Do Not Worry
Do Not Worry
Matthew 6:25-34
I think one of the worst things that anyone can say to someone who is worried is, “Stop worrying!” When has that ever helped? I can see saying, “Hey…I want to just breath together. Let’s slow things down for a minute.” I can see saying, “Hey, tell me what you’re worrying about. I’m here. I’m listening.” I can see saying, ‘Let’s take a walk. Let’s get out of here and get our minds off this thing.” Jesus, though, says, “Do not worry…”
I think one of the other worst things that we can teach people is that God is going to take care of everything. People make all sorts of terrible or unfortunate choices. They get caught in horrible circumstances through no fault of their own. Somehow, in some fashion, there is a train barreling down the tracks straight at them. However, what they’ve been sold is the notion that if they are just good enough or faithful enough or pray hard enough, then bad things won’t happen. While I may want to scream at them, “We have to get you off these train tracks!” they may be readying themselves to quote today’s text back at me: “Do not worry about your life…” Was Jesus just singing an early version of “Don’t Worry. Be happy?”
For most of the people in the crowds who came to hear Jesus, the worries of this life would have been very real. The poorer you were, the more likely you were not just to show up to hear Jesus but to actually follow him. Conversely, the more you had to lose, the less likely you were to care enough to show up at all. If you were poor, what you strived to do every day was to survive. Where is your next meal going to come from? How are you going to clean the clothes on your back? At the end of a hard day of work, where will you find something to drink? If you were poor, life boiled down pretty quickly to the basics: how are you and your family going to survive?
For Jesus’ disciples, the big immediate payoff of agreeing to follow him was that they were homeless. You were following a wandering preacher and healer across the countryside from town to town. Each morning when you arose, the question was, “Where in the world is breakfast going to come from?” And as the day wore on and the day’s amazement at what Jesus had said and done began to become today’s memories, the question that arose was simple: “Where are we going to sleep tonight?” I imagine it must have been a daily battle to keep the insecurity at bay, to set aside all the worry and just trust. It wasn’t like they had gone hungry or had no place to sleep…yet. But what about tomorrow?
So, when Jesus began telling people not to worry, he would have been delivering a message that would have challenged his disciples in a very personal way. When you are vulnerable, when things are genuinely insecure, not worrying is easier said than done. Of course, Jesus would have had at least a little credibility since he was no better off than anyone else. He was just as reliant on the kindness and care and generosity of others as the rest of them.
Just as an aside, and in the service of being honest, we should acknowledge that even if you aren’t poor, the human thing to do is to find things to worry about. If you have food, what if the food isn’t tasty enough or healthy enough or good enough? If you have clothes, what if they aren’t in fashion. If you have something to drink, what if it’s not the right thing to “pair” with what you’re serving for dinner? We’re human. We tend to find things to worry about…
If you look up the English word “worry” you will learn that its early roots had to do with strangling something. Literally, a well trained terrier was sent out on the hunt to “worry” a rat—to find it and choke the life out of it. Of course, those of us who worry know that our worries can choke the life out of us, too. If we get worried enough, it will literally feel like we can’t breathe.
The problem with worry is that it is grounded in a scarcity model. The underlying fear is that there won’t be enough to go around and that I won’t get enough. There won’t be enough money or food or decent clothing. There won’t be enough love. When that sense of scarcity takes hold of us, we feel pitted against one another. It’s you verses me. It’s us verses them. It’s a dog-eat-dog existence. Except, of course, we’re not dogs…are we?
The “pious” option is to say, “Of course we’re not dogs!” even though we’ve all seen people who act that way. The pious thing to do is to discount all the people who go hungry or whose lives are reduced to making sure that they don’t go hungry or their children don’t go hungry and just focus on a God who will provide. We live in a world where people do go hungry. We live in a world where people don’t have clean water to drink. We live in a world where for far too many people surviving today is a legitimate challenge. Still, though, the pious thing to do is to just deny this, right?
We need to remember that when it comes to Jesus making a case for something, he loves to play “the long game.” He loves to confuse us first because a few moments of confusion are sometimes what it takes to come to see something in a new way. So, Jesus says don’t worry about what you’re going to eat or drink or what you’re going to wear. Then, he expands on his point. Look at the birds. Do they farm? Yet, they eat. Aren’t you worth more than a bird? Look at the flowers. True…they’re here and then they’re gone but they are gorgeous. If God clothes them in such splendor, don’t you think God will provide for you? “Therefore,” Jesus concludes, “Do not worry!”
Now, we should know that part of Jesus playing “the long game,” creating this extended argument, is that we are supposed to be thinking along with him. So, here’s what we’re likely to be thinking. “So, ya…Jesus…I get your nature points here. Birds don’t spend their lives worrying about food. They peck around a bit and find a worm. God provided the worm. They do what they were created to do and they eat. In the same way, the flowers do what they they were created to do. They put down roots. They absorb sunlight. They grow and they are beautiful. Here’s the thing, though, Jesus. I’m not a bird or a flower. I’m a parent with hungry children who I need to feed—today.”
Jesus answers us: “Yup…even the Gentiles need to eat, right? And we’ve all seen some among them who live as if eating and drinking and wearing fancy clothes are the whole point of this life, right? Don’t you think there has to be more to life than just surviving? Don’t you think that there has to be more to life than just eating better or drinking fancier wine or wearing fancier clothes than the next guy? Don’t you think that the God who knows that the birds need to eat and that the world will be better if the flowers are beautifully clothed also knows that you need to eat and drink and clothe yourselves, too?”
Oh boy…things are getting a little uncomfortable now. The world is full of people who see the unmet needs of others and want to blame those people. Though we have never come close to walking a mile in their shoes, we decide that they don’t have anything to eat because they are lazy. They don’t have clean water to drink because…they decided to live in Flint. Or, most frighteningly, “they” point out that everything that happens is God’s will and then they look at the hungry person and cock their head to one side and wait for you to connect the dots. “God must not care,” they whisper…
None of which is where Jesus is going! The problem isn’t that the poor people are lazy. The problem is that unlike the world of birds or the world of the flowers, the world of people is not working the way that God intends for it to work. Jesus says, “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” What’s wrong is not the energy level or the ambition of the poor person in need. What’s wrong is not that God is somehow deaf or blind to those needs. What’s wrong is that we may be bothered in a fleeting way by the needs of our neighbors, maybe even bothered long enough to offer up a prayer, “God, you really should do something!” However, we are not bothered long enough or deeply enough for it to dawn on us that it is up to us to do something to right what’s wrong.
Think about it this way. The bird doesn’t find a worm and then horde all the other worms that it can find, leaving the other birds to starve. A flower doesn’t feed itself on the minerals of the ground and the nutrients of sunlight and then deny the other flowers around it their food. They meet their needs but there is a balance among like organisms. Some of the most interesting research lately on trees involves the tiny root systems that are sent out between trees that allow the trees to share nutrients among one another. If you have ever seen footage of the investment in the well-being of a community that exists in a hive of bees or a pack of elephants, you know that there is a built in, caring order to how they exist.
What’s wrong with human beings is our propensity to be drawn into the scarcity model. If we strive for the kingdom of God, what are the markers of that kingdom? We care for one another. “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you? When did we see you thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you naked and clothe you? Whenever you did this for the overlooked and the ignored, you did it unto me.” The kingdom model—the way the world works when it works according to God’s plan—is not a dog-eat-dog world. Rather, the kingdom of God comes to life when the default understanding is that things are not okay until every hungry person is fed, every thirsty person is given something to drink, every naked person is clothed, every sick person is cared for. This is not just what we do on a good day or during the holidays. This is what we are here to do. This is what is worth striving for. Caring community is what God intends for us to create. In the end, what we need will be given to us because we will share those things with one another.
Do you remember Dante’s vision of the the level of hell that had to do with gluttony? There is a huge banquet table. There are piles and piles of food, every sumptuous treat imaginable. Meanwhile, seated in huge regal chairs are emaciated people. A giant fork is strapped to one arm of each of those people. A giant spoon is strapped to their other arms. Here they are, starving and staring at all the food that they could ever want. Why are they starving? Their fork and their spoon are too long to get to their own mouths. They are starving because the only way that they could eat was if they learn to feed each other. However, Dante reminds us, that kind of care for each other is not one of the marks of hell.
Literally, we create heaven on earth when we care for one another, when we share what we have, when we recognize one another’s needs and respond. This is not always our first response. This is not always easy. However, this is a life worth striving for.