Homily March 2, 2014

Stress, the great bane of our time.  

If we are kids in grade school, we stress about where we’re going to sit in class, who we’ll be friends with, and maybe, just maybe, about our grades. If we are teens, in High School, we are still stressing about if we are wearing the “right” clothes, who we are hanging out with, what team we try out for, who thinks we are hot, and maybe, just maybe, our grades.  If we are in our twenties, we’re stressing about which school we’ll get accepted into, what job we’ll get, or who we’ll marry… You get the picture.

I’m well past 50, and I’m still stressing, about my job, about bills, about my children, about my health.  Is the stress helping me or hurting me? Let’s take a look at today’s readings and see what we can learn from the Lord this week.

In the first reading, from the Prophet Isaiah, Zion (in other words, Israel) is lamenting that the Lord has forsaken them.  They’ve been conquered, dispossessed.  The Lord, through the Prophet, tells them “Can a mother forget her infant?... Even if she would, I will never forget you.”

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he is reflecting on the need to be good stewards, to be trustworthy.  Then, in the same breath, he says that he is not concerned about being judged by anyone else, and not even by himself.  Paul tells us that if we are doing what the Lord asks of us, doing the Lord’s work, then we’ll be judged positively at the appointed time, and receive our praise from God.

Finally, we come to today’s Gospel, a very familiar passage from Matthew. We’ve all heard it many times before, sometimes referred to as “the Lilies of the Field”.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,

what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear.”

So, really, what is the Lord telling us here, that we should all become Dead Heads, begging for food and rides to the next concert two hundred miles away?  That we should all quit our jobs and live the rest of our lives in communal bliss on an ashram in Oregon? That we should all become slackers? NO.

When the Lord tells us that we should not give into stress, I would suggest that the real message is about Priorities.  First, and foremost, our main priority should always be the Lord, our relationship with the Lord, our doing the Lord’s work. 

“Learn from the way the wild flowers grow.

They do not work or spin.

But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor

Was clothed like one of them.

If God so clothes the grass of the field,

Which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow,

Will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?”

So we are to:

“Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you besides.”

And so, yes, it is ok to think about where we are to sleep, and yes, it is ok to worry about what we are to eat, and yes, it is ok to stress about what we are to wear.  These things, however, must never become our priority, our Mammon, the thing that consumes our every waking thought.

As we approach the Altar of Sacrifice and Thanksgiving, as we approach the coming Lenten season, let’s all resolve to examine our priorities.

Seek first the Kingdom of God!