“When Your Worries Have Worries”

Matthew 6:25-34

November 20 &23, 2003

Saint Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John A. Fleming

I heard about the man who was having a particularly hard time in his life. He had a high pressured job and the demands of it overwhelmed him a lot of the time. These demands, of course, made their way into his home life. Sometimes all that he could do at the end of the day was to come home, fall back in his recliner, and fall asleep. Which was not good because his little girl wanted to play with her daddy when he came home. I am in the middle of telling this story. It just occurred to me that this guy sounds a lot like me. But I want you to know, this is not me. I do not own a recliner! Back to the story. This man would fall asleep for a while after supper and then he would be wired for the rest of the night, thinking about all that he had to do. So sleep was difficult for him. To top all of that off, he was having strange dreams. Sometimes the dreams woke him up. He decided that he had to do something about it and so he made an appointment with a therapist. Stress must have been written on his face, but he decided that he would closely guard what was really going on in his life until he knew that he could trust his counselor. So he went to his counselor’s office, sat and waited in the waiting room. He went back when his name was called and sat in a comfortable chair across from his counselor. The counselor asked, “What brings you to see me this morning?” There was stress all over the man’s face, but again, he wanted to proceed with caution and so he decided that he would tell him about his dreams. Church, are you ready for this? The man said, “Doctor, I have been having some strange dreams. Sometimes I dream that I am a teepee, somewhere out in the woods. At other times, I dream that I am a wigwam in the days of the Indians and old west. The doctor thought for just a minute. He rubbed his chin while he thought. Then he said. Church, are you sure that you are ready for this? The therapist said, “I am going to treat you for anxiety. It is obvious to me, from your dreams, that you are two tents” I gave you fair warning! Now that I have your attention by telling such a bad joke, let me say that stress and anxiety are not jokes. For a lot of us, me included these two things are very significant.

Charles Schultz has given us a great gift in Charlie Brown and his friends. Maybe you can relate to the cartoon that shows Charlie Brown and Linus walking together. Linus, as always, has his blanket and he is dragging it behind him. He turns to Charlie and says “You look kind of depressed, Charlie Brown.” Charlie Brown answers, “I worry about school a lot.” Then he added, “And I worry about my worrying so much about school.” By this time Charlie and Linus are sitting on a bench together. Charlie Brown looks up at Linus and says, “Even my anxieties have anxieties.”

If either of these opening stories speak to you; If you have ever struggled with worry, then you might appreciate our scripture lesson for this morning, taken just a chapter into what we have come to call Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It’s words can be found in the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Matthew’s gospel. You need to know this. Mountains are important in Matthew’s gospel. Mountains are a part of his theology. Whenever Jesus went up on a mountain, in this gospel, you had better pay attention. On mountain tops is where Jesus speaks to God and it is where he teaches, too. You might say that a mountain was Jesus’ first pulpit. Luke, by the way, has this same sermon of Jesus, but he has it happening on a plain. Jesus being on level ground fits in Luke’s theology. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus came to be with ordinary people.

But we are in Matthew’s Gospel and so we are up on a mountain in this sermon of His. The sermon is just two chapters long, but in it, Jesus tackles just about every imaginable subject from anger to judging. I think that what Jesus is up to is trying to get disciples, his day and our day to see is that the world can be different from the way that it is. In the church, we call this Kingdom Talk. For instance, look at a beatitude or two. Jesus says blessed are the ones who mourn, for they will be comforted. That is not what the world says. The world says that those who cry are weak. Jesus says that those who are meek are blessed. The world says that if you are meek, people will walk all over you. I want you to see this. Jesus is turning the world upside down with his words. You might say that his sermon is a way of looking at the world and the things around you very differently.

That is what you need to know as we arrive at our lesson for this morning. After an array of subjects, the last couple being about treasures stored up on earth and serving two masters, God and wealth, Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life.” Don’t you know that there were people sitting at the foot of the mountain, near the feet of Jesus who were worried about their lives. I certainly worry about my life, but mostly about the things that happen in it. I am pretty sure that I have given you this piece of advice before. If you are a worrier and are not married, but thinking about it. Even if you are very young and your wedding day is years away, make sure now that your spouse to be is not a worrier, too. It is too late for some of us. I am a worrier and I am married to a worrier, which means that someone in our house is worried about something all of the time. We are hoping that we have not passed the worry gene on to Annie Grace.

Jesus makes the case for the people of his day and the worries that they must have had. He says, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food and the body is more than clothing.” Then he says, “Look at the birds of the air...your heavenly Father feeds them. Consider the lilies of the field.” I do not mind telling you that these words of Jesus, at first, did not seem very compelling to me. Because, you see, birds and lilies do not have mortgages, car payments, grocery bills and college tuition to keep them up at night. I want to say to Jesus, “Lord, your strategy here is not your best work. Look at the birds, look at the lilies. Lord, look at the bills. Look at my kids. Look at my checking account balance!” Before we go on, maybe I need to point out a couple of things about this passage out to you. First, look at this. The word worry, here, literally means to divide the mind. And second, the words that Jesus says, to look at the birds of the air and to consider the lilies of the field, these words, look and consider are very strong verbs in the Greek language. They mean to do more than to casually observe these things. Jesus’ command here is look, to really look, at a world where God provides freely and lavishly, a world where anxiety plays no part and where worry does not control us. Then there is the punch line. There are often punch lines in God’s Word. Here it is this one, “Are you not of more value than they are?” Well, the rent is still due. The credit card companies still want, at least, the minimum payment. But, you see, we have caught a glimpse of another world, a world where worry and anxiety cannot hold a candle to the world of God’s gracious and tender care.

You know, all of that would fit nicely on a Hallmark Card. Let me preach this morning. Let me tell you that one of the harsh realities of our lives is that we can trust God with all things, but it just does not always tidy up so easily. We love God. We trust God. But still, creditors call. Still, there are layoffs where we work. Still, our health fails. Still, we wonder if we can live up to the expectations that people have of us.

So what do we do? I am not talking to the folks who are easy going and do not worry about anything. If you fit that category, then this sermon may not be for you. This morning, I am talking to those of you, like me, who worry a lot. So, what do we do? Well, the answer is in our last verse. Listen to it again, “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” So maybe the message for us is to live one day at a time instead of several all at once. That is one good piece of advice. Listen to another one. Perhaps we should focus not on the things than cause us to worry, but on the victories, the small victories. I heard about a young man who was having trouble in his life. He went home to talk with his dad about them. One night, after supper, the two went on a long walk, on the beach near their house. The sun was just setting. The son could get past the troubles. He said to his dad, “If we could take all the great moments that we experience in a lifetime and put them back to back, they would not last twenty minutes!” The father, who couldn’t keep his eyes off the sun setting, paused before he spoke. Then he said, “You may be right.” Then he added, “Precious aren’t they?” Let us pray.