It’s been a while, I’m sorry. A lot has been going on, but then a lot hasn’t as well. I’m still living in between. The house in Indianapolis was sold and we’re waiting for the closing, though there might have been a hiccup with the buyer and his financing - but they assure us all will be well by closing date. We are praying. We’ve bought a house in Nashville, well contracted to buy a house. You don’t buy a house like a pack of gum. You don’t plunk down your money and then just move in. There are hoops through which you have to jump, forms to sign, inspections and appraisals and offers and counter offers. But most of you know all this. This is only our second go, and it seems to have gotten way more complicated in the two years since the first one. But maybe that’s just a faulty memory blocking out the struggles the first time.
Add to the circus that the house we are buying is empty. The previous owners moved out long ago. And here I am paying for housing while we wait for all the paperwork to go through. I could sleep on the floor. There’s an air mattress in my trunk right now, waiting for the eventuality that I could get a key and camp out in our house. But apparently that’s not done. The ad said immediate occupancy, but it meant immediately after closing, I guess. Because it isn’t immediately now! Tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow.
We’ve been living a tomorrow kind of existence for a while now. Waiting for something to resolve, something to work out so that we can get on to the next thing. It’s a common way of living, I know. We’re not the only ones. I know of many others who are waiting for tomorrow. For the job application to be picked up, for the semester to be over and graduation to be done. Waiting for the wedding date or the birth date, so that life can really begin. Or the new life anyway. The better life. And then there are those who are waiting to know about tomorrow. Waiting for the tests to come back to know whether there was going to be a tomorrow, or how many tomorrows there might be. Waiting to hear from someone in a disaster zone to know whether they will want any tomorrows.
Tomorrow holds us in abeyance, it seems, for good things and for the not so good. It’s out there, holding back our living, our being, our sense of self and place and well-being. If we can just get beyond tomorrow, we’ll be OK. Or at least we’ll know where we are. Just get me to tomorrow.
Matthew 6:25-34 "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? 26 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? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 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? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.
It’s not that Jesus isn’t interested in tomorrow. He spends a lot of time telling His followers what is to come. He wants them to be prepared for tomorrow. He tells them what is going to happen to Him and then to them. He tells them to sit down and count the cost. He tells them how to live, what to do, where to go when He is gone, as He will be soon. Jesus cares about tomorrow. About His tomorrow and about their tomorrow and about your tomorrow and mine.
But what He wants is that tomorrow does not get in the way of today. Notice in this part of the Sermon on the Mount, He doesn’t say don’t think about tomorrow. He doesn’t say ignore tomorrow. He says “don’t worry about tomorrow.” It’s that word worry that He wants to talk about. Not tomorrow. Tomorrow will come and it may have good news or it may have bad news and whatever it has you can deal with it then. There’s nothing you can do about tomorrow now. So, don’t let tomorrow steal your today.
Jesus gives us a little lesson on observation in this passage. Look around you, He says. That’s one of His favorite things to say. Right next to Listen! You who have ears! Here He says Look! You who have eyes! He wants us to pay attention to what is going on around us. I suspect He might have something to say about our fixation on screens – phones, tablets, computers, smart watches. I’m not saying that Jesus would be anti-tech. We could argue that forever. But He would be anti-anything that makes you oblivious to what is right in front of your face. There’s a world out here, He would say. Look at that bird soaring overhead, He would point out. See those flowers swaying in the summer breeze. Have you ever seen anything so wonderful? Look at those clouds, He would say, rolling across the azure sky. Or watch that child picking wild flowers as a gift for his mother. Or that mother receiving that gift as though it was the most precious thing in the world, because it is. Do you see? There is a world here. There are lives here. There is grace here and love. It’s all around you. How can you doubt that there will be enough for you when the world is overflowing with it?
Of course, Jesus isn’t being naive here. He knows, and says God knows, that there are concerns about living in their world that occupy us all, food and clothing perhaps the most basic, but not the whole list. But again, He isn’t saying that we live thoughtlessly expecting the necessities to be provided in some miraculous way. The other hint in this passage is one of my favorites. The you. “Why do you worry.” “All these things will be given to you as well.” Most of you know what I’m going to say. All those yous are plural. All y’all. Why do all y’all worry? All these things will be given to all y’all. There is within the human community enough that all will be fed and all will be clothed.
Which means our work, not our worry, but our work, is not to make sure I have enough, but see how we can all have enough of the resources of this world that we need to survive. For many of us that might mean doing with less so that others can have more. Or so that others can have enough. We have to trust in the community and the abundance that God has provided for all. Which takes cooperation and trust, which is rare these days, unfortunately.
In fact we can’t really talk about tomorrow without a quick reference to yesterday. I’m writing this on September 12th. Yesterday was the 18th anniversary of 9/11, the day that everything changed for citizens of the USA. In one way that event seems a long time ago, and a lot has happened since then. But in another way it still seems fresh, the wound is still raw, the lessons yet to be learned. We still have a tendency to blame a whole community of people for what happened and not just those who perpetrated the acts. We want to find enemies to attack, rather than seeing this heinous action to be an aberration from the norm. We worry about tomorrows that may never come because we choose to live in fear and with hate. This isn’t the life that Christ called us to live. This isn’t the hope that need to hold.
But tomorrow will come. The tomorrow we need to embrace. Your tomorrow. My tomorrow. Even as I was writing this, a slew of emails came through orchestrating the closing of the house down here in Nashville. So many details to work out. But we can trust that they will work. And I will try my best not to be consumed with worry. May you also be free from the fear of tomorrow.
Shalom,
Derek
