Matthew 6:25-34
“A Day at A Time”
Have you said or heard: “I can’t wait until I’m a teenager.” “I can’t wait until I can drive a car.” “I can’t wait until I graduate from high school.” “I can’t wait until I move out of the house.” “I can’t wait until we get married.” ???
When we’re young, we can’t wait. It is difficult to live in the moment. It is difficult to take one day at a time. I think it is difficult when we were young, because we believe that our lives are in the future. As we grow older, however, we can wait. Where we once looked forward to the future in anticipation, as we age we might look forward to the future with anxiety and, at times, dread.
No matter what our age might be, it is difficult to think about the days to come. As we move into the future, we wonder what it may hold. Instead of being happy in today, it is tempting to look to our future and be filled with worry and anxiety. In fact, I believe that anxiety means that we make tomorrow’s fears into today’s realities.
In the face of our anxiety, Jesus says, “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” (Matthew 7:25). These are important words. We are tempted to say, “Jesus, you really don’t know what it is like to be us, to live in our world. You don’t know what it is like to live with worries of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, sons and daughters that are called to fight in foreign lands. You do not know what it is like to live with the pressures, the hopes, the expectations, the difficulties that we experience on a day-to-day basis!”
And perhaps as we say all this, our mood this Thanksgiving reflects the events that we have shared during this past year, the events that have touched us to the core of our being and cause us to question. Students question what they are doing in school; employees question the point of their jobs. Elders question if their lives have mattered. Those struggling with ill heath want to know why.
It is a challenging world, and it isn’t always easy to listen to a word from the Lord and simply obey. After all, our lives are much more complicated than that. And when it comes to worrying, could we stop even if we tried? Worrying seems like breathing. It is a part of our lives. I’m convinced that if we did not worry, we would worry about not worrying.
Many years ago there was a song that proclaimed: “Don’t worry, be happy!” We know we can’t live in such a paradise, and we continue to be anxious. We continue to makes tomorrow’s fears into today’s realities.
On this Thanksgiving Day celebration day, we gather to worship, and we confess. We confess that we have not been the people that God has created us to be, nor have we been the people we have claimed to be. We acknowledge that, more often than not, our own worry and anxiety have gotten in the way of our ability to give thanks, as well as our ability to follow Jesus – totally and completely and unreservedly.
So we come into God’s presence. We come to gain the strength to look at our lives and to attempt to give thanks; to be pulled away from the doldrums, and into the clear sunshine of God’s love – a love that was given to us through the suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We come because we recognize that we need God’s help. We need energy, and we need the dynamic power that only God can bring to our lives.
And as we come, God meets us. God meets us and greets us, and gives to us the gift of the Holy Spirit. God meets us and greets us, and helps us hear once again the words of Paul in the Bible: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it means to have little, and I know what it means to have plenty. In any and all circumstances, I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, or having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11b-13).
In the midst of all that we experience, ultimately we come to Christ, the one who strengthens us. We receive him into our lives. We receive his forgiveness. We experience his community – the community of believers, Christ’s body.
This Sabbath celebration day and when we eat around our family tables on Thanksgiving Day or the day before or the day after, we need to be still and know that God is God. We are called to exalt the Lord in the heavens and the earth. We come to God today, and as we do our lives are refocused to live for God alone. God will help us live one day at a time. Many have said: “Tomorrow never comes; it is always today.” Surrounded by grace, God leads us to live lives of thanksgiving and praise, not only on this Sabbath day, but also through each day of our lives, one day at a time.
PRAYER: Generous creator, we gather together to sing your praises.
We gather in thanks, with hearts that overflow from the rich bounty that is ours through the gift of life.
We gather and bring our thanks this Sabbath day because of the great gift of righteousness that is ours in Jesus.
Hear our songs and prayers this day, for we join with the voices of the birds and the beasts and the very earth itself in praising your name, Creator of all.
May we ever rejoice as members of your kingdom, brought to these riches by the gift of Christ and guided by the gift of the Spirit!
Hear our praises, Generous Creator, for we ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
