St. Thomas Evangelical Lutheran Church
3800 East Third Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47401
(812) 332-5252
Sermon for the Second Sunday After Pentecost (May 25, 2008)
Liturgical Color: Green
Reverend Doctor Lyle E. McKee
Worry
Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The mental hospitals, treatment centers, and hospitals of this nation are well-used. And yet, many medical professionals estimate that more than half of those who are treated ought not need to be. Dr. Charles Mayo, of the famed clinic, once said that half of all the beds in our hospitals are filled by people who worried themselves there. Other doctors put the percentage as high as ninety percent, which seems almost unbelievable.
Worry, stress, and tension of various kinds seem to continue plaguing us. I had my teeth cleaned this week, and while I was thankful no cavities were discovered, I was informed that there is a bit of trouble with my gums. I was asked whether I had been under stress lately, and told that even slight stress can affect gum and tooth health.
We continue to hear quite a bit about such topics. "Burn-out" remains a subject of professional journals, newspaper columns, and television talk shows. We are told what to do with it, how to sublimate it, how to overcome it, and how to deal with it in order to keep it from getting us down.
Jesus preaches today in Matthew's gospel, saying: "Do not be anxious about your life." He states simply, in the words of the emended text just read, "Do not worry." I think Jesus would agree with the old saw, "Worry is like a rocking chair. It keeps you busy, but it doesn't get you anywhere."
Before making a case for ceasing our worthless habits of worrying, let me say something else about this text. It is an often-misunderstood passage. People read and hear only the most poetic parts of the passage. Things like "Consider the lilies of the fied" and "Look at the birds of the air". People tend to focus on these stories Jesus tells about how birds and lilies do nothing, and yet God cares for them.
Focusing on these more memorable passages leads to some faulty conclusions. It appears that Jesus is telling us to be lazy, to sit back and let God take care of us-to be passive, or worse, to resign ourselves to whatever our situation might be. After all, God, we think, gives us whatever we've got.
In fact, what is being discussed here is the manner in which we focus our lives. The question is not "Do you prepare for the future?" but "Whom do you serve?" It is not a diatribe against insurance or planning for the future, it is a call to doing the things that matter in service of the one who invites our allegiance and our action.
Verse 24 provides the backdrop for all the talk of lilies and birds: "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."
The point about anxiety is related to this matter of whom we serve with our lives—in whom we trust. The one whose trust is in wealth, property, or material goods of any kind is filled with worry, for she or he knows how insecure those things are. The one who trusts in God is secure, for the unfailing Creator will always care. So, Jesus is telling us that if we are anxious, if we worry, we are betraying our trust in the wrong things, as well as our lack of trust and faith in God.
Another note is important here. It is important that we not add guilt to worry, as in: "Oh, no, my worry is a sign of my lack of faith. What a terrible person I am. What am I to do." That becomes a vicious cycle, and it is most assuredly not what Jesus intends.
Rather, our Lord's hope is that by drawing our attention to what truly matters, our worry will evaporate. It is first, foremost, and always a word of gracious love—not a word of requirement or law. It is meant to free rather than to bind.
Jesus' use of lilies and birds is, then, an argument, not for passivity, but for the trustworthiness of God. "God provides. Why, then, place trust in temporal and ephemeral things?"
The focus of this mini-sermon is on the fact that anxiety is counter-productive. The intent is to steer our allegiance away from those matters that make us worry and towards the place where worry becomes meaningless—the steadfast love of God. "But seek first," Jesus says at the end, "So strive first God's reign and righteousness, and all these things will be given you as well. Do not worry, then, about tomorrow; for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today."
We are invited to put anxiety aside in an attempt to lead our minds in the direction that Jesus moves in this passage-away from temporal concerns and toward the things of God. Worry can be very destructive. It doesn't just, as with the rocking chair, "get you nowhere." It also moves us in the opposite direction from the one to which God calls. It sets us back and destroys time as well as people. It makes us sick. It drains us of emotional and physical energy. It blinds us to needs around us. It incapacitates us and precludes an active and effective response to God's call. And yes, it even kills.
Several years ago, a Russian railway employee accidentally locked himself in a refrigerator car. He was unable to escape and couldn't attract the attention of those outside. So he resigned himself to his fate. As he felt his body becoming numb, he recorded the story of his approaching death in sentences scribbled on the wall of the car. "I'm becoming colder," he wrote. "Still colder, now, nothing to do but to wait...I am slowly freezing to death...Half asleep now, I can hardly write" And finally, "These may be my last words."
And they were, for when at length the car was opened they found him dead. And yet, listen to this. The temperature in the car was 56 degrees. The condensers were broken. There was no physical reason for the man's death. There was plenty of air, so he hadn't suffocated. He was by all appearances the victim of his own fear and anxiety. (recounted by Dudley Cavert, adapted)
A former commissioner of health of the City of New York issued a booklet with the title, "Man's Danger Line Begins at Forty," implying that life may truly begin at that age if men could learn to prevent diseases that come with middle age. The commissioner offered eleven rules for preventing serious disease. Heading the list: "For one less hour of worry substitute one more hour of laughter."
An old man was asked what had most robbed him of joy. His answer: "Things that never happened."
Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.
Jesus coined the sentiment, "Take it a day at a time."
The story of Charles Lamb testifies to this truth. He was an accountant, and later a writer and poet, in England in the late 18th century. He came home one day early in his career to discover that his deeply troubled sister had slain their mother. Mental institutions not being what they are today, he accepted the responsibility of caring for his sister at home. A few years later, when their father died, Charles took care of her on his own—for more than thirty years.
Friends asked him how he kept going under the strain, and he wrote: "I could not have kept on for a year, or even a month, if I had thought of it as a year or a month. I was able to endure it because I took the days one at a time, happy when Mary was happy, and seeking God's help when she was disturbed."
One day at a time is the healthy way. Life is hard by the yard; by the inch, it's a cinch. Easily said, not easily done.
None of us is promised tomorrow. But we do have today! Jesus invites us not to try trading today for tomorrow, for there is no telling what tomorrow will bring. It's the insight that makes Alcoholics Anonymous and other like organizations so successful. It's impossible for an alcoholic to stay sober for the rest of his or her life. But even those most strongly addicted may avoid drinking for today. Just today is all that one need consider.
Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.
It may interest you to know that the root of the word "worry" originally meant "to choke or strangle." It also has implications related to the words "gnaw" and "divide." Worry does such things to us. The symptoms can feel like we're being choked, smothered, or suffocated. Worry gnaws at us and wears us down, bit by bit. It divides us from ourselves and from the God in whom we might, instead, have placed our trust. Worry betrays our failure to have faith in the God who cares for us.
Pessimists may suggest that they are the happiest of people. After all, how can one who expects the worst ever be disappointed. But what are the uncounted costs emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and relationally?
Even the Jewish refugee underneath Cologne Cathedral could write on the walls there these words: "I believe in the dawn, even though it be dark; I believe in God, even though He be silent."
Today, Jesus tells us that God can be trusted, and that worry is a waste.
Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.
Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord unto eternal life. Amen.
