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S. Pentecost 9.25 Gen 15:1-6, Luke 12:22-34

‘Abraham believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness… And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink nor be worried… Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.’

There was a cartoon from Existential Comics that my friend Barry sent me a while back. It’s an interwebs cartoon series by some philosophy geek who remains anonymous (I wonder, actually, if Barry himself is the author? This just occurred to me. He’s a wonderful cartoonist and the recurring characters Socrates, Kierkegaard, Kant, Wittgenstein, Sartre, and Camus are all the ones we read…?)

Anyway the comic is aimed at former philosophy majors. So, it’s not very popular. It has very few readers. In this particular strip, Moritz Schlick and Adolf von Carnap, two of the leading lights of the Austrian school of Logical Positivism in the 1920’s that Wittgenstein started out in and totally rejected later, are trying to figure out what makes a person cool…

Carnap tells Schlick he’s figured it out! Basically, everyone is pretty cool until about age 20, when they start to become uncool. Then, around age 60, some (not all 😉 begin to be cool again. Because: up till age 20 no one gives sh… er, fig about anything. Then, getting degrees and jobs looms and you worry about that shtuff and you be come uncool until about age 60 when you realize your life is basically over and you stop giving a sh… uh, fig again and become cool.

At this moment, Albert Camus (a notorious womanizer in real life 😉 comes strolling in with a striking young blond on his arm and he says, “You’re both wrong. Being cool is nothing more and nothing less than hot girls want to f… uh, date you.”

Personally, I think that Schlick and Carnap are more correct about this than Camus. Camus is fun but often wrong. Schlick and Carnap are not fun, but they are definitely on to something here…

Jesus is not concerned about being cool. If you are concerned, for a moment, whether you are cool or not, you’re definitely not cool. Jesus is cool! And Schlick and Carnap have learned something from Jesus, here. Not caring about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will wear, is key!—at least to having a sense of humor… 😉

Jesus is funny, but he’s so laconic and low-key with his quips, most miss the humor. He assures the anxious disciples that they need not worry about life or food or clothing because “the ravens don’t worry and yet God feeds them, and of how much more value are you than the birds?”

This is funny because I’m confident the disciples are like “that’s a good question! Wait! Aren’t our lives invaluable? You sound like there’s a NUMBER here!, like 100 birds, a thousand, or a million; and that makes us anxious again, being compared to birds! Because, even if it’s a million birds, that still doesn’t seem like anything to keep God up at night… 😉

Which probably makes them really anxious! Which is… funny! In telling them not to worry, Jesus gives them another thing to worry about!

He continues in this stand-up comic vein. “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you: even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!”

That’s funny, too! Flowers and grass are beautiful but end up scorched and burned in a few days! Which brings us back to this bit earlier about “which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his span of life?” Jesus does not seem to think long life is a great gift! He seems much more on the “only the good die young” school of thought on this!

He seems to value quality over quantity of life. Better to burn, baby burn, like one of Kerouac’s fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding across the dark sky than to live a long and cautious and safe life. And this is not making the disciples feel any less anxious, I would wager! I mean, when I was reading this, were you… reassured? Or did anxious thoughts about just how valuable you are compared to sparrows, lilies, and grass occur to you?

So, don’t worry about what you will eat or drink or wear. Instead, seek God’s kingdom and these things will be added (because you won’t need them for long, if you’re lucky! 🙂

Jesus’ last bit is: the reason we don’t worry is because “it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom, so sell your stuff and give to the needy, provide yourselves moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief breaks in, nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be, also…”

Where Schlick and Carnap go wrong is to think caring about nothing makes you cool. As Dylan said, we all gotta serve Somebody!

Caring about ONE THING!—Jesus, and what he thinks of you, is the One Thing Needful that Mary found sitting at his feet, hearing his word which washes away every other care! It all gets lost in the quite disinterested self-abandonment of the adoration of Jesus.

Jesus will be the death of me! Like Aslan, he’s GOOD, not safe—dangerous, even! But is my life so great, so worth saving? What is all that we are compared to all that the LORD, Jesus is? If dying is the only way to get into his Kingdom, his living, why not?

How much good has all the worrying, scurrying, and doctor-visiting done for you, anyway?

There is a better Way, the Way of Faith—Abraham’s way, which is simply BELIEVING GOD, trusting only in him. As Luther said “Abraham closed his eyes and withdrew into the darkness of faith. There he found eternal light.”

That Light blazes from the darkness of Jesus’ cross and is all on offer for you, here, now, by his Word and Sacrament, which will stop you counting the stars and fix your eyes on Jesus (and his love 😉 which is pretty darn cool… The death of me is the door to the life of Jesus—always up for anything, as Peace, surpassing understanding, guards your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.