Proper 3

25 May 2008

Year A - RCL

The Rev'd Lloyd Prator

New York City

Today's gospel is a collection of sayings about possessions and money and that is interesting. I am always surprised that Jesus has so much to say about the way we live and the way we handle and think about money, but there it is, a set of sayings that do just that.

Today I want to take two of those sayings and think with you about them. The first one is the beginning of the gospel:

No one can be a slave to two owners; for either he will hate the one and love the others, or he will cleave to the one and despise the other. You cannot be a slave to God and to money.

To understand this, look at the word slave. We don't have slavery in this country, in fact, we fought a nation-rending war to end it. In Africa, slavery still exists, in Asia, it still exists, but not here. So we may for get that a slave was not even considered a person. He was a thing. A master could do anything with him that he wanted to. And, a slave had no time of his own. Every moment of his live belonged to a master.

In modern days, we tend to divide our lives in two—there is our work life, and there is our leisure time. For many, it is what we do in our leisure that gives meaning to our lives, it may be there where we find God and do Gods work.

Life is like that when you are not a slave. But if you are a slave, then your whole life belongs to your owner. For Christians, life is similar to that of aslave in that the whole of life belongs to God. A faithful Christian does not say “I will do what God wants,during this part of my life,” and “I will do what I want at other times.”

Thyere is no time off from being a Christian. All of life belongs to God.

  When you are a priest, you hear people's worry and concerns about many things. One of the issues, which many face, is the problem of work that is meaningless. If this is you—and that may well be the case—then think of this: what Jesus is saying to you is that you might think of your time outside of work as being the main venue in which you will live out the purposes of God. Don't, the Lord is saying, think only of your work as being “what you do” but also what you do for your hobbies, your avocations, your

Outside-the-office endeavors.

The point is that the realm of God extends to all you life, and it may be a good thing for you to be prepared to find God in different parts of your life. The whole of life is under the rule and reign of God.

Then, at the end of the reading comes that caution about not worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow has its own issues.

I wonder if I am the only one old enough here to remember the guy from Mad Magazine, Alfred E. Neumann, the goofy kid with the freckles and the big ears whose motto was “What, me worry?” Worry has got a trivial gloss in recent years. And yet, worry is something that is a serious human problem.

Think of ulcers and headaches and the extent to which our health is damaged by worry.

What Jesus is saying, I am sure, here, is this: Just as all of your life, your work and your leisure falls under God's control, all of time is similarly under his control.

My point is this: Yes, you may worry about tomorrow. You may have concerns and problems for which you do not know the answer. But equally unknown to you are the mysterious resources that may await you in the future. You do not know what talents god may open to your use, what new relationships may arise, what possibilities may open like doors ahead of you. The same Lord, who is the Lord of your work time and your leisure, is also the Lord of your future as well as your present. Obsessive worry may mean that your view of God is too small.

So, there you have it, two practical things to think about as you continue your journey into Christ. That he is the Lord of all life. That he is the Lord of all time, both present and future. To him be honor and glory now and forever.