Worry Free Living, Matthew 6:24-34
A Sermon Preached by: Rev. E. Scott Winnette, May 25, 2008
I have a new friend in my garden and it is not a cute, pesky groundhog. This one doesn’t eat my seedlings. I have named her Ann after my father’s nickname for my mother, “Snakey Ann.” She is a garter snake and she lies on the dark mulch sunning. Ann has beautiful green scaly skin and a yellow stripe. I would like to think she turns a bit when she senses me near to provide her best side to impress me. Maybe she twists just a little to show off more of her yellow stripe. No, she doesn’t care what I think of her looks. Her needs are simple; she eats the insects from my garden; she lies in the sun, and she watches to protect herself. I am certain that like Jesus’ birds and lilies she does not have an interior life of spinning worry. She doesn’t worry about the next cricket, or how her scales look to me, or about whether it might rain.
I wish I could say the same, but I cannot. I am a human creature; I am my mother’s child, and I am a worrier. While Snakey Ann basks in the sun, I hardly ten feet from her on my balcony sit worrying with my coffee. I worry about whether I am saving enough, what I need from the grocery, how I could help out the devastation in China and Myanmar. I worry about whether my brothers, sister-in-laws and nieces know I love them even though I rarely call. I worry about the war in Iraq. This Memorial Day weekend is particularly poignant as we have service men and women dying daily. Regularly, I worry that I might not care enough about the violence of the world and that I prefer not thinking about it. I worry that I don’t pray enough. Ann lies there in the sun and I worry that I am too worried about how we are going to get everything done that Karen Werner used do to. I worry that if we don’t get all those important things accomplished you might wander away and find another church or just decide to golf on Sunday.
Jesus advises us to consider, seriously study the calmness of the wildflowers and lilies. After his difficult criticism about serving Mammon instead of fully relying on God, he says to contemplate the intricate beauty and calmness of the lilies of the field. I believe he not only studied the lessons of nature, but he also studied humanity watching his family and friends, watching the disciples, watching the Roman Empire and its conquest mentality. Jesus understands what makes us tick. In his Sermon on the Mount he warns us of many of our sinful, destructive tendencies. Jesus knows our penchant to obsessive behavior. He knows how we can easily become obsessive about security and start stockpiling food, and hoarding money, and how we can spend hours contriving plans that will ensure that we will never hunger or thirst again. He knows how we make a God out of Mammon, out of the security of money. He knows how too many humans make an idol out of self-respect and other’s respect for them. He knows how we worry about our looks, our hair, our clothes, and the cleanliness of our homes, and the tidiness of our lawns. He knows how we obsess with what others’ think of us and the money we spend on presentable clothes, and cars, tans, and haircuts. Jesus knows of the elaborate plans we make to climb ladders of success to feed our obsessive needs for money and respect. Jesus knows the ridiculous plans parents follow to prepare their children to be competitive and Jesus criticizes us telling us not to worry. Study the lilies, study each other. If you have enough, enough food, shelter, and friendship for today, stop worrying and enjoy living.
Leo Tolstoy came to similar conclusions as his Lord Jesus. He told a story entitled, “How Much Land Does a Man Need.” It starts out with two sisters. One is married to a well-to-do tradesman, and the other to a peasant. They debated who had the better life. The rich sister bragged about her family’s fine food, and clothes and how they went to the theatre. The poorer sister responded,
“I would not change my way of life for yours,” … “We may live roughly, but at least we are free from anxiety. You live in better style than we do, but though you often earn more than you need, you are very likely to lose all you have. You know the proverb, ‘Loss and gain are brothers twain.’ It often happens that people who are wealthy one day are begging their bread the next. Our way is safer. Though a peasant’s life is not a fat one, it is a long one. We shall never grow rich, but we shall always have enough to eat.” The elder sister said sneeringly: “Enough? Yes, if you like to share with the pigs and calves! What do you know of elegance or manners! However much your goodman may slave, you will die as you are living - on a dung heap - and your children the same.”
“Well, what of that?” replied the younger. “Of course our work is rough and coarse. But, on the other hand, it is sure, and we need not bow to anyone. But you, in your towns, are surrounded by temptations; to-day all may be right, but to-morrow the Evil One may tempt your husband with card, wine, or women, and all will go to ruin. Don’t such things happen often enough?”
Unfortunately, the peasant husband, Pahom, was eavesdropping and he thought, “It is perfectly true,” … “Busy as we are from childhood tilling mother earth, we peasants have no time to let any nonsense settle in our heads. Our only trouble is that we haven’t land enough. If I had plenty of land, I shouldn’t fear the Devil himself!” The story goes that the man obtains some land, he becomes a miserly neighbor in his protection of his land and his greed for land grows. He contrives again and again to purchase more land. Finally, he hears of a country where the natives were selling land for 1000 rupies a day. They would sell you the amount of land you could walk in a day. The trick was that you had to return to the starting point within the day. Excited for more land, he went to these people, paid them the rupies and walked. He walked and walked constantly changing his boundary to make the perfect very large farm. Towards the end of the day he realized he needed to get back and he ran, and ran, and ran. His greed had placed him far away from the starting point. Tolstoy has a laugh at this man’s greed for the story ends that he does make it back to the starting point but after reaching it dies from exhaustion. Tolstoy answers the question, how much land does a man need ending the story, “His servant picked up the spade and dug a grave long enough for Pahom to lie in, and buried him in it. Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.”
The story, like Jesus’ teaching on the mount, cannot simply be considered anti-wealth. Jesus is not simply teaching against greed. He is teaching about our primary motivations in life. We cannot serve two masters: the God of Mammon, our God of Security and Creator God. He is asking us hard questions: who sets our priorities in life, who determines our daily choices - Creator God or Mammon? He asks that we consider the simplicities of nature’s beauties, their lack of worrisome ambition. He commands us to resist our human obsessions for security.
Could the expressions “Just take it easy”, “Don’t worry, be happy”, and the ancient Egyptian proverb, “Eat, drink and be merry” encapsulate the message Jesus is preaching? Can you imagine the long-haired, young-adult Jesus while giving the Sermon on the Mount stopping to make a peace sign. Can you imagine Jesus then saying, “Don’t worry about it and take it easy.”? Does stopping the worry mean to stop caring? Could it mean to stop trying? Does it mean to stop working and striving?
No - this is not about stopping work. It is not about ceasing our striving for a world of peace. It is not a about creating a church of sloth. Jesus is teaching us to center our lives in a deep trust in God. We are to bind ourselves to God first. We are to bind ourselves in a relationship with God that is primary over our relationships to the things and ambitions of this world. For it is too easy to allow the things at the disposal and service of humanity a power over us; we too easily become slaves to our artifacts. It is too easy to become obsessed with the pursuit of a foolproof security. Like poor Pahom, we too become consumed and unable to serve God as we pursue a foolproof security in this world. Our worry fails to recognize God’s great love for us.
Jesus is teaching us something we already know. Worry is unnecessary and useless. It demonstrates a lack of faith. Worry does not work any good; it accomplishes nothing; it shortens our lives. Anxiety does not make our problems lessen. It focuses and attaches our energies on the wrong things. Worry wastes us!
Starting tomorrow I am going to fast from worry. Yes – I am going to stop worrying. I’m going to quit cold turkey. No more worrying first thing in the morning. No more worrying before I go to sleep. I am going on a worry-free diet. No more worrying through my lunch break. Why don’t you join me? It would be so much easier if you would do it with me. We can worry less together as we encourage each other to seek and trust in God.
How do we start? Now - of course I’m not going to be able to stop cold turkey. Stopping our worry is not easy; it will never be easy to find a balance between what is necessary striving and our sinful obsessions. The world is not a safe place and we of necessity must seek some security. But we can learn to worry less. We can learn to trust more. Let me suggest a three part strategy:
One, study snakes, the marigolds growing in your gardens, the great herons of God’s lakes and streams. Consider the extraordinary beauty and lack of ambition and worry in God’s non-human creatures. Give thanks to God for providing for them and learn to constantly give thanks to God for providing you air, and water, food, clothing and friendship. Learning to be appreciative reduces our worry.
Two, practice the arts of contemplative prayer. I mean it - prayer can help us worry less for prayer helps us realize God’s providential presence. Learn and practice the wisdom of prayer. One great tool of contemplative prayer is to imagine a stream that flows in front of you. As you relax to pray let your spinning anxious thoughts whirl like leaves down into the waters of the stream and be carried away. Spend enough time in prayer for all of the worries to be washed down that stream and then enjoy an unencumbered time with God. Regular prayer reduces worry.
Three, criticize each other in love. Yes – this will be the hardest. We can encourage each other to worry less. We can help each other pursue God’s will instead of human security and prestige. Help each other reflect on the motivations that undergird decision-making. If Pahom’s wife or friends had interrupted his obsessive pursuit of land with a loving intervention, he may have found joy in life. If your sister in the pew is pursuing another job, ask how much her pursuit is based in her love of God. If your brother in the pew is looking for a larger home, ask how much the need for a larger home is based in a love of God and neighbor. If your cousin has her children each in three sports, learning piano, and in advanced classes ask her to reflect on why she is driving her God-beloved children so hard. Follow up each question with your love and an expression of God’s love. Becoming ardent brothers and sisters of faith in God reduces worry. I close with the trust in God of Romans 8:
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him….If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
May it be so! Amen.
