Kingdom Living
Sermon for Harvest Thanksgiving, year B
Bible reading: Matthew 6:25-33
A fisherman lay back against the supportive trunk of a palm tree and cast a line into the water. As he hummed a gentle lullaby to the gentle late afternoon breeze he didn’t think “this is paradise” because he just accepted that’s the way things were.
The next morning he stepped out of his simple home to pluck mangoes from just outside his front door, then he went for a short walk to pick coconuts and tropical fruits. He tilled his garden for a while, until his stomach told him it was lunch. With a full stomach he stretched out in a hammock for his usual afternoon siesta.
No one in the village had any worries. No one owned much, but there were no security systems, doors were always open, children wandered safely, there had never been a police officer. As the sun dropped he sat and fished.
Now, a resort for foreign tourists and businessmen had been built nearby. A businessman with nothing to do but sit by the pool became restless, and took a stroll and met the fisherman. “What are you doing?” he asked the fisherman.
“Just catching a fish or two for my family’s dinner,” he replied.
“Why just catch one or two fish… there seem to be plenty here… why not catch more?”
“Why would I do that?” replied the fisherman.
To which the businessman replied, “You could keep one or two for your family, and sell the rest and make some money and buy another rod and catch more.”
“Why would I want to do that?” the puzzled fisherman replied.
“Because you could buy a net and catch more fish and then buy a boat, and your business would build up until you could buy a fleet of boats and manage your own company, and invest your returns on the international stock market, and become very wealthy, and have everything you want.”
The simple fisherman looked up quizzically at the man with such weird ideas. The sea and the land provided for him plentifully. Why should he deplete it? He and his whole village were happy, and had all they needed. “What would I do with all the money, if I had it?” he asked.
“You could do what I do,” the businessman answered proudly. “Each year you could take two weeks vacation to do whatever you wanted. Why, you could even visit a tropical island, just as I’ve done, where you could sit by the sea and fish at your leisure.”
Many people will think there’s not much to give thanks for this year. Economically and ecologically our world seems to be in a mess. We are being given more, to spend more, to consume more to save our world, when it’s just this reckless living which seems to have brought us to where we are. Because people have grasped for more, and shared less, most people have lost all sense of values.
When chief executives of failing companies have no qualms about grasping more than the leader of their country is given – sometimes 20 or 30 times more – we know all sense of values has gone out the window. When the top 2% of a country rake in up to 30% of the country’s profits, and millions are losing their jobs and homes, we know that Satan is running amuck, and blinding people’s eyes. How do we give thanks to God in such a world gone off the tracks?
How do we give thanks to God in a country where the rivers have dried up on one end, and have flooded the other, where the fruit and grapes and vegetables are dried on the plants in half the land, and rotting in the soil on the other? Is this a harder year to give thanks, or am I just affected by the heat? Should we join with Habakkuk and say:
Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines;
Though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food;
Though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls,
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will exult in the God of my salvation.(—Habakkuk 3:17f)
A person who thinks, and speaks, and lives like that is walking to a different drum.
As Jesus speaks to us from the Sermon on the Mount on this Harvest Thanksgiving we see that he too is walking according to a different drum. He calls it the Kingdom of God, he says it has arrived with him, and he says we become part of it when we entrust our lives to his safe keeping, and walk with him in carefree freedom.
He gives us a good tip on what he means in the verse before our text: no one can serve two masters – you cannot serve God and money
. So who do you want to have running your life – God or material things? Too many Christians are trying to serve both Gods, and they’re not enjoying either. There is no joy in living with a divided heart – like trying to live with and please two women!
The invitation then is to trust in God alone, and seek his kingdom first, or as Luke says, seek his kingdom alone
. This is not a command, but an invitation. Are you seeking the good life? Then come with Jesus, and walk in step with Jesus, and enjoy the green pastures of love and joy and peace. His kingdom is not a place filled with prim and proper looking people, who seldom smile or tell jokes. His kingdom is to be with Jesus and to walk with him, and to find joy in the midst of sorrow, peace in the midst of hatred, love in the midst of apathy, plenty in the midst of lack, living water in the midst of drought, generosity in the midst of greed, thanksgiving in the midst of complaint.
Don’t worry, is the word that goes with following Jesus.
Don’t worry
, is the word that goes with following Jesus. Don’t worry about your life, or what you will eat or drink, or about your body or what you will wear, or about how long you will live…
and the list could go on to include all the things you worry about. The shock is that Jesus says it’s people who aren’t walking with him in his kingdom who worry about these things. And when we worry about all these material things, we need to repent, which means to turn back to Jesus and hear again his different drum of love and grace, and walk in tune with it, in freedom.
Don’t worry, your heavenly Father will feed you… your heavenly Father will cloth you… your heavenly Father knows all that you need… seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and your heavenly Father will give you all these others things
– enough for today – give us this day our bread for today – so do not worry about tomorrow
– don’t worry about accumulating… about building up bigger superannuation where moth and rust do corrupt.
Do not worry
about buying up more and more property, which is all overpriced, when just a modest home will do, and just a small farm would supply your needs.
Jesus calls us to live with him in freedom and joy today. Whether we live on a tropical paradise or work in a high power job, he calls us to spend every day with him in the freedom of his kingdom of righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit
. We don’t have to go looking for that kingdom for it is as close as Jesus is to us in our church, in our workplace, with our spouse, and even when we go on our two week holiday to rain sodden Queensland. On this harvest thanks, live in freedom with Jesus, and don’t worry, but give thanks, for your Father will give you all you need for today, and enough to share. Amen.