Readings: Psalm 34
Isaiah 33.13-17
Matthew 6.19-34
One of the features of society today is that we have become remarkably good at protecting ourselves from life's uncertainties, but not nearly so good at finding peace.
We can insure almost everything. We can check our bank balances in seconds, track parcels across the country and see tomorrow's weather forecast before today is over. We can communicate with almost anyone, almost anywhere, at almost any time.
Yet, for all these ways of making life feel more secure, anxiety remains one of the defining features of our age.
Perhaps that should not surprise us. Anxiety often has less to do with what we possess than with what we cannot control. The more aware we become of everything that might go wrong, the harder it can be to remain calm. There is always another uncertainty, another decision or another possible problem ahead.
That is why the words of Jesus in tonight's Gospel still sound so fresh and challenging. They are addressed to ordinary people who know that life can be difficult and that tomorrow is never entirely predictable.
Yet Jesus says to them, and to us, "Do not worry."
At first hearing, those words can sound almost impossible. We can’t simply turn anxiety off, and worry doesn’t usually disappear because somebody tells us to stop.
But Jesus does not merely tell people to stop worrying. He invites them to see that beneath everything which frightens and unsettles us there is a reality deeper than all our fears – God!
Jesus points to the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet they are fed. He points to the lilies of the field. They neither labour nor spin, and yet they are clothed with a beauty beyond that of Solomon.
The point is not that birds never struggle or flowers never perish. Jesus is not promising that nothing painful will happen. Rather, he is asking us to recognise that creation rests in the care of God. The world is sustained by a love that comes before our efforts and continues beyond them.
And we easily forget that. We become convinced that things depend on us. We imagine that if we can plan carefully enough, save enough, achieve enough and control enough, we will finally feel secure.
Yet that moment never quite arrives. There is always one more thing to worry about or one more reason to postpone peace.
The problem is not that planning is wrong. Money and savings have their proper place, and it is wise to prepare for the future. The problem begins when we seek ultimate security in things that cannot carry that weight. Bank accounts can change, possessions can be lost, plans can be disrupted, and even good health cannot be guaranteed.
This is at the heart of Jesus' warning about treasure: "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
We often hear this simply as a warning about wealth, but it reaches much further than money. Our treasure is whatever occupies our imagination, claims our deepest loyalty, and promises to make us safe or complete.
For one person, that treasure might be money. For another, it might be success, reputation, comfort or the approval of others. None of these things is necessarily wrong. The danger comes when a good thing takes the place that belongs to God.
Jesus says that our hearts follow our treasure. What we seek, we become attached to. What we value shapes us. What we pursue gradually makes us into a certain kind of person.
That is why the feast we celebrate tomorrow is so significant.
Matthew was a tax collector. We are so familiar with that description that we may fail to appreciate what it meant in his society. Tax collectors occupied an uncomfortable and often despised position. They dealt with money every day and worked within a system associated with Roman power. Many people regarded them with suspicion.
In some respects, Matthew's life was built around precisely the things Jesus discusses in tonight's Gospel - money, calculation and earthly security.
Then Jesus came to him.
The Gospel tells the story with remarkable simplicity. Jesus sees Matthew sitting at the tax booth and says, "Follow me." And Matthew gets up and follows him.
There is no lengthy explanation and no careful weighing of advantages and disadvantages. Something about Jesus persuaded Matthew that he had found a treasure greater than the one he already possessed.
That may be the heart of Christian discipleship. We sometimes speak as though faith begins with giving things up, obeying difficult rules or trying harder to become better, but Christian faith begins with discovering someone greater.
Matthew did not simply leave something behind; he responded to someone who had come looking for him. He glimpsed a different life and recognised in Jesus someone worth following.
The saints are not people who despised the world or rejected everything enjoyable. They are people who discovered that knowing him was worth more than the treasures they had tried to secure for themselves.
That vision runs through tonight's readings.
In Isaiah we hear one of the most beautiful promises in the Old Testament: "Your eyes will see the king in his beauty."
The prophet speaks to people living amid uncertainty and threat, yet directs their gaze beyond their immediate fears. Their future will not finally be defined by danger, conflict or insecurity. The future belongs to God. At the end of the journey stands not simply a problem to be solved but a king to be seen.
Isaiah speaks of the king in his beauty, and the New Testament presents Jesus as the image of the invisible God.
Human beings are drawn by beauty. We notice a beautiful piece of music, a landscape or an act of kindness. Such moments remind us that life is about more than usefulness, efficiency and survival. They awaken in us a longing for something beyond ourselves.
At its deepest level, Christian faith is not simply about moral improvement or agreeing with a collection of ideas. It is about being drawn towards the beauty of God revealed in Jesus.
Matthew saw something beautiful in Jesus, though not necessarily in the conventional sense. Jesus had no great wealth, political power or obvious route to worldly success. Yet in him there was a fullness of truth and grace which made Matthew rise from his tax booth and begin a new life.
Psalm 34 speaks of the same invitation in another way: "Taste and see that the Lord is good." Not merely analyse and see, debate and see, or speculate and see, but taste and see. The psalm points us towards experience.
Faith is more than a collection of ideas. It is a lived relationship. God is not known only through argument or information; he is known through encounter. There is a difference between knowing facts about someone and knowing that person for ourselves.
We may know all sorts of things about God and still keep him at a safe distance. The psalm invites us closer.
The saints bear witness to this again and again. Their confidence in God is rarely based upon having every question answered. More often, it comes from discovering God's faithfulness in the middle of uncertainty.
The psalm does not claim that faithful people never suffer. In fact, it says the opposite: "Many are the troubles of the righteous."
It offers no shallow optimism or easy promise that faith will protect us from every difficulty. Christians experience illness, bereavement, disappointment, fear and anxiety, just as everyone else does. Following Jesus does not remove us from the ordinary pains of human life.
The difference is not the absence of trouble. The difference is the presence of God.
That brings us back to the words of Jesus: "Do not worry."
If we hear them as a command to manufacture peace for ourselves, they will feel like one more burden. We may even start worrying about the fact that we are worried. But Jesus is not asking us to pretend that everything is fine or to feel guilty when we are anxious.
He is inviting us to place our lives within the larger reality of God's kingdom. He calls us to turn our attention, again and again, from the fears that consume us towards the Father who knows and loves us.
That is why Jesus says, "Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness."
To seek God's kingdom is to allow God to become the centre of our lives. It is to trust his goodness, receive his forgiveness, learn the way of Jesus and take part in his work of love, justice and mercy. It is to believe that our lives are safest not when we have controlled every possible outcome, but when they are entrusted to him.
Christians need not be consumed by anxiety, not because everything will always happen as we hope, but because our lives are held within a love stronger than all the uncertainties surrounding us.
Tomorrow, we celebrate Matthew the apostle and evangelist. The remarkable thing about Matthew is not simply that he followed Jesus. It is that he discovered, as countless disciples have discovered since, that Jesus was already seeking him.
Before Matthew rose from the tax booth, Jesus had already seen him. Before Matthew made any sacrifice, Jesus had already called him. Before Matthew chose to follow him, Jesus had come looking for Matthew.
The same is true for us. The Gospel begins not with our search for God but with God's search for us. Matthew's story reminds us that Jesus meets people where they are. He does not wait until their lives are perfectly ordered or all their questions have been resolved. He calls them to take the next step with him.
God who feeds the birds and clothes the lilies is not indifferent to us. God whose beauty Isaiah glimpsed is not distant from his creation. God whom the psalmist invites us to taste and see has come among us in Jesus.
In him, God has drawn near to share our life, carry our sin and open the way home. Jesus gave himself upon the cross and rose again so that forgiveness, hope and new life might be offered freely to us. This is the treasure at the heart of Christian faith.
When that treasure is Jesus, anxiety can begin to lose some of its power. Not all at once, perhaps, and not always completely. Faith is not a quick cure for every anxious thought. But gradually we learn that our future depends less upon our ability to hold everything together and more upon the faithfulness of God who already holds us.
Matthew left his tax booth because he had been found by Jesus. Tonight, Jesus still comes to anxious, uncertain and ordinary people and says, "Follow me."
His call is not an invitation into a life without difficulty. It is an invitation into a life in which no difficulty has to be faced alone.
We have heard that our eyes will see the king in his beauty. We are invited to taste and see that the Lord is good. We are encouraged to seek first his kingdom and to trust that our heavenly Father knows what we need.
That is not naive optimism. It is Christian hope, founded upon the character of God and revealed in Jesus.
We may not know what tomorrow will bring, but we can know the one who will meet us there. And that is good news. Amen.
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