4th Sunday in Lent
March 22, 2020
Matthew 10:1-19, Luke 12:22-34
Busy: Reconnecting with an Unhurried God
Living Light
What a week it has been! I pray you have been using your
time wisely, not in anxiety but reconnecting with God. Even if you have been
staying in your pajamas, binging Netflix, or become addicted to the news, I
hope you are also spending more time in prayer, reading your Bible, and
noticing God’s presence in your life this week. As we continue our theme on
“Busy: Reconnecting with an Unhurried God,” this weeks’ topic is Living Light.
It also feels quite timely for this day and age of living in the time of the
Coronavirus.
Let’s start first with the physical stuff. In Luke, Jesus
tells his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what
you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than
food, and the body more than clothes.” That ‘therefore’ is because Jesus just
finished telling the disciples the parable of the rich fool. It’s the story of
a rich man whose farm produced an abundant harvest, but he didn’t have enough
space to store all of it. So, he tore down his barns and built bigger ones, big
enough to store all of his grain, which would feed him for the rest of his
life. In the children’s book I had as a kid, I remember a scene added where one
piece of grain fell out of the barn down to the ground and a hungry person
picked it up. The rich man watched his grain at all times, had to keep an eye
on it, saw the hungry person pick up the grain, went down and beat him for
stealing. God says, “You fool, tonight you will die. Now who will get the
things you have prepared for yourself?” Jesus adds, “This is how it will be
with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.
Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or what
you will wear.”
Who hasn’t
needed to hear this week: Do not worry. Do not worry about what you will eat.
Do not worry about what you will wear. Did anyone go hungry this week? Did
anyone run out of clothes? No. It is a lack of trust in God and God’s provision
that led to panic and bare shelves at the grocery store the past couple weeks. God
will provide. There will be enough.
But you can’t hoard it. If you take more than you need, then someone else won’t
have what they need. And please, if you know someone who’s got a box of those
N95 masks, please encourage them to donate them to their closest hospital. Our
medical practitioners are not safe using the same mask all day long nor do the
cloth masks provide as much protection. I expect you’ve also heard that if you
only buy your normal amount of groceries, then the stores can restock back to
normal levels. Fresh fruit and vegetables and dairy items aren’t going to last.
It’s like the manna the Israelites ate in the wilderness. The manna fell from
heaven every morning and if they picked up more than they needed for that day,
the extra manna went bad. It didn’t keep. You couldn’t stockpile it. We’re not
going to be told that we can’t go buy food. That is fear talking, not faith. “Do
not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will wear.” If you
have found yourself with more than you need, no judgment, but I’m going to make
two requests of you: 1, Share what you have with your neighbors. Leave a bag on
their doorstep. Or contact a food pantry, many of which are still operational,
including the one up Woodbine Road at Morgan Chapel UMC. 2, Start buying only
what you need. God knows you need food. “But seek first his kingdom, and all
these things will be given to you as well.”
This also relates to the items in our house. I don’t know
about you, but one thing I'm hoping to do is some organizing and sorting. We’ve
been here three years and things have accumulated. “As a society, Americans on
average are now living in three times more home space than in the 1950’s. And
no matter how much more space we live in, we tend to fill it up. In fact, we
now have a 2.2 billion square foot personal storage industry. Cheap labor, 24/7
access to online ordering and an attitude that the resources will never run out
have contributed to an insensitivity to the amount of stuff we have and the
rate of speed we turn over the stuff we have.”[1]
I think thanks to the Coronavirus, we are finally becoming more aware of this.
Mike mentioned in his message Wednesday night that we’ve taken prosperity for
granted. We had a bull market for a long time, the longest one in U.S. history,
in fact. But with stores changing to limited hours, if not closing, as we
reassess our priorities and how we spend our money, and realizing that some
resources become scarce during a pandemic have all contributed to a good
wake-up call for us. It was time to shift our mindset regarding things and
stuff, figure out what we need and what we really don’t need. Lighten the load.
Live lighter.
Besides the literal clutter that we accumulate, there’s
also some mental and emotional burdens that need lightening. “Our lives are
weighed down with ‘should’s’ and expectations that hold us captive to the
frantic pace we live and mounting debt we accumulate.”[2]
Maybe you’ve heard the commandment: “Thou shalt not should on thyself.” Be
gentle with yourself, especially during this time of heightened stress and
anxiety. Learn from what you should have done so you know what you can do
better next time, and move on. ‘Should’s’ can weigh us down, sometimes even paralyze
us. Do you what you need to do. Give yourself a reward at the end if it’s
something you really don’t want to do. Let go of the
‘should’s.’ Too “many of us live with the tyranny of measuring-up that keeps us
weighed down.”[3] It
might be trying to keep up with the Jones’s, or whoever you compare yourself
to. It’s not helpful. It’s not healthy. You are not the Jones’s, or the Kardashian’s,
or anyone else. You are you. No one else is you. Be you. And don’t be too hard
on yourself.
Sometimes there are old stories we tell ourselves, old
baggage that we carry around, that unknown to us, weigh us down. What are those
stories? Can you name them? I can’t ever do anything right. I’m a klutz. I’m
stupid. I’m here to tell you that you are not dumb or silly or little. You can
do many things and do them well. I don’t know what specific message you need to
hear today about who you are, but go ahead and tell it to yourself now. I
remember one in my early 20’s when I was doing hurricane clean-up in eastern
North Carolina with a team from my sending church. Now, you may have noticed
that I was raised to be independent. And especially throughout high school and
college, I felt I had to prove to others that I was not a dumb blonde (my hair
was lighter back then), nor was I a helpless female. I can do it myself, thank
you very much. Well, a moment of healing came on that disaster response trip.
Rather than offering to do the work for me, or ignoring my presence, both of
which have happened, a man on the team told me, “Heather, I know you can do it.
You don’t have to prove it to me. Just let me know when you’re ready for a
break.” It felt so good to hear that. Finally, I could stop proving what I’m
capable of doing. Finally, I could acknowledge my limitations without them
being seen as weaknesses. I want you to hear that this morning for whatever
mental and emotional load you’re carrying. I know you can do it. I believe in
you. And, you don’t have to prove it to me or anyone else, whatever ‘it’ is for
you. You don’t have to prove yourself. Let go of that burden. Lighten your
load. Live lighter.
Finally, lightening the load reminded me of the time
Jesus sends the twelve disciples out with no load whatsoever. Their mission is
to proclaim the kingdom of heaven has come near, heal the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse the lepers, and drive out demons. These are the same ministries that
the disciples have just seen Jesus do. But Jesus isn’t done with his
instructions. He says, “Don’t take any money. Don’t pack a suitcase. Don’t even
take a change of clothes.” The twelve are sent out “on a mission without even
the basic equipment for sustenance and self-defense.”[4]
Can you believe that? “Jesus does not
equip his own disciples… with lots of discipleship accoutrements.”[5]
Instead, they had to trust God to provide. And they had to trust the people to
whom they were sent. This is radical discipleship. They had to trust in God’s
provision and trust in radical hospitality of the community to where they were
sent. The disciples’ physical load was lightened. They had to make sure not to
weigh down their mental and emotional loads with anxiety and panic.
Jesus
calls us to some risk-taking missions in which we have to show our trust. It’s
like Peter walking on water, which I mentioned a few weeks ago. Jesus says, “I
am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as wise as snakes and
as innocent as doves.” We know that we are the sheep and Jesus is the Good
Shepherd. The wolves are those “forces that act to deter the daring and
risk-taking ventures to which he calls us.”[6]
We are to “practice wisdom and discernment in the face of those dangers.”[7]
What are those dangers? What does radical discipleship look like in the age of
COVID-19? Those dangers include panic, anxiety, hoarding, and disregarding
health warnings and precautions. Discipleship looks a lot like it did for the
disciples sent out with nothing but the clothes on their backs and Jesus’
mission in front of them. They had to proclaim the kingdom of God is near. And
they were instructed to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and
cast out demons. We, living lightly, are called to go and do the same.
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
Ibid.
[4] Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew, Vol.
1, p. 257
[5]
Ibid.
[6]
Ibid., p. 261
[7]
Ibid.
No comments:
Post a Comment