Urgent or important?

 

There’s often a debate in life between what is urgent and what is important – very often the call of the urgent thing that’s needed wins, taking up time and effort. To an extent that is probably inevitable – it’s part of being grown up and responsible perhaps! But there is a real need also to reflect on what is important and making time to treasure the important things. 

As we consider God’s incredible creation, we are reminded of his awesome power but also of his attention to detail – the power to create the world and yet the detail to love what has been made and the detail that creates a beautiful flower and creates you and me, with all our intricacies and uniqueness.

How often do we think of God as the creator drawing a picture of all kinds of wonderful things and fitting them together to make one huge collage…. And we are part of that incredible collage…. 

What is urgent and what is important isn’t always easy to define, but as a guide perhaps what is important is to recognise the gifts in our lives and how we value those gifts – whether the gifts be people, possessions or the beauty around us or of course, God’s love for us. 

Our two readings this evening (Isaiah 40:1-8 and Matthew 6:24-34) give us a little nudge to make time for reflection and time for God. The first 39 chapters of Isaiah were quite different to this one. There were words of comfort and hope certainly but also lots of thoughts about judgement and warnings. Chapter 40 marks a shift to what God promises when we live with him, when we work with him… 

Isaiah has been written to people living through challenges, disappointments, very real suffering – but its message is about the God’s ability to triumph over anything, and for us to be part of that triumph when we recognise his presence and his love. Isaiah has drawn up a version of God’s incredible collage and it’s a picture of hope and comfort, of salvation… 

And some of the words we have heard this evening just remind us of God’s power to create but also God’s desire to make our lives the best they can be. There is the idea of preparing the way of the Lord, a way where every obstacle and barrier to his love is removed – every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill brought low, the rough ground made level… 

And we’re told that people will see it – will see the glory of God… 

And that’s a glory that we’re both invited to recognise and share. And it seems obvious that as Christians we would look for beauty around us, look for signs of God’s power and love… but we sometimes get caught up in the urgent things that can make us tired and frustrated and miss the important things. 

Recently I’ve been watching a series by Ben Fogle called ‘New lives in the wild’ – some of the people seem really strange, people who’ve given up on what we’d say is normal life to go and live out in the wild. But some have done that following something big in their lives happening – for one couple it was being caught up in a massive earthquake in New Zealand where they genuinely believed they were about to die and realised after they got out of that, that there were more important things in life than holding down big jobs and earning money… 

I’m not for a moment suggesting we all give up our jobs or our houses but I am saying that we all need to make time to just reflect on what is important to us – and to think whether we do the important things enough. To think whether we spend enough time with people we love, whether we recognise the beauty of creation and whether we think of where we put God in our lives…  

And the gospel reading also continues this theme of recognising what is important and ultimately the answer is our relationship with God. In that reading we’re again given a picture – a picture that draws us away from the material things that we make so crucial in our lives to the things that last… We’re reminded of the flowers of the field and of how they grow not through their own work or effort, but through the love of God and through the gifts he gives to people. 

As recipients of God’s love, his grace, we must surely offer a response ? In the flowers of this festival, in the beauty of nature all around us as we leave the church, in the glory of creation that we can experience in our interactions with people, we are to recognise God’s glory – ‘don’t worry about tomorrow’ says the reading – so much easier said than done I know but we all know when we take a step back from a situation that worrying about it doesn’t really sort it out or even make it any better… 

And of course, the analogy of flowers is a useful one in terms of people and our relationship with God… Flowers are given as a gift from God, but they need to be looked after, they need water, some need more care than others, some need the right environment and those things are true of us as well… 

God gives us the precious and amazing gift of life. He gives us all kinds of gifts in our life, but we still need care – care from others and to take care of ourselves. One of the most precious gifts of all is the gift of relationships – relationships with those we know and love and relationships with those we might meet only once – we can be blessed by others and we can be a blessing to others. 

Like flowers we need care, we need to put ourselves in the right place sometimes, to make sure that we’re paying attention to how we grow… Sometimes in church life it is really easy to get bogged down into structures and plans and worries and all kinds of things that really distract us from focusing on God and his glory and power and love… 

Some people get turned off church because of these things – and I’m sure there are days when lots of us have thought that a walk up a mountain or a stroll by the sea might be a better way of connecting with God, and sometimes they’ll be right, but there is an important place for church and that is because of people. 

People gathering together to worship, to pray, to encourage and support, to comfort, to love and to go out sharing the joy, hope, comfort and love of God with others… 

And as we celebrate today the beauty around us, as we give thanks for the incredible work that has gone into putting this festival together, can we also take a moment to wonder whether we can be changed, whether we need to be changed ? 

As the people of God, as his church today, we have incredible privileges, we’re called to make time for the important things, the lasting things, the people, the wonder of creation, the beauty of a flower, the place we have in God’s worldwide family – and the change I wonder about is whether we are joyful enough as a church, whether we celebrate enough, whether we look like people who are constantly aware, even in the really difficult times of life, that God is with us, that God loves us, that God desires for each one of us fulness of life… 

People might ask for explanations of creation. They might wonder about the beauty of the world and the contrasts of ugliness in so many places and situations, and we won’t have all the answers but as we look around the church and the beauty here, as we look around the places we live, as we think about the people we meet, as we reflect on God’s love for us and for his whole creation, we can celebrate – not that our lives are perfect, and certainly not that we’re perfect, but that God is with us and that we’re responding to the challenges from the reading from Isaiah to be part of preparing the way of the Lord by working to remove some of the barriers and obstacles that stop people seeing God and, from the gospel reading from Matthew, we’re working not to worry but to trust and to know that God is with us… 

We can’t be joyful all the time – we can’t celebrate constantly, but we can help to create a culture in our churches so that they’re known as places of warmth and welcome, of comfort and hope, of joy and love for all… We can help to focus not just on the urgent, but intentionally make time, special time, for what is important… 

The flowers we see here this evening, the work that’s gone into putting all this together, the joy that’s been given to people who’ve witnessed this all prompt us I think to be drawn closer to the one who draws that great collage of creation, who draws the big picture, but who also attends to every detail… 

When the flowers are gone, when we’re not having the best day, just think of God’s great collage and know, truly know, that amidst the beauty of creation, just as in the messy and difficult places and situations, we’re loved by the one who knows us – the one who will never leave us… AMEN