May 25, 2008
(Second Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 3)
Humans, Lilies or Birds?
by The Rev. Carol Sanford, Priest Associate
Isaiah 49:8-16a • Psalm 131
• 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 •
Matthew 6:24-34
(From
The Lectionary Page)
Happy Memorial Day weekend, and welcome to what is sometimes called “Ordinary Time” in the Church calendar. You can tell it’s Memorial Day Weekend by our thoroughly Midwestern mix of retail sales and festivals along with flowers lovingly placed in cemeteries and the many events honoring those who have given their lives in the armed services. There is also a shift of our cultural attention toward swimming pools, garden tours and yet one more excuse for Kansas Citians to slap something on the grill.
You can tell that it is Ordinary Time in the church, more formally known as the season following Pentecost, by the green of our vestments and hangings, the rotation of the banners, and by the lack of special preparations for an upcoming feast such as Christmas or Easter. We’re just sort of sauntering along in, well, ordinary fashion, proclaiming our extraordinary mysteries in our usual way. In some places, you can tell that we’re in Ordinary Time by a drop in attendance. Let’s do try to buck that trend here as well as we are able, given that the beginning the season following Pentecost coincides with vacations, golf, and other summer activities.
I am among the many who spend as much warm weather time as possible out of doors with lemonade and a good book. One evening last week I was sitting outside with CS Lewis, when a great excitement arose among the birds in our small backyard.
There was a hawk perched on a low tree limb, and varieties of smaller birds had gathered together to drive the predator away. They were successful, at least for that evening, but the incident stared me thinking about what life is like for a bird.
I guess I have always heard our passage from Matthew about the birds of the air and the lilies of the field in part as a treatise on the ease of the natural life; a sort of hearkening to the joys of Creation and living closely attuned to the earth; the sort of simplified view of life in nature that sometimes entices city dwellers to country life, often unmindful of such delights as skunks under porches and raccoons in the trash.
Life in nature is not always easy. Birds, for example, seem to work really hard. They build nests and continuously hunt for food and water. Birds squabble over nesting sites and reproduction rights, and engage in at least defensive warfare, as did our backyard coalition a few nights ago.
Even the lilies of the field push their way through dark earth, sometimes navigating rocks or hungry animals along the way, sometime facing drought or flood.
So if life is also a struggle for God’s other creatures, what is our passage from Matthew trying to tell us about us? It would seem to make more sense to tell the birds to start worrying, than to tell us to stop!
And yet, I do believe that Jesus’ words in Matthew are right on target. Here’s why:
The thing is, birds don’t sow or reap or gather into barns… because they are birds! Birds do bird things: nesting, flying, chirping. Lilies don’t toil or spin; their job is to sprout and bloom. The cardinal in my backyard is properly concerned with getting a protected nest completed before eggs arrive. It isn’t always easy or even successful, but everything is in place in God’s world to assist in the venture: there is a small creek providing water, and trees and shrubs for cover, there are plenty of leaves and twigs for construction, along with seeds and bugs for nourishment. There are male cardinals eager to assist, and there is the breath of Divine life.
Everything is in place for the cardinal to do what is written within her to do. Although she may meet challenges along the way, her burdens are not increased by envy for different feathers or a desire for a bigger nest, and she doesn’t abandon her project for fear that another hawk may come. She is far too busy with her life, not worrying, but going about the proper business of being a bird.
We need to ask ourselves, what is the proper business of being human? We, too, have been given every good thing in Creation, everything we need to foster abundant life. Unlike the birds and the lilies, though, we often seem to make a mess of it. Sometimes we attempt to gather in what is not ours and sometimes our proper portions are hoarded by others. Even when we are prosperous, we worry and fret and want more. Birds seem to do a pretty good job of being birds, and the lilies persist in being lilies, but we do corporately and individually keep missing the humanity mark disastrously often.
Christians over time have come up with a number of complex theological arguments to explain why this happens. At the other end of the scale, a Roman Catholic abbot made a deep impression on me with a very straightforward comment. Father Hillary said, “It doesn’t matter how the [donkey] got in the ditch. The point is to get him out.”
We are sometimes poor stewards of God’s mysteries and of God’s Creation which includes, remember, ourselves and our neighbors. So how do we get out of the ditch?
Our readings today emphasize trust in a trustworthy God. I find that I am less effective in all areas of my life, whether traffic or tragedy, when I am anxious and worried. I am most able to go forth to love and serve the Lord when I am confident and at peace, trusting in God to guide me. The very gifts of God that set us apart from the rest of life on earth, our conscious awareness of past and future, along with our imagination, will, misused, lead us into sin and destruction through our fears. The same gifts, in the light of everlasting life in Christ, can lead us to committed action to right the ills of the earth, and to heal the wounds we have inflicted upon each other. The choice is ours, to live into our faith or into our fear.
Will we trust in the comfort and promise of God and thereby walk through the world with open and generous hearts, using our energy and imagination for healing and bridge-building and rejoicing, or will we shrink into the terrifying world of believing that we are abandoned, a world where we must hoard and hide and look out only for ourselves? The way of faith is challenging, but it is in reality both more comfortable and more practical, because it leads us into the lives we have always been meant to live.
English theologian Austin Farrar said, “If you want to have faith, decide what you would do if you did have it, and do it.” There is much evidence already here at the Cathedral that we have chosen to live into faith. As our Ministry continues to unfold, we will further discover who we are meant to be and to grow into the Gifts and Mission God gives us.
It’s Memorial Day Weekend and the beginning of Ordinary Time. This is a good weekend to reflect upon what has been given for us, and a good season to bring our attention to the extraordinary light of Divine life that permeates our most ordinary days.
Let’s stick with the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, and with those wonderful singing mountains in Isaiah. Let’s set aside our worries and relax into God. I believe this prepares us to do what fully human humans do: care for one another, mourn our losses, celebrate our joys, participate with God in restoring Creation and maybe, here in Kansas City, have some lemonade or beer and fire up the grill. We do not fly like birds or bloom with the lilies, but we have every reason to rejoice in who we are created to be. Amen.
