So maybe the lesson here is to worry about things worth worrying about: things so precious you couldn’t begin to put a monetary value on them. Your relationships, for instance, those you deeply and dearly love, those you need and who need you.

Worry about the world, the future: be concerned about the environment and sustainable agriculture, be concerned about the life of the city, the quality of life for the poor, marginal. Be concerned about peace in the world.

And then from the conclusion of the sermon…

“Look at the birds; consider the lilies,” Jesus said. He wants his disciples, wants you and me, to know that when the chips are down, when we face real crisis—when a dear one is critically ill, when we are ill, when a dear one dies, when we lose a job, a relationship, a child—we are not abandoned, alone, without resource or help. Jesus wants disciples to live with confidence that God will provide the resources they need to live: courage and hope and strength and security and love,—above all else, love.

I don’t want or need your money, the son says to his father; I want your love.

It’s about your center, your heart, your soul, where there is a place deep inside you for God, and if God is not there, something else is: something you are trying to trust and depend on—success, influence, wealth, status.

The invitation is to ponder that, consider it, and to invite into that place, that place deep inside where you are most who you are and always will be, to invite into that place the one who loves you and will never let you go and who is your ultimate safety, your security, your salvation: Jesus Christ. All praise to him.

John M. Buchanan

March 27, 2011

Full Sermon

https://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2011/032711.html