St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Thomasville

Thanksgiving Day, 2005

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof"

"Consider the lilies of the field how they grow."

(St. Matthew 5)

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

(W. Wordsworth)

I know I've said it before but I delight in saying once again that one of my many blessings is the fact that your rector has been such a wonderful and indispensable friend and colleague to me - as is the friendship you congregation has shown me and my family over the years.

Now, for some reason the Lectionary omitted the final sentences from the gospel which really do sum up the entire section: "Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow will take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." And yet I also want to call your attention to our Lord's simple but eloquent phrase: "Consider the lilies of the field how they grow." "Consider the lilies."

Sunday afternoon after a longer than usual Sunday morning schedule, I collapsed in my chair, grabbed the remote, and started surfing. Lo and behold - and quite to my surprise - I landed on a channel airing a documentary titled: "The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders"; and yes you heard me correctly. I did indeed say "documentary".

Now please don't get the idea that I spend my Sunday afternoons watching professional football, much less ogling the cheerleaders. As for the cheerleaders, they don't leave much to the imagination these days. And of course regarding football, everyone here I'm sure realizes that the football season came to a triumphal conclusion a few weeks ago in Charlottesville when the University of Virginia resoundingly trounced Florida State.

Nevertheless, when the commercial ended and the screen announced "The Tryout Interview", how could I possibly resist? Imagine my curiosity peaking as the lone male on the interviewing committee asked one young lady: "What is the one thing you want to do before you die?" The response: "Before I die?"

"Yes dear, you do know that you will die?!" Cut to next candidate.

"What is the one thing you'd like to do before you die?"

"I'd like to win the lottery." Cut to the next candidate.

"What would you like to do before you die?"

"I want to become the bestest ever Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader." Cut to next candidate.

"And young lady, what would you like to do before you die?

"I think I'd like to be a better person."

The interviewer about dropped his jaw. You'd have thought that he had the "Hope of the Free World" sitting before him, and that the sun would once again rise and set on Dallas, Texas. And I was pleased to see that that young lady eventually did become a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader.

"The one thing I'd like to do before I die is to become a better person." How interesting it was to watch this young lady in other aspects of her "tryout". Unlike so many of the other wannabees, her face revealed no trace of anxiety or turmoil. The demeanor of so many others seemed to say that if they failed to become a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader, it would be tantamount to watching the Kingdom of God being dismantled stone by stone - and that their ensuing life would be nothing but eternal drudgery: blood, sweat, and tears. This young lady was free of any such anxiety. She obviously understood the meaning of one of today's mantras "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." That is, take things a day at a time. Don't worry about those events which you have no ability or reason to control.

Last but not least, one had the sense that she understood what gratitude was all about, because the man or woman with gratitude in the heart is the man or woman who really can deal with anxiety. This cheerleader has not only considered the lilies. She understands them thoroughly.

I'm embarrassed to say how long it took me to appreciate today's gospel from the Sermon on the Mount about anxiety. In seminary, they always read this passage during exam week, serving it alongside a generally idiotic homily the jist of which was always: "Don't worry about studying. Just let go and let God!" Why didn't the Church pick the Parable of the Ten Lepers for today? Remember that ten were cleansed but only one was made whole because of his gratitude? That would seem a more logical choice for today

And yet, the older I get, the more I'm able to see the symbiosis of anxiety and gratitude. Gratitude shows that one is happy having what he's got. He doesn't need to have what he wants. He's content with the present, and C.S. Lewis reminds us that one of the devil's great achievements is to have us live not in the present butconstantly in the future: that realm of time over which we have little or no control. Gratitude drives away anxiety. Gratitude is the virtue which not only heals but makes us whole. Gratitude is the virtue which allows us to say that the one thing we'd like to do before we die is to become a better person.

I'm sure I'm not the only one here this morning who's asked himself that seminal question: "What is that one thing you'd like to do before you die? I used to think it would be great to visit Richard Wagner's home in Southern Germany to attend the opera festival in the theater he built. But then if I went, I know I'd want to go back the following year to hear the operas that weren't done the year I was there - or I'd want to go back when they had a better singer doing this or that part.

I used to think I'd love to play the piano half as well as Dr. Lillestrand, but if I could, I'd then want to be able to play as well as he. I used to think that if I were to die within the next ten years, the one thing I'd like to do is to see my children graduate from college and see them settled in their respective vocations. But then I'd want to see them happily married. But then I'd like to see them with children and have the opportunity to be a grandparent. But then I'd like to see them grow up and do all those things. When in the world would I ever be satisfied?

I used to think how great it would be if my father hadn't died two weeks before his and Mom's fiftieth anniversary. But if he had died two weeks after their anniversary, I'd then think how great it would be if he had lived to see Will as a TCCHS Drum Major or Caroline doing concerts with the Maestro here. I'd like Kathy and the children to outlive me. I'd like for Fr. Bennett and me to be at St. Thomas and All Saints so long that when we retire he'd have to become the interim at All Saints and I'd have to become the interim at St. Thomas so we wouldn't have to leave Thomasville - but when does any of this ever end?

Well the plain fact is that is doesn't. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Such wishing will never end until we simply make up our minds to be not only content but grateful for what God has given you and me. Because the only thing that can drive away anxiety and make our lives as blessed as they can possibly be, is to be able to "consider the lilies how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin." They don't fall prey to the devil's temptation to live constantly in the future.

A thorough consideration of the lilies will help us realize that God really has and really will provide all we need. A thorough consideration of the lilies will cause our petitions to God to be directed toward actually making us better human beings, by praying for things like a healthy mind, obedient passions, determined wills, patience, faith, and last but not least, to be able to look at death as a gift. Samuel Johnson once wrote about the above: "With these, celestial wisdom calms the mind / And makes the happiness she does not find."

A thorough consideration of the lilies really can dispel the fear our mortality. Prince Charles and Camilla have been lately in the news, but ever since their marriage I've been pondering Wordworth's poem: "Intimations of Immortality". A portion of it was read at their wedding. I hadn't read it since high school, when it made absolutely no sense at all. Now it speaks volumes.

In a very real sense, it's about becoming a better human being by contemplating the immortality of the soul, and basically, Wordsworth senses his immortality by considering the lilies. He senses his immortality through his gratitude for the beauty of Creation, as well as through his gratitude for the good as well as the bad in his life. The poem ends on a note of serene, quiet confidence, hope, and strength.

Wordsworth begins however in a state of depression, sulking about how life is not now as it had been in the past..."The things which I have seen I now can see no more...Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?" The remainder of the poem provides the answer to that question.

He ponders why man continues to torture himself by attempting to convince himself that greater riches and acquisitions will make him happier - that is, by living in the future: "Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke the years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight."

He reminds himself and us that "our immortality broods over us like a master o'er a slave". But we miss seeing it because we're so focused on the future with little or no sense that we need to live a day at a time in order to be whole. Again: "Sufficient unto the day...

The essential thrust of the poem is how one can be not only a better human being but a more complete human being. And Wordsworth drives home the point that gratitude is the key which unlocks the door to our sense of immortality, setting us free in order to become better at being ourselves. "The thought of our past years in me doth breed perpetual benediction." What a wonderful balm! "The thought of our past years doth breed perpetual benediction... those first affections, those shadowy recollections which be they what they may, are yet the fountain-light of all our day...ugh nothing can bring back the hour of splendour in the grass, or the glory of the flower; We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind...

Today Jesus, like Wordsworth, asks us very simply to "Consider the lilies how they grow; they toil not neither do they spin, and yet I say that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Anxiety doesn' make the lilies grow. The praise as well as our gratitude can go only to God.

But isn't fascinating that Wordsworth ends his great work with the very same thought. Could he perhaps have had in mind our Lord' words about the lilies?

"I love the brooks which down their channels fret, even more than when I tripped lightly as they. The innocent brightness of a new-born Day is lovely yet. The clouds that gather round the setting sun do take a sober colouring from an eye that hath kept watch o'er man's mortality. Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live; thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears. To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

Such truth, beauty, goodness, and gratitude deserves repeating: "To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." Thus the message for us today: "Consider the lilies."