Don't Worry....Be Hippy (?)!!

(Uriel Presbyterian Church )

Sermon

“Don’t Worry...Be Hippy (?)”

27 February, 2011

Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, A

Hebrew Text: 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 

(NRSV) 1 Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God's mysteries. 2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. 4 I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.

Gospel Text: Matthew 6:24-34  

(NRSV) "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. 25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you--you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today."

Just as Spring is following close on the heels of  Winter, so the annual events in the US have a definite progression. The Superbowl winners have hardly gotten back from Disney world and the nation is already rolling out for the next Clash of the Titans, though this one won’t be on a green field; it’ll be on a red carpet...that way the blood won’t show. The weapons of choice won’t be a football and a pair of enormous pitchforks at either end of the field, it’ll be stiletto heels and an infinite cunning and a savoir-faire that would make sharks squirm with envy. 

Tonight is Oscar night and long before the guest take their seats for the 4 hour long ceremony, a kind of frenzy is taking place outside the theatre that somehow communicates even 2000 miles to our little part of the world.  Not so much to about critiquing film, but to find out WHAT will these people be wearing tonight? 

As you know, I’m not the most elegant dresser, in fact clothes are perhaps the smallest line item in my entire yearly budget, but I do confess to tuning in to the red carpet portion of the Oscars....just to judge for myself what these people are going to be wearing. For every swan that glides across the red carpet in white silk and French rhinestones, there are going to be those ducklings who lost touch with their minds when they handed over their wallets to the people who dressed them. Is it going to be some horrible frumpy blue satin potato sack that makes beautiful Helena Bonham Carter look like she has her gown on upside down and back to front...and falling off her shoulders to boot? Or  snort my coke out my nose laughing at Robert Downy Jr’s nice formal tuxedo with a dorky turquoise bowtie and matching turquoise tinted sunglasses and his feet thrust into black  tennis-shoes with white platform soles. 

It’s people like me that drive these hollywood actors crazy. I’m the reason that they spend a $2000 (or more) a day on a stylist to help them choose a look/hair/makeup that will cost between $8000 and $30,000 on clothes for one night of their life.  Can you imagine the anxiety and stress in Los Angeles the week before this event? There are the stylists who are going bezerk with clothes that haven't arrived yet from Italy, and the attendees who fear being shot down in flames not only on live tv instantly broadcast around the world but even worse, being the butt of jokes on millions of twitter feeds and facebook pages; 

These young handsome people fear looking slovenly almost more than they  fear of not winning that little golden statue. And let’s not forget the thousands of behind the scenes people who are involved in every aspect of this circus who have their entire careers wrapped up in making this night of glamour happen.

It’s the opinions of people like me who drive these hollywood people nuts, but it’s people like them that drive Jesus crazy. They definitely didn’t have academy awards in Israel in Jesus day, but they did have people who’s minds were filled with nothing but looking chic and fashionable. In fact the Greeks and Romans invented fashion consciousness. Before the Roman Empire, clothes changed very little from long century to long century. Did you have greek furniture in your home or was it all Syrian crap that your aunt had given you when you got married? Did your slaves know how to braid your wife's hair in the latest swags popular on the Emperor’s island retreat on Capri? Suddenly, it mattered what colour you were wearing this season. Suddenly the length of your palla determined whether you were in the right social and business crowd or whether you were an outsider. And Jesus hated all that nonsense. HAAAA-TED IT.

In this section of the sermon on the Mount he holds up the mirror to the shallow concerns of his listeners who were desperately worried about their appearance and their status, their wealth and their future prospects, but only vaguely aware of who they were inside.  He begins this part warning us that we can’t serve two masters, God and mammon. Mammon is an Aramaic word that means possessions. It’s neither a scorning term or a elevating term though. But it is strange for Jesus to put it on the same level with God. It’s surprising that Jesus places the things we have on par with God in a discussion of the  object of human service. For those first listeners sitting there listening to the master, it must of been an strange twist to think that they served their possessions instead of their possessions being of service to them; that they were the servants, not the masters; that they pampered and cosseted and gratified their stuff, instead of the other way around.  

It is an affront to our understanding of what life means, both then and now.  It’s revolutionary on Jesus’ part to declare that human life is not an end in itself; that our journey from the cradle to the grave is not the game itself, but the vehicle for a greater action. Jesus makes us notice that we find the meaning of our lives outside ourselves; that human life inescapably serves something that gives it meaning. Moses, Ghandi, Marie Curie. Al Capone, Atilla the Hun, Ma Barker...all of their lives had a meaning beyond just living. Moreover, the choice we make with the life  we lead is not whether we SHALL serve something else with our existence, but WHAT or whom we shall serve.  This is the underlying message in what Jesus goes on to say about worrying about our lives.

IT has always been very puzzling to me the whole speech about the lilies of the field, neither spinning nor toiling, and the grass of the field which is green today and shoved in an oven tomorrow, and the birds of the air bit. This whole thing just reminds me of 1960s hippie philosophy. Don’t worry, be happy. But clothing won’t make it self: the cotton won’t pick itself or spin itself or weave, dye, sew itself.  So what gives? In trying to makes heads or tails of hippie philosophy this week, I was really surprised to find that the foremost hippie thinkers of the 1960s had been the best little sunday school students of the 1950s; They had really read the bible! Sitting in church classrooms with wide eyes and receptive hearts  they somehow heard in stereo technicolour the sermon on the mount that that was presented to them by  sunday school teachers for whom Jesus words were monochromatic utterances.  What these bright kids heard was :  God doesn't operate from scarcity; God operates out of abundance, where there is enough for all, all must share. 

FIfteen years later with this particular passage of scripture in mind, they sought to free themselves from a path committed to mammon, choose their own way, and most interestingly , find new meaning in life.  And while we’re on the subject of clothes, one expression of their conversion was their clothes. Through their appearance, hippies declared their willingness to question authority,  to deviate from the path of  mammon and  express their commitment to radical change, one that was not based on possessions and status.

Things went pretty haywire with drugs and ethical decisions, but the fact remains that these earnest young people were the largest group in history to dare to experiment and experience the radical ideas that Jesus represented. 

But as these hippies discovered as they lived out their commitment well into their 40s and 50s, the challenge to trust in God’s providence doesn’t exclude working and having property.  Jesus isn't prohibiting or even discouraging sowing and reaping, working and storing in barns. He is calling us not to base our lives on these things or serve them. Through our activities we have got to be developping integrity and honesty, compassion and charity and putting these things first, making these the qualities of the Kingdom of God. 

I love the writings of Alyce McKenzie (1) , in thinking about this part of the Sermon on the Mount she reflects:  “In this short passage, I am being pushed to give up one of my most cherished occupations, worry, in favor of trusting God for the basics of daily life. I am being pushed to consider that my other loyalties are in conflict with my loyalty to God (6:24). Jesus' teachings are digging tools that undercut the foundation of my house. My priority, my life's project has been to build a comfortable present and a secure future for me and my family. Jesus wants to undermine it and eventually, to replace it with radical, risky trust in God and the mission of seeking God first, confident that other matters will fall in place. If I give up a preoccupation with anxiety and security, it would seem like I would have time and energy for seeing to the needs of others around me. These teachings take something away to free me for something more. In that sense they are just the beginning.”  Amen

-------------------------------

(1)     a wonderful homiletics professor and expert on the book of Proverbs who blogs at www.patheos.com