“Harvest First Things First”

Fifteenth Sunday After Trinity – September 20, AD 2009

St. Matthew VI: 24-34

The Gospel lesson for today is thought to have been selected for this Sunday to align with a time of harvest in Italy. The appropriateness of this lesson for a harvest festival was recognized by those responsible for the American 1928 Prayer Book when it was also selected as the Gospel reading for Thanksgiving Day. The images of eating, drinking, sowing, gathering into barns, and the beauty of God’s bounty and care found in nature all serve as a thematic backdrop to the central question Jesus is addressing in this passage, which is, in effect, what do we seek to harvest by our heart’s desire? Is it a harvest of money and material possessions – called “mammon” in our translation – or is it the spiritual wealth of God’s kingdom and his righteousness? Our Lord urgently wants us to know that “mammon” does not lead us to God and things of eternal value. In the verses just prior to our lesson, Jesus says “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:20-21)

Sadly, the human heart is often obsessed with earthly treasure, is it not? Perhaps that is why we hear Jesus speaking so often in the New Testament about wealth and money.  And here He speaks to this issue with stark clarity. If the master of our life is earthly riches, we will despise God. Conversely, if we do love God above all things, we will despise earthly riches. Why? Because “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”  Jesus then goes on to address a major pitfall that keeps people in slavery to material wealth, namely, lack of faith in God’s providential care.

Jesus points out that beautiful things in nature - birds, lilies, and grassy fields – don’t have to fret and toil for food and raiment, since “your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they?”  The point is not that we should sit around and be lazy but that we need to understand where we are positioned in God’s created order.  Contrary to what some radical animal rights activists would have us believe, there is a hierarchy in God’s created order and, unlike other animals, human beings are made in God’s image, a little lower than the angels.  To quote St. Chrysostom, “For God made all living things for man; but man for Himself. If then the birds shall find their food without toil, shall man not find it, to whom God has given both the knowledge to labour, and the expectation of making it fruitful?”  What’s your answer to the question St. Chrysostom poses? Or to Jesus’ question, “But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he (God) not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?”  Can we nod our heads in affirmation when Jesus says “Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? Or, What shall we drink? Or Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.”?  Faith is crucial to how we answer, isn’t it?  If our faith is on sandy ground, we’ll believe like the Gentile heathens did that Fortune or Fate rules human affairs and our lives are ruled by chance, and thus succumb to fear and despair that there is no divine direction or purpose to our lives.  But if our faith is built on rock solid ground, we know that Divine Providence rules our lives and we can trust in his righteous judgments and merciful care.

Let me give you one example of how such trust and faith in God can play out. Within Guatemala City there is a community of several thousand people who live in a large ravine that slopes down to what is supposedly a river but is more aptly called an open sewer. This community, called La Limonada, is home to the poorest of the poor. It is a notorious haven for drug addicts, pushers, and gang violence. The residents of this community are effectively ostracized from the larger community and few if any city services are available to them. It is hard for people there to obtain decent jobs due to the bad reputation that community has. One resident of the community, a woman named Tita, was a former drug addict and prostitute, but she gave her life to Christ and, with support from believers in the community there and in the U.S., has created two schools that are educating and giving hope to over 200 children who live there.

Tita received a phone call last Wednesday saying that an older man named Viejito was asking to go to the hospital. Since being injured after 2 different falls last year, he has been cared for by his neighbors. Last week, a screw that had been used in his knee replacement began to poke out through his skin. This was resulting in an extreme amount of pain for him. Tita and some others went to see Viejito and asked him if he wanted to go to the hospital, but he didn’t answer. The dilemma in taking him is that he had been told before that the hospital wouldn’t receive him because he was too old. After praying, Tita called for an ambulance to come to the nearest street entrance. Because of the topography of this community—built up in a ravine, remember -- there is no way for an ambulance or stretcher to come directly to the house. The ambulance would need to park above the ravine, and he would have to be carried up to the top on a backboard through the narrow and sometimes unstable walkways that make up La Limonada. But the ambulance refused to come. Tita called a different ambulance company, but they also refused to come.

At this point, Tita and one of the group members were already on the street. They sat and prayed for God to make a way in this situation. Once they stopped praying, a woman approached them saying that she was a firefighter and wanted to help. Tita explained the situation, and this woman immediately called for an ambulance. It arrived within minutes. The ambulance crew was extremely patient and helpful, coming down into the ghetto to put Viejito on the backboard. Several of the men in the group carried him out of the ghetto and up to the ambulance. So not only was it a miracle that an ambulance crew arrived, but the hospital received him and is currently caring for him as well. They are treating an infection and will be operating on him soon.

Viejito has very little in material possessions but he is surrounded by believers who minister to him through the power of the Holy Ghost and God’s eternal love. He is rich indeed. Tita also has little in the way of wealth as the world measures it, but she is rich with the treasures of heaven and finds peace and joy serving the Lord.

We can rejoice in the Lord for people such as Viejito and Tita who show us that our Gospel lesson is not just pious words. If we also seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, we will be able to affirm what St. Paul says in Philippians 3:11: “The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

In prayerful and obedient servanthood to our Lord, not mammon, we will find a harvest of unspeakable joy and eternal riches.

And now unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all might, majesty, honor, and dominion, as is most justly due this day, both now and forever, Amen.