Read to start Matthew 6:25-34 and Luke 10:38-42.

Before I get started this morning, I’m going to talk about puppets and the cartoon dogs who play with them. And yes, this might seem like a strange and roundabout way to start a sermon, but I promise it’s going somewhere. Who here is familiar with the children’s show Bluey? For those who are not, it’s an Australian cartoon about a family of dogs, blue and red heelers to be specific, which is easily the best children’s show on TV at the moment. I would suggest it might be the best overall show with the widest appeal on TV by some standards. It’s mostly about the antics of a dog named Bluey and her sister Bingo and their parents Chili and Bandit, and also their friends and neighbours. One quasi-character on the show is  annoying sassy puppet unicorn Unicorse, played by Bandit, who serves the purpose of teaching lessons and getting an uncooperative Bluey to go back to bed.

Unicorse has a catchphrase, which anyone who has seen the episodes in question will no doubt remember – aaaaaaand why should I care? In the context of the show, that is intended to display how over the top annoying the puppet can be. But outside that context, the question is entirely legitimate. Why should I care? Why should you care? About anything and everything?

It’s incredibly freeing not to care about things. When you often spend so much of your time preoccupied with caring, wrapped up in worries and concerns, deciding to not care is like casting off a heavy and uncomfortable coat that you’re tired of wearing. We look at people who seem relaxed and casual and say that they don’t have a care in the world, as if that is a good thing. Because it’s easier to not care. Not caring takes far less effort, mentally and physically, not to mention spiritually, than caring. So why should you care?

Now, there are no doubt some things that you do care about. And there are a lot of things that you probably should care about, although what exactly those are is going to vary depending on who you are and who you ask. After all, we all have different experiences and different responsibilities, and so our cares probably vary widely. If we are going to ask why to care, then we also need to know what we should actually care about.

The world will give you quite a list of things to care about. Listen and see if any of this sounds familiar. You should care about your comfort, your pleasure, your entertainment. After all, we’re here for a good time, not a long time. You should care about your body and your health, because if you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything. You should care about your money and your possessions, the things that you own, because he who dies with the most toys wins. You should care about your rights, your privileges, your autonomy, because you know what’s best for yourself. And you shouldn’t be entirely selfish, because you should care about the planet and the environment; it’s the only one we’ve got so let’s take care of it.

That is the message the world will try to sell you, try to convince you that you should care about. As for the why, well, it’s pretty easy to get to the bottom of that once you look at the list. First and foremost are your own interests. The world really wants you to care about yourself. After all, if you don’t take of yourself, why should you expect anyone else to? That is the logic of this world, that you should put yourself first. Because deep down, we’re all selfish, so caring about things that are self-serving is 100% natural. That’s just how it goes. We care for our own, and the world caters to that. Even caring about the planet is on a certain level self-serving, because you live on this planet, and unless you happen to be an astronaut or a tech billionaire, you and all your stuff is probably staying on this planet. Making sure that the place doesn’t go downhill is self-serving, even if it’s couched in the language of doing things for the good of future generations.

Of course, this is the world’s list of priorities, not God’s list. Think of the passage that we heard in the scripture reading from Matthew chapter 6, how Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount how we should not be preoccupied with what we should eat and drink and wear, because God will take care of us. He takes care of the birds and the flowers, surely He will take care of those whom He loves. And we know that He loves us, because He sent His Son to live among us and to die for us, even when we were ever so far from being loveable. I won’t have you turn there, but I imagine that 1 Peter 5:7 is a familiar verse to many of us here. I’ll read it just in case you are not. 1 Peter 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

And yes, I recognize that I’ve pulled that verse entirely out of context, this is in a passage about responsibility, humility, and submission to authority, both divine and human. But if we do allow ourselves to abide under God’s authority and if we trust Him to provide and take care of us, then we will find that the cares of this world, the priorities of this world, become far less urgent. That seems a far better choice than to cling to those cares, to hold them close as if those are what are important to us, and what may define us, what is the key part of identity.

It’s easy to get worked up and to care too much about the wrong things. Earlier I read from Luke chapter 10 about Mary and Martha. These two sisters both wanted to see Jesus of Nazareth, but on entirely different levels. Mary wanted to sit and listen to Christ, to hear what He said, to learn from Him. Martha wanted to serve Him, and how she wanted to do that was to be a good hostess to the Lord, and presumably at least some of the disciples. She was run off her feet no doubt providing food and drink to this crowd of visitors, and she was stressed out by this.

Frankly, I can completely identify with Martha in this situation. At times I tend to want to take on everything and make sure everything is done, and done properly. If you want something done right, do it yourself, apart from laser eye surgery. But when you are trying to do everything, when you care about everything, not only do you overburden and stress yourself unnecessarily — which I certainly have done, as I’m sure my family can attest –- but you can easily miss out of what really matters.

Christ had to chide Martha on exactly this. He pointed out that she was troubled and careful about many things, not meaning that she was cautious, but rather full of many cares. But while she cared about lots of things, she had missed out on the one needful thing, the special opportunity that she had that day, not to serve, but to sit. Not to run to and fro with busywork, but to enjoy the presence of the Son of God.

I don’t know how many opportunities that Mary and Martha had to sit at the Lord’s feet and listen to Him. Probably not all that many. To miss out on that because you were in the kitchen preparing the first century Judean equivalent of hors d’oeuvres seems to me a much greater tragedy than failing to make sure everyone’s cup is topped up on time.

Not that there is anything wrong with serving food and drink, with offering welcome hospitality to guests, regardless of how insignificant or prestigious those guests might be. This is a great thing, and I know there are some people who excel in that, who find that their key ministry is hospitality. If you are gifted in this, that’s great. But if you care about it so much that you start to resent others who do not have the same priorities, then that is a problem. Sometimes we care about the wrong things, and we miss out on the better things.

That is what the priorities of this world are like. Sometimes there are good things, even great things, that the world wants you to care about, but not the best things. In fact, the priority list of this world is all backwards.

Yes, there are definitely things that you really should care about, some of which are even in your own self-interest, but it’s not the things that the world promotes, not the things that are popular, not the things that are marketable. And being marketable is a big one, because so much of what we see around us is focused on marketing, on selling. I considered and came up with a different list, a list of seven items. My list is not very marketable. But it’s far more valuable in the long run.

This list is not based on status, sales or selfishness, but rather based on scriptural principles. This is in no particular order, only the order that I wrote them down when I was brainstorming this sermon. My list of things you definitely should care about is as follows: You should care about love, about salvation and eternity, about truth, obedience, and about others. And this list is certainly not without self interest, because last and definitely not least, you should care about your own soul.

This whole list is in complete opposition to what the world advises you to care about, and it’s contrary to what we naturally care about. But it’s what God would have you care about, and there is a good reason behind each one.

Let’s start with other people. The world doesn’t often encourage this, and our own nature doesn’t tend that way too often. I read from the last part of Luke chapter 10 to start the sermon, and if you still have your Bible open to that chapter, look up the page a few verses, to verse 30. This is one of the best known parables of our Lord, and it answers the question of who we should care about.

Luke 10:30-37  (30)  And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. (31)  And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. (32)  And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. (33)  But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, (34)  And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. (35)  And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. (36)  Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? (37)  And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.

This is the account of the Good Samaritan. It’s so famous a parable that Good Samaritan is used as a term to describe anyone who stops to help a stranger, regardless of ethnicity or heritage. Of course, ethnicity and heritage was at the very core of the point that Christ made with the parable, because the Samaritans were not Jews. In fact, there was considerable animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans. We could read about the start of that in the book of Nehemiah, after the Jews returned from exile in Babylon and the surrounding areas, they found that the Samaritans who were the people living in the area north of Jerusalem were not especially friendly. In fact, in that book we read how Sanballat, the Samaritan leader, conspired with several surrounding nation groups in order to force a stop to the building of the walls of Jerusalem. This resentment only grew over the following centuries, and by the first century there was outright hatred between the two groups. The fact that a Samaritan would stop to help an injured Jew was a very big deal. This was not a friend returning a favour. This was an enemy helping someone who needed help.

The point of the parable is of course that we should help those who need help, we should care about them, especially if they are not someone that we don’t like. The Samaritan cared enough to stop and help even though the priest and the Levite did not. Keep in mind that both of them would have been considered good, upstanding citizens and in fact they were supposed to be serving God as a primary part of their work. But of course their job description was not “assist injured travellers” so they felt that they did not have to stop, they did not have to care. The Samaritan, we don’t know his profession, but we know what he did. We know that he had compassion on the fallen Jew and took him to safety. He cared for this stranger, when others did not. The parable closes with the admonition “Go and do thou likewise.”

Clearly we are intended to care for those who need it. And not just the people that we like, the ones that we feel deserve our assistance, the ones that merit our care. We don’t have to go far to find people that we should care about that we might not be comfortable with, might not like. Do we care for the homeless person begging for change? Do we care for the refugee, the temporary foreign worker in the field or at the fish plant? Do we care for the undocumented migrant who’s afraid of getting deported any minute? Do we care for the immigrant working at the drive through window or the grocery store who has a hard to understand accent? Or do we complain about these people and say they made poor choices and we shouldn’t have to put up with them? Awful lot of that going on these days, don’t have to watch the news for long to see reports of someone or other being picked on by the powers that be.  But each of those examples is someone that was made in God’s image, someone that Christ died for, someone with hopes and dreams and an eternal soul, someone that you and I should care about. So yes, that’s why you should care about others.

Caring about others in a big one on my list, but there’s plenty more. I mentioned the thought of eternity a moment ago, that’s a good one to consider next. Let’s consider that in conjunction with salvation, because without salvation, eternity is a big problem. In John’s gospel, we read starting at verse 15 of chapter 3, (15) That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. (16)  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (17)  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (18)  He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

This life is limited, temporary, and compared to eternity, incredibly short. We don’t know any of us when this life might end, and sometimes we are reminded of our mortality in harsh and unexpected ways. I don’t think I need to provide recent examples, but we all know someone who if things had gone differently a week and a half ago, we might have been attending a funeral. Sobering thought, but real. But we have the promise of eternal life, provided we put our trust in the only begotten Son of God, the man Christ Jesus, so we need not fear death.

This is something to care about, because those verses provide only two options. Believe and do not perish, and be not condemned, or don’t believe, and be condemned already, condemned to an eternity spent apart from the presence of God. That is something to care deeply about, because eternity is real, and we’ll all get there at some point in the future. The difference is not everyone is going to end up in the same location.

Now, there are a great number of people who do not believe in a life after this one, and so they do not care about it, because they do not accept the truth of God’s word. This is the next thing we should care about, truth. Conveniently, we read about truth in the very next verses of John chapter 3. (19)  And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (20)  For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. (21)  But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

It is commonly considered that we are now living in a post-truth world, because so much of what goes on and what is said is clearly not actually true, but yet many people believe it. Do you remember the show Mythbusters? There’s a line that was in the intro to the show where one of the hosts says “I reject your reality, and substitute my own.” While he was saying that in the context of testing something and it was not going well, that mentality has become a hallmark of the world around us. Turn on the news for five minutes and you will probably hear a politician proclaiming things that are completely false, with numbers or claims that are simply made up or found to fit a particular narrative. Some people cling to these falsehoods so strongly when they are not based on anything real. It’s alarming on some levels, and I could go down a whole rabbit trail about that, but it would take up the rest of my time this morning.

And so I ask, why does it matter if you care about truth? Because truth matters, and it will come to light sooner or later. Notice the expression I used, come to light, because we use that to describe revealing of truth. In the dark, it can be hard to discern what is true from what is false, but in light it becomes obvious. When you sit on a throne of lies, when you have an imagined reality and convenient, self-serving narratives, then you don’t likely care about the truth. But God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If you care about truth, then you will come to God seeking more of it. If you are not interested in God’s light, then the truth is not in you.

Now you might ask what truth in particular should you care most about? There are a lot of excellent examples I could point to, but continuing along the themes of what we have already covered, and with the passage that was read earlier from the Sermon on the Mount, I would ask you to consider the truth of eternity, and the fate of your eternal soul. That is a most crucial truth that you should care about, because each of us has a body, and that is what we see and what we interact with, and we likewise have a spirit, an eternal part that is more connected with the divine, and we have a soul, which is our mind and emotional being, our essence as it were. Scripture clearly teaches that the soul is likewise without end, that while the body may die, the soul continues.

The soul is therefore most precious, if it will outlast this life, and if we have direct control over what we feed it, how we treat it, then we should care about it most keenly. In Matthew chapter 16 we read (24) Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. (25)  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. (26)  For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

There’s an unfortunately common expression, to sell your soul, because people do that all the time. Not in a literal, intentional, transactional sense, but people trade their essence for the foolish pleasures of this world, or for the prestige and profit that it may offer, or for a thousand other things, but what does any of that really matter? Our time here is short, and God will take care of us should we allow Him the space to do so, but we care so much for other things and so little for our eternal souls.

What profit is there indeed to gain anything or everything in this world but to gain nothing for the next? What if that profit comes at the expense of your soul? That is far, far too high a price to pay.

 I have never heard of anyone who into eternity saying “I’m glad I looked after myself and my desires so thoroughly, because that’s what really matters.” If anyone has, they soon realized that they were caring about the wrong priorities. It is appointed unto man once to die, and then after that the judgement. God will judge our souls based on what we have done, what we have said, and where we have put our faith. Have we followed and obeyed Him?

This brings us to the sixth item on my list, obedience. Turning back to John’s gospel, in chapter 15 at verse (9) As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. (10)  If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. (11)  These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

There are far more examples why we should care about obedience that I could have you turn to, from Samuel telling king Saul that to obey is better than sacrifice, to children being told to obey their parents, but this one is in the context of obeying Christ, and there is no higher form of obedience. If we would follow Him, if we would love Him, then we had better care about obeying Him.

You might think that it’s rather demanding that we obey our Saviour. Perhaps it is, but it’s also entirely reasonable. As a parent, I tell me children not to run with scissors or put their hand on the wood stove, not to be a killjoy, but to keep them safe. I tell them to be kind and considerate and gentle because that makes life better for everyone around them, and they would surely prefer to be treated in the same manner. And I’m not God. I’m merely a human, raised by humans and in the process of raising more humans, all of us deeply flawed, all of us struggling at times to obey. How much better even to obey God’s instructions than those of our human parents. If I care deeply for my children, how much greater must God’s care for me surely be?

He loves me, and I know this because He sent His Son to die for me. And likewise, He did exactly the same for you. We should care about obeying Him because He clearly has our best interests at heart. Surely to obey Him is for my good, and the good of those around me.

This brings me to final item on my list, and that is love. Love is a word that the world throws around so flippantly and casually, without really understanding what it means. I’m not going to attempt to define or explain love, that would be an entire sermon unto itself, one that I feel I have preached at least once or twice. Paul does an excellent job of characterizing love in chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians, and so I’ll read just three verses from there to illustrate why we should care about love.

(1)  If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. (2)  And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. (3)  And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.

Everything I have said so far, all the instruction to obey, to seek truth and salvation, to be concerned with the welfare of others and with the state of your eternal soul, all that matters very little apart from love. It’s possible to go through the motions for an extended period of time, to act like you care, when really you don’t. That’s a trap we can fall into, because doing the right things for the wrong reasons is hard to criticize, because you’re doing the right thing.

God sent His Son to die for us because He loved us, His flawed creation. Christ died for us, while we were obstinate, rebellious sinners, because of His love for us. Was it the right thing to do? From our perspective, it absolutely was. But He was not obligated to save us. He cared about us and so He made a way of salvation for us. He didn’t have to do that. But because He loved, because He cared, he did.

We can do all the right things, the proper things, but if we lack love, then what good is it really? We can help others without loving them, but you can’t love someone, not truly love them, and not be willing to help them. We can’t love God, not really, if we unwilling to obey Him, and if we don’t want to get prepared to spend eternity with Him. I want to be with those that I love and care about in the here and now, why should it be any different with the hereafter?

We all have a certain number of cares. This is part of life, we can’t avoid it, as much as we might want to. Ask yourself what is it that you care about, what truly matters to you. Is your list in a good condition? Do you care about the right things, the important things? Or are your cares trivial and insignificant? Maybe it’s time to ask yourself the same question as the cartoon puppet I mentioned earlier – and why should I care? If you don’t have a good answer, then it’s time to revaluate.