Vicar’s sermon 6.10.24 : Harvest Matthew 6.25-33

Pop quiz! Who sang…?
Rise up this mornin’
Smiled with the risin’ sun
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin’ sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true
Saying’, (this is my message to you) Singing’

Don’t worry ’bout a thing
‘Cause every little thing gonna be alright Singing’
Don’t worry ’bout a thing
‘Cause every little thing gonna be alright Singing’ (Bob Marley)

Or try this one:
Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing…cos I’ll be standing there beside you. (Stevie Wonder)

Two pop ‘Greats’ with songs about worry. My guess is that they both knew Jesus’ words: ‘I tell you, do not worry about your life…Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?’

My family would possibly say that I’m not really a worrier. I don’t think that’s true. Like the rest of you I seem to have reached a stage in life where, very early in the morning I will wake up and will spend a couple of hours with ‘stuff’ churning around inside my head. Is that stress…or concern…are they the same as ‘worry’? I’m not sure. At times I can be so ‘laid back’ as to be almost horizontal: at others I can have all the symptoms associated with anxiety: deep tiredness, the spinning head and inability to make a decision, knotted stomach. I’m getting better at recognising the symptoms and ‘heading things off a the pass’.

Last week I sat with my headphones on and listened to a talk to Bishop Guli Francis -Dehqani – you can find it by typing ‘Church Times’ into Google and then putting Bishop Guli (GULI) in the search bar at the top of the page). Bishop Guli (as her name might suggest) is not from these shores. She escaped the Revolution in Iran with her parents following an assassination attempt on her mother back in 1979. She is now Bishop of Chelmsford. Her talk is about the church and the future of the Church of England but she begins it by highlighting the deep anxiety which is affecting us all, partly, but not entirely connected to Covid.

For there is a lot to worry about. Financially, a lot of people are under pressure. ‘In work’ poverty is a concern: wages that don’t enable a family to pay their bills no matter how much they cut back on expenditure. I’ve mentioned before the rise in the behavioural difficulties our little ones carry with them into school. Years of austerity have cut back every aspect of our public life – which is great if you are trying to balance the books but of no help if you want to see a doctor or need Mental Health support for your teenager. So, we overlay the ‘everyday’ worries and concerns we might have about our families with a sense of national malaise where the things that we used to rely upon no longer deliver. A police officer might turn up to investigate a crime. You might have a qualified teacher at the front of the class or you might find that your grandchild is being taught by a non specialist who is struggling to keep one step ahead of her pupils. We worry about housing. We worry about the environment the world we will pass on to the next generation. We cannot but be aware that there is war in Europe…and the Middle East…and the world order as it has been constructed since the end of World War II is collapsing. No wonder we are stressed! And Christian people see the church in decline across Western Europe, the language of faith needing to be re-translated to make any connection whatsoever with the next generation, and we are predominantly older in our congregations, and chapels have closed and churches that have held the light of faith for centuries are struggling to keep the roof on and the damp out and, on top of all of this we have a national strategy that assumes exponential growth and seems wholly disconnected from reality and lays additional burdens of expectation upon hard pressed congregations and leaders… Is that enough to be going on with?

So what lies behind all of this anxiety? How can we find peace, a sense that ‘every little thing’s gonna be alright?’ Often the source of our anxiety is ‘scarcity’. There’s not enough money. There’s not enough food. There’s not enough support. There’s not enough care. There’s not enough people. Enough? What is ‘enough?’

Does Jesus help us with his answer? ‘Don’t worry about your life.’ I think of Barbara Plett Usher, the BBC journalist who has been in Sudan over these last weeks. She was reporting from Omdurman on the edges of Khartoum. Her radio and TV reports took us to hospitals crowded out by mothers with their children on the edge of starvation. We know that media attention can sometimes bring international attention to a situation. But then Israel bombed Lebanon and Sudan (with its displaced millions on the edge of starvation) has gone from the news in the same way as the ongoing war in Ukraine. ‘Don’t worry about your life’? It seems cruel to come up with that response where people have no food, no shelter, no hope…

But Jesus’ words are not the only words we have in scripture so perhaps we need to give them a context. Let’s start with ourselves: how about hearing his instruction not to worry as an invitation to trust in the Fatherhood of God? How about praying for grace to take to heart (as best we are able) His utter confidence in the goodness of God? – that in the difficulties of much of modern life there might still be the possibility of faith in a God who loves and cares for us? Why not remind ourselves this morning of Jesus’ words that tell us that this God knows us each individually with all of our insecurities and anxieties and that He ‘holds’ us? A starting point in faithful discipleship might be to understand who we are – we are beloved children of God. And then to recall who God is: He is a loving heavenly Father. These ‘back to basics’ insights from our faith might provide the foundation for being able to sleep a little more easily, might be the source of strength when we are up against it with whatever troubles we might face. You are loved. You are of more value than the birds of the air. Remember who you are in the eyes of God.

But then further afield and back to the wards of Omdurman hospital…or the discussion about money around the kitchen table….or the headteacher’s office where you learn there isn’t a space for your child at a special school. Confidence in God’s goodness may take you so far but there needs to be more.

The apostle James helps us. ‘If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food and one of you says ‘Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?’ The Christian vision is of a world where people know the love of God for themselves and then live it out in care for others. We don’t live with scarcity. In the economy of God there is always more than enough – it’s just not being shared. Whether that ‘enough’ is money or other resources a harvest message must involve helping all people to know the loving care of God that we have experienced through meeting the needs of those who have little or nothing.

We are the answer to the anxieties of so many. We can make a bank transfer to a charity that might feed a child and so change the world. We can offer a listening ear over a cup of coffee. We can make a telephone call or a hospital visit. We can offer the willingness to take time to understand and carry someone’s burden with them. And we have all we need to be God’s faithful people here in this place for God has called us, God has blessed us and God is faithful.

‘Don’t worry about a thing’ he says, ‘ I’ll be standing right beside you’