“I WILL NOT FORGET YOU ”
Isaiah 49:8-16a    Matthew 6:24-34
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

A small boy was looking out the window at a group of older children playing.   He obviously wanted to go out, but seemed afraid ... then saw them turning to come inside.  His mother, who had been watching, said, “Here they come, let’s hide behind this curtain and they won’t know where to find us.”  To which the child asked, “What if they don’t look for us? ... What if they don't care? ”

The fear of being forgotten lies somewhere between mildly troubling and totally terrifying.  “What if they don’t look for us?”  “What if they don’t care?” are deeply existential questions of our hearts.  

That’s the fear addressed in the vivid imagery and bold words of the prophet Isaiah and the gospel writer of Matthew as we heard a few moments ago.

The prophet Isaiah is addressing people who have had bad things happen. People still in exile ... still without home or homeland ... “Zion (says), “the Lord has forsaken me ... the Lord has forgotten me.”

This isn’t just personal loneliness, but rather it is collective abandonment ... it is the desolation of a people who are convinced by brutal experience that God no longer cares.  In this context, Isaiah proclaims that “God has comforted his people ... and will have compassion on the afflicted ones.”  The people cry, “the Lord has forsaken...the Lord has forgotten...”  God’s says “I will not forget you.”   

Matthew’s Gospel addresses a very different time and situation.  The first followers of Jesus had left the familiarity and relative comfort of their vocations, their lives, in order to follow the way of Jesus. Years later, followers included those who remained with their families, and who maintained homes and farms.  Jesus’ words were for both circumstances ... liberating sacrifice as well as faithful and fearful attachment to possessions and security.  Jesus says again and again that life is more than circumstance ... Here he says, “Do not be anxious ... about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on ... look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns but God feeds them ... Do not worry, saying ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink,’ ... But strive first for the kin-dom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  

It’s tempting ... or frightening ... to think that somehow Jesus is saying either that there is nothing to worry about .... (this clearly is not reality).... or...... Jesus is saying that it doesn’t matter whether we plan, or work, or tend, or care ... just leave it all to God. We’ve grown up with enough of the “God helps those who help themselves” messages that we aren’t really ready to let go and let God.  We believe in insurance policies and in home equity and in saving for a rainy day and we are appropriately anxious that even these are not trustworthy in all circumstances.   

Do not worry about your life.... do not worry about tomorrow... Do not worry.... The word translated “worry” or “be anxious” means “split attention,” divided concern.  Do not choose to divide your attention; do not use your energy in unfocused fear.  Follow your fear to its source, the longing for abundant life, for right relationship, for the mending of God’s creation.  Focus on these, strive for these and the rest will be given to you as you become instruments of God’s compassion for others.

There are plenty of reminders in scripture and in life that we are, in fact, accountable for our actions.  But as responsible as we may try to be, we will fail as well as succeed.  We will fall short in ways too numerous to count.  And that’s why the promise is so crucial.  “I will not forget you.”  “We will not be forgotten.  We will not be abandoned ... we will not face the future alone.”   

Facing the brutal realities of the world in which we live, we proclaim the radical, scandalous, outrageous truth that there is a loving power that holds and sustains us...a God in whom we can place our trust. This trust frees us to engage in healing, reconciling, justice ministries.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ assurance of God’s care follows his pointed statement that “No one can serve two masters ... you cannot serve God and wealth.”

The question is not what we have, but what we serve ... what dominates our thinking, our caring, our living.  Robert Luccock, in talking about this question of whom we serve, uses the image of the watershed (or water divide) of the Continental Divide.  He writes, “Maybe we can think about (the question of serving two masters) as like crossing the American Continental Divide.  From that ridge waters flow down in opposite directions, ultimately reaching the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Pacific to the west.  Sometimes the waters must course a thousand miles by serpentine routes before coming at last to the seas.  But the direction is set by the watershed.  Always the water moves toward its meeting with the deeps; whether it moves east or west is determined by the Divide.

 Will it not be so with the direction of one’s life?  A great divide separates the life whose outflow is essentially toward God and one whose end is property and things.  Water cannot flow east and west, uphill and downgrade at the same time.  So we do have to choose whom we will serve. And whom we will serve settles where we come out at the end.”  (The Gospel According to Matthew, Robert Luccock)  The source of living waters and ocean depths is one source. One God.

We all know moments of decision ... a choice that may seem small at the time sets a course and a direction for life that makes all the difference.  How many movies have you seen that have been based on that premise ... turning back the clock to see the “other” life that “would have been” if choices had been different? When we choose the direction in which we move we change the place we will end up.

  Every moment holds the possibility of a turning point, a watershed, a new choice ... a chance to realign ... to rediscover right relationship.

The child asks ... “What if they don’t care?”  The people cry, “God has forgotten!”  Followers ask how to live... Seekers ask “Is there a God?” Brutal realities call for questions and for watershed moments.

Call “God” by whatever name speaks to you ... higher power, loving source, mother/father, creator, Spirit. The Bible contains many names and the unnameable.  Faith is born through relationship.  Call and response Experience tells us that we live in the realm of relationships... to a power that resides within us, and between us, and beyond us ... to each other ... and to the whole of God’s beloved creation. We see most clearly the nature of those connections in and through the person of Jesus, who lived, loved, taught, healed, suffered, died, and rose ... who crossed divisions and defied conventions, who insisted on loving, caring relationship as the essence of the divine ... who was sustained by and pointed toward the God who said... “I will not forget you ... I will not forget you ... I will not forget you.” Amen.