Welcome to Nassau Church

Let’s put this text in context.
Jesus has been tempted in the desert.
John the Baptist has been arrested.
In the midst of dangerous times, in his first public act of ministry, Jesus climbs the mountain like Moses, preaches his first public sermon: the Sermon on the Mount, and then tells everyone not to worry about tomorrow.
We often think of the Sermon on the Mount as the verses on the Beatitudes, but the Sermon is chapters long. And here, Jesus deals honestly with our worry. How we will live? How we will survive?
It’s hard to keep our eyes on the kingdom of God if we’re caught up in worry over ourselves and the things we’re trying to manage alone. There are the burdens and anxieties, the fretfulness and apprehension, the angst and dread. “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.” But what about our worries today? Even striving for the Kingdom can be worrisome.
Tony Campolo tells the story of a pastor who has a deacon in his church who just couldn’t “deak.” The deacon was extremely uneasy and anxious because he just couldn’t figure out what God wanted of him, how everyone else seemed to have found their place, seemed to know what they were doing. What gifts he could possible have to be of service to God’s people.
One day the pastor said to the deacon, “We have a group of young people that go to the assisted living unit down the street to lead worship once a month and they need a driver. Would you drive them?”
The man agreed and during that first worship service in the Assisted Living Unit, the deacon stood alone at the back, and all of a sudden someone was tugging at his arm. He looked down and there was a very elderly man in a wheelchair that took hold of his hand and wouldn’t let go. He held the deacon’s hand all during the service.
The next month they held hands again and the next and the next until one month the old man wasn’t there. The deacon inquired and was told, “Oh, Mr. Robinson is down the hall. He’s unconscious. He’s dying but you can go pray with him.” The deacon went and took the man’s hand and prayed. He prayed that God would receive this man; that God would comfort this man, that God would give him eternal blessings.
As soon as he finished the prayer, the old man squeezed the deacon’s hand and the deacon knew that he had been heard.
The deacon was so moved that tears ran down his cheeks. He stumbled out of the room and bumped into a woman who said, “He’s been waiting for you. He said he didn't want to die until he had the chance to hold the hand of Jesus one more time.”
The deacon was stunned. “What on earth do you mean?”
She said, “He’s my father and he would say that once a month Jesus came to this place and would hold his hand. He said he didn’t want to die until he had the chance to hold the hand of Jesus one more time.’”(2)
The deacon has found his place of service in the Kingdom of God.
For our Lord, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own,” is not a command, but a response to the living God.
We often think Jesus says:
Don’t worry about your life;
strive first for the kingdom of God.
But that’s the wrong order.
First things first.
It’s: Strive first for the kingdom of God
and his righteousness
and all these things will be given to you as well.
Then comes, “So do not worry about tomorrow.”
Our heavenly Mother and Father always know our needs. It’s our earthly families and friends can cause us enormous worry.
One woman said at age forty-five, she had hated her father for most of her life and didn’t really remember why -until she visited a flea market and chanced upon a coin dealer marketing his wares. She said, “I hadn’t collected coins since the day my father had spent my entire collection, at face value, for a bottle of vodka. But that day on a flea market vendor’s table I saw it, a war nickel much like the one my father had stolen, the very one I had dreamed would be worth millions. I nervously asked the price, and the vendor said it was worth 25 cents.
“I realized,” she said, “that I had hated my own Father, all my life, for 25 cents.”
She started to cry, then laugh, then cry, then laugh, and somehow through it all she felt a bit more human, a bit more healed, a bit more able to let God, through tears and laughter, wash away the hate and anger that kept her from fully experiencing the kingdom of God. (3)

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,
ye of little faith,
for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.
Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Sometimes striving for the Kingdom of God means facing “today’s worries” head on; sometimes striving for the Kingdom of God is striving together, sharing our worries and bearing them together.
A preacher tells this story: there’s a university chaplain who shares that a young woman came to his office crying her heart out. She was a lesbian and had been outed. Word was getting around campus and she knew before long the word would get back to her father who was a leader in their church and a very stern man.
She knew when her father found out; he would not only reject her, but disown and abandon her as well.
The chaplain said to her, “Let me save you the trouble. Stay right there while I call your father myself.”
He called the father and said, “Your daughter is in my office and over the last several months she has proven to be one of the kindest, most loving Christians on campus. She lives out her faith.”
The father immediately responded with pride and delight and said, “You’re right. She’s wonderful. She’s glorious!”
Then the university chaplain, said, “I’m glad we agree. In the next thirty seconds I’m going to find out whether you are worthy to be called her father.”
The good news is the father did prove worthy. He exercised love. He accepted his daughter and he then taught others to accept their own children. (4)
That’s seeking God’s righteousness.
At the center of the Gospel comes Jesus’ promises of the kingdom of God and the things that will be given to us when we put first things first. In the life of the Kingdom we will know freedom, we will not regret the past, we will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. We’ll see how our experiences, the positive and negative, can benefit others; uselessness and self-pity will disappear; self-seeking will slip away. We will realize that God is doing for us what you could never do for ourselves.(5)
Strive first for the kingdom of God
and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given to you as well.
So do not worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.
Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

1-Sermon text from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 6:25-34, NRSV: Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

2-Tony Campolo. Sermon: “Becoming What God Intended You to Be.” 30 Good Minutes ~ The Chicago Sunday Evening Club, Program 4715, January 25, 2004.

3-Gina G. Voices of Recovery: A Daily Reader. Rio Rancho, New Mexico: Overeaters Anonymous Inc., 2002, 202.

4-Tony Campolo. Sermon: “Becoming What God Intended You to Be.” 30 Good Minutes ~ The Chicago Sunday Evening Club, Program 4715, January 25, 2004.

5-“The Promises” as adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous: the Big Book. 3rd edition. Published by Alcoholics Anonymous World Service Inc. www.aa.org. Chapter 6, “Into Action,” 83-84.