The Good News Proclaimed
Preached by the Reverend Durrell Watkins at
the Sunshine Cathedral on
Sunday, May 25, 2008.
In the year 63 BC, Rome invaded Palestine. 129 years later, Palestine
fought back. At least a group of zealous militants fought back. In 66 AD,
these militants rose up against Roman rule. And four years later, in 70 AD,
Rome crushed that movement and destroyed the city of Jerusalem and with it the
holy Temple. All of the gospels and about ¾ of the entire New Testament is
written AFTER this event. The holy Temple and the holy City are gone and so it
is significant that the bible writers talk so much about the Temple and
tearing it down and raising it up and there being a new Jerusalem. The imagery
is directly tied to their experience of overwhelmingly loss.
Matthew’s gospel is written about 85 AD, some 15 years AFTER the
destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple. And like much of the New Testament,
it is responding to the realities of its own day.
There’s one more little factoid that I want to share with you before
comment specifically on today’s gospel reading. There is a Greek word that
shows up a lot in the New Testament… the word is baselia. It is usually
translated as kingdom, but it can also mean realm, or commonwealth, empire…
all variations of the same thing really. So, after the Roman Empire has
destroyed Jerusalem and its Temple, the writer of Matthew’s gospel places
these words in the mouth of Jesus… Seek first the baselia, the kingdom or
empire of God… the reign of God is used over against the reign of Caesar. With
that in mind, hear Matthew 6.33: “Seek first the baselia of God… and God will
give you everything you need.”
It’s in the context of loss, that Matthew says, “Enough with the worrying.
Yes, human wealth built a temple, but human forces destroyed it. Things come
and go. But the flowers and the birds show us that what really matters in life
can’t be taken from us.”
It’s a pretty important lesson for us to learn, or relearn as the case may
be. Sometimes we worry about what could go wrong, and while we are worrying,
we become more and more immobilized. Fear freezes us and we are tormented by
what could be. But once we face the situation, we often find that we are able
to deal with it. We are stronger, wiser, more resilient than we thought. We
spring into action, and we sometimes find that worrying about a thing was
worse than actually facing it.
It’s pretty seditious for the person we call Matthew then to tell his
community, “Why be frozen with fear? Rome has already killed some of our
heroes. Rome has already occupied our land. Rome has already destroyed our
holy city and temple. Why worry about what the empire might do… they’ve done
it! They will probably continue doing it! We don’t need to be afraid of it
getting bad; it’s already bad. So focus on the counter-empire of God, the
realm of hope and justice, and by working toward establishing that kind of
reality, what we really need — hope, dignity, fulfillment… will be provided.
Let’s be the good we deserve and desire. Seek first the baselia of God and God
will give you everything you need.
Difficult things happen in life. Natural disasters in Myanmar, AIDS, lethal
homophobia in Jamaica, marriage inequality in Florida, wars that seem to be
endless, an economy that is already crushing people of limited means…
difficulties happen. Suffering happens. It would be callous to use this
scripture to deny the very real pain that far too many people suffer. But much
of the pain in our world is caused by empire… by politics and human prejudice,
avarice and selfishness. But then there is this prophetic word… when the way
of the world isn’t working out, seek first the way of God… the way of justice
and generosity and goodwill… THEN when enough of us are doing that, everything
we need to make things better will be available to us.
About 8 chapters later, Matthew continues this theme. In Matthew 14, Jesus
is facing a hungry crowd, and so with limited resources he starts to feed
them. Five loaves and two fish… not enough to feed a crowd, not even enough to
adequately feed his small group. But in the kingdom of God, people would
share. People would give what they had, even if it was ridiculously small. And
so Jesus gives his limited resources, and miraculously, everyone is fed.
If that event factually happened, I believe it was the miracle that happens
every time we selflessly give. It is unlikely that in an entire crowd, no one
would have had some food on them. When the people saw Jesus give his few rolls
and couple of fish, others probably did the same. One person had some dried
meat, another a couple of pieces of fruit, someone else some wine, someone
else a loaf of bread. When every one gave what they had, no matter how meager
it was, they discovered their pooled resources proved to be abundant.
In a divinely ordered world, everyone would do and give what they could,
and when everyone did that, it would prove to be enough. One person, like
Jesus, can model the way, and when others follow the example, the miracle
takes place.
Seek first the baselia of God, and God will give you
everything you need.
Robert Holden shares the same message today, doesn’t he? If you want love,
share love. If you want joy, be joyful. If you want kindness, be kind to
someone. If you want to be accepted, accept others. We can be what we want.
And what we want is to live in the baselia of God… and to do that, we simply
focus on God’s way of love, compassion, generosity, goodwill. We give what we
need, and our needs will often be met.
Seek first the kingdom of God …and God will provide what we need to be our
own blessings and to be the answers to our own prayers. This is the Good News.
Amen.