and guarding our own abundance?

Are we safest behind a complex and powerful military machine? Or do we breathe easier when we have created some careful balance between our cultural reality and the Gospel message? Those are the questions – and the answer is this: “Seek first the kingdom of God” – right there in verse 33.

Once again, even as he instructs us not to worry, Jesus is “disruptive and demanding,” as Mark Labberton describes him and goes on to say that “throughout the Sermon on the Mount, and certainly in these verses, (Jesus) is pushing for the realization that fence-sitting (that careful balance) is not the way of kingdom…You can’t keep your eyes on God and the kingdom of God if you are caught in worry over yourself, and the things you are trying to alone manage. Give up that struggle…Choose to ‘seek first the kingdom of God,’ says Jesus….(he who) is endlessly trying to liberate us from what is secondary and from what doesn’t matter, in order to set us free for what is first, for what and who does matter. Today matters.”

And so for us today - Memorial Day - matters, but only if it is first and foremost a day to pray and work for peace. Do not worry about tomorrow. Do not worry about wars that might come. Focus on today. Focus on what you can do today to prepare for a world of peace. And if you are not sure what to do, then ask yourself that simple question – what would Jesus do?

As Rick Ufford-Chase ponders, “Would Jesus have us spend billions of dollars on a war on terror, or would he have chosen instead to spend (a fraction) on basic security in our ports and our airports and the (majority) on access to clean water, education, dignified housing, and economic opportunity for two-thirds of the world's population currently living in misery and with greater insecurity than you and I could ever imagine?

He continues by saying; “I think Jesus had it exactly right. We will never find security at the point of a gun or a missile or as a result of a military occupation or a never-ending war on terror. Real security will come only when we trust that the basic goodness of all people—Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and those of other religious persuasions or no religious persuasion—can prevail.”

As we pray and work for peace this Memorial Day, above all, may we remember that war is a tragedy. No one wins – and most of all not the ones who do not come home. Not the ones whose long ago comrades stare at a gold star in the rain, not the ones who touch a name etched onto a wall because that is all that is left of a son or husband or daughter.

Do I pray for those in our military, especially those stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan? Of course, I do. I pray for their safety. I pray they will come home soon. But most of all I pray that someday the Gospel message that unites us will transcend any political differences that divide us, that we will live the proclamation that our President makes to Congress each year, and that we will live the lesson Jesus taught so long ago on Matthew’s Mount: that we are called above all to seek first the Kingdom of God and the Prince of Peace, that if we follow God’s way, God will walk beside us and we will not need to worry any more, that in our heart of hearts we will believe that the way of God is the way of life and hope - for all.

“A monk had a dream. He was walking down a street when an airplane flew overhead and dropped a bomb. Instinctively everyone knew it was a nuclear weapon, and all scattered – except the monk. He felt he must catch the bomb before it exploded and destroyed everyone. He caught it, and the bomb turned to bread in his hands. He broke the bread and shared it, seeking out those who had run away and drawing them back into community.” (Jim Garrison)

Even as you memorialize those who served this country with parades and little flags and red geraniums, remember them as well in a far richer and long lasting way by turning bombs into bread even as you pray for peace.

Sermon - May 25, 2008

“Seek First The Kingdom Of God”

By Rev. Nancy Foran Matthew 6:24-34

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Matthew 6:24-34