Words for Worriers
Second Before Lent
Matthew 6.25-34
Spring flowers in Galilee.
I’m such a worrier that if I wake up not feeling worried it worries me! I was almost 30 years of age before I stopped having recurring nightmares each year in early
summertime about missing an examination paper! In fact I can feel the shudder of
anxiety even as I tell you about it.
I take heart from the fact that a survey I read somewhere suggested that such a worry was amongst the most common of people’s worries – some 20 per cent of people said they worried about exams. Other common worries found by the survey were job security (15%), personal health (32%), relationships with other people (39%), and money (45%). That comes to a tally of 151% of worry – well I can go with that, for at some time in my life any one of those topics has felt like that.
I’m a worrier by nature.
That some of you will immediately tune into what I’m saying, will instantaneously feel empathy, and clearly understand my feelings without any effort, adds a further dimension. I’m a born worrier, and perhaps you are too.
Today’s gospel reading comes to me as an affront. Therefore I tell you, do not worry
about your life (verse 25). Who is Jesus kidding? On the face of it that assertion is no help to me at all! Telling me not to worry is like telling a dog not to bark, or a fish not to swim. It is wasted advice that is no use at all. And even worse than that: if not worrying is a mark of being a true disciple, then I’m lost. This isn’t my liberation but my condemnation. It seems that I’m hemmed in with no way out. Worried indeed, left to my own wretchedness.
Forgive me for being so personal. A sermon is not the place to parade one’s own anxieties.
My only excuse is that this is a deadly earnest issue for me, and I suspect I am not alone.
Being personal let’s me share a thought that I have found illuminating, and freeing, and full of hope. And the thought is simply this – Jesus was a worrier too!
Luke tells us that on the night of his betrayal he was on the Mount of Olives and he had withdrawn from his friends. In his anguish, Luke says, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like
great drops of blood falling down on the ground (Luke 22.44). We all recognise it –we’ve seen it in others, or known it for ourselves – that state of profound worry where your body starts to ouse your anxiety. It starts with clamminess, but becomes great blobs of sweat that drop off you, like rain running down a pane of glass. This is a human being deeply
worried. Interestingly some manuscripts of Luke’s gospel omit this verse. Perhaps centuries ago some monk scribe felt uncomfortable with this all too human Jesus.
And it wasn’t just on that terrifying night of betrayal either. When Jesus goes away in solitude, could it be that those times are indications of his worry? The crowds press in on him, expectations are aroused; perhaps they are on the verge of putting him in the
position of open rebellion against the authorities. Even close friends and confidants seem not to understand. Perhaps even those closest to him might take the part of the mob and try to push him into a campaign of violent resistance. There’s much to worry about here. And that’s before we consider whether he had inner concerns about his own strength to carry things through. Was he up to the task? The lonely question that can trouble any of us in particular circumstances – did that same question worry Jesus?
I think Jesus was a worrier. There are more than two-dozen references to worry in the gospel accounts. The Jesus who speaks of worry knows what he is talking about.
He knows how undermining it is. e knows its destructive power. He is alert to its real threat.
So when Jesus finds solace in the wildflowers bobbing in breezy sunshine we can see for real a human determination to let beauty speak even when one’s thoughts are awash with anxiety (Matthew 6.29). Or when birdsong lifts his spirits (Matthew 6.26), isn’t that the same thought that comes to all of us when the gloom and death of winter is getting to
us and we long for intimations of spring’s new life? These are things associated
with human worry and anxiety. Yes, Jesus was a worrier, but the worry didn’t envelope him, didn’t cut him off from his heavenly Father, or from other people, or indeed from his real self. You see it’s not the having of worries that’s the problem, but how you handle them. Worries can crush and harm you. Change the very way you think and act. Or worries can be part of the risk of living but not things that harm your ultimate confidence in life. Worries don’t have to be a gloomy shadow that makes everything worse. As someone said, Jesus had many worries; but the worries didn’t have him. He had many cares,
but he was carefree.
We – we worriers – shouldn’t take Jesus’ Do not worry about your life as a criticism, but rather as a reassurance that your trust in God is what really changes things.
Eugene Peterson’s translation (The Message, NavPress) of some of the verses from today’s passage from Matthew puts it brilliantly:
If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers – most which are never even seen – don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?
What I’m trying to do to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way
he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out.
You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
Jesus had many cares, but he was carefree. His worries didn’t paralyse him because his personality, indeed his very personhood, was grounded in trust of God. And that’s what
he asks of us. As ever, Christian discipleship comes down to very ordinary, everyday things – yes, food, and clothing, and shelter, and relationships, are important. Of course we’ll worry about those things, but don’t let that proper care destroy your ultimate trust. Don’t let those concerns monopolise you, define you, confine you, make you fearful and greedy. God is to be trusted.
One of the things that convinces me that this is the testimony of Jesus the worrier – the care-full but carefree one - is that last verse of today’s reading: So do not worry about tomorrow,for tomorrow will bring worries of its’ own. Today’s trouble is enough for today(verse 34). What that says to me is that Jesus knew well that the constraining, destructive aspect of worry is a constant and recurring issue for the worrier. It is not settled one and for all – it confronts the person who would be a disciple every single day. That’s why we have to strive to keep God’s rule and God’s righteousness constantly in view. Strive for
God’s rule in all things – that means praying for God’s ruling race and power – letting it shape our thoughts and our voicing of them; that means living it – behaving as those for whom God’s authority is a real everyday reality; that means anticipating God’s rule as the goal of all our striving – giving direction and purpose to all that we do and are.
‘Our security comes from who God is, not from how we feel’ – that’s Eugene Peterson again (A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society,
InterVarsity Press). Peterson draws out attention to the fact that we experience, we feel, we understand, much that is important and true about our lives through our emotions. They tell us so much about ourselves and about other people. Indeed our emotions are often vital parts of our discovering of reality. It’s a fool who thinks that emotions aren’t a significant part of our understanding of the world and our place in it. Our emotions tell us so much about being human – but they tell us very little about God.
Here’s where we often get into a terrible muddle that confuses and disorientates – we feel that feelings should be paramount in our discernment of God’s presence and care. But they are not. Indeed we know our emotions to be fickle and often frighteningly short-lived,
and that means if our relationship to God (or indeed to other people) is solely based on emotion then disillusionment isn’t far away.
Faith is a matter of will before it is a matter of feeling. Our discipleship is a decision to live by what we know about God, not an emotional response dependent on what we feel
about God. This is Gospel – good news – for the worrier. It is not our worries, our emotions, or our feelings that define who we are. Only God’s love defines us – no more and no less.
With that love at the heart of life, our worries become cares not catastrophes, proper concerns not debilitating perplexities. The sovereign God is gracious and faithful – that’s the experience, and the promise, of Jesus the worrier.
summertime about missing an examination paper! In fact I can feel the shudder of
anxiety even as I tell you about it.
I take heart from the fact that a survey I read somewhere suggested that such a worry was amongst the most common of people’s worries – some 20 per cent of people said they worried about exams. Other common worries found by the survey were job security (15%), personal health (32%), relationships with other people (39%), and money (45%). That comes to a tally of 151% of worry – well I can go with that, for at some time in my life any one of those topics has felt like that.
I’m a worrier by nature.
That some of you will immediately tune into what I’m saying, will instantaneously feel empathy, and clearly understand my feelings without any effort, adds a further dimension. I’m a born worrier, and perhaps you are too.
Today’s gospel reading comes to me as an affront. Therefore I tell you, do not worry
about your life (verse 25). Who is Jesus kidding? On the face of it that assertion is no help to me at all! Telling me not to worry is like telling a dog not to bark, or a fish not to swim. It is wasted advice that is no use at all. And even worse than that: if not worrying is a mark of being a true disciple, then I’m lost. This isn’t my liberation but my condemnation. It seems that I’m hemmed in with no way out. Worried indeed, left to my own wretchedness.
Forgive me for being so personal. A sermon is not the place to parade one’s own anxieties.
My only excuse is that this is a deadly earnest issue for me, and I suspect I am not alone.
Being personal let’s me share a thought that I have found illuminating, and freeing, and full of hope. And the thought is simply this – Jesus was a worrier too!
Luke tells us that on the night of his betrayal he was on the Mount of Olives and he had withdrawn from his friends. In his anguish, Luke says, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like
great drops of blood falling down on the ground (Luke 22.44). We all recognise it –we’ve seen it in others, or known it for ourselves – that state of profound worry where your body starts to ouse your anxiety. It starts with clamminess, but becomes great blobs of sweat that drop off you, like rain running down a pane of glass. This is a human being deeply
worried. Interestingly some manuscripts of Luke’s gospel omit this verse. Perhaps centuries ago some monk scribe felt uncomfortable with this all too human Jesus.
And it wasn’t just on that terrifying night of betrayal either. When Jesus goes away in solitude, could it be that those times are indications of his worry? The crowds press in on him, expectations are aroused; perhaps they are on the verge of putting him in the
position of open rebellion against the authorities. Even close friends and confidants seem not to understand. Perhaps even those closest to him might take the part of the mob and try to push him into a campaign of violent resistance. There’s much to worry about here. And that’s before we consider whether he had inner concerns about his own strength to carry things through. Was he up to the task? The lonely question that can trouble any of us in particular circumstances – did that same question worry Jesus?
I think Jesus was a worrier. There are more than two-dozen references to worry in the gospel accounts. The Jesus who speaks of worry knows what he is talking about.
He knows how undermining it is. e knows its destructive power. He is alert to its real threat.
So when Jesus finds solace in the wildflowers bobbing in breezy sunshine we can see for real a human determination to let beauty speak even when one’s thoughts are awash with anxiety (Matthew 6.29). Or when birdsong lifts his spirits (Matthew 6.26), isn’t that the same thought that comes to all of us when the gloom and death of winter is getting to
us and we long for intimations of spring’s new life? These are things associated
with human worry and anxiety. Yes, Jesus was a worrier, but the worry didn’t envelope him, didn’t cut him off from his heavenly Father, or from other people, or indeed from his real self. You see it’s not the having of worries that’s the problem, but how you handle them. Worries can crush and harm you. Change the very way you think and act. Or worries can be part of the risk of living but not things that harm your ultimate confidence in life. Worries don’t have to be a gloomy shadow that makes everything worse. As someone said, Jesus had many worries; but the worries didn’t have him. He had many cares,
but he was carefree.
We – we worriers – shouldn’t take Jesus’ Do not worry about your life as a criticism, but rather as a reassurance that your trust in God is what really changes things.
Eugene Peterson’s translation (The Message, NavPress) of some of the verses from today’s passage from Matthew puts it brilliantly:
If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers – most which are never even seen – don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?
What I’m trying to do to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way
he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out.
You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
Jesus had many cares, but he was carefree. His worries didn’t paralyse him because his personality, indeed his very personhood, was grounded in trust of God. And that’s what
he asks of us. As ever, Christian discipleship comes down to very ordinary, everyday things – yes, food, and clothing, and shelter, and relationships, are important. Of course we’ll worry about those things, but don’t let that proper care destroy your ultimate trust. Don’t let those concerns monopolise you, define you, confine you, make you fearful and greedy. God is to be trusted.
One of the things that convinces me that this is the testimony of Jesus the worrier – the care-full but carefree one - is that last verse of today’s reading: So do not worry about tomorrow,for tomorrow will bring worries of its’ own. Today’s trouble is enough for today(verse 34). What that says to me is that Jesus knew well that the constraining, destructive aspect of worry is a constant and recurring issue for the worrier. It is not settled one and for all – it confronts the person who would be a disciple every single day. That’s why we have to strive to keep God’s rule and God’s righteousness constantly in view. Strive for
God’s rule in all things – that means praying for God’s ruling race and power – letting it shape our thoughts and our voicing of them; that means living it – behaving as those for whom God’s authority is a real everyday reality; that means anticipating God’s rule as the goal of all our striving – giving direction and purpose to all that we do and are.
‘Our security comes from who God is, not from how we feel’ – that’s Eugene Peterson again (A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society,
InterVarsity Press). Peterson draws out attention to the fact that we experience, we feel, we understand, much that is important and true about our lives through our emotions. They tell us so much about ourselves and about other people. Indeed our emotions are often vital parts of our discovering of reality. It’s a fool who thinks that emotions aren’t a significant part of our understanding of the world and our place in it. Our emotions tell us so much about being human – but they tell us very little about God.
Here’s where we often get into a terrible muddle that confuses and disorientates – we feel that feelings should be paramount in our discernment of God’s presence and care. But they are not. Indeed we know our emotions to be fickle and often frighteningly short-lived,
and that means if our relationship to God (or indeed to other people) is solely based on emotion then disillusionment isn’t far away.
Faith is a matter of will before it is a matter of feeling. Our discipleship is a decision to live by what we know about God, not an emotional response dependent on what we feel
about God. This is Gospel – good news – for the worrier. It is not our worries, our emotions, or our feelings that define who we are. Only God’s love defines us – no more and no less.
With that love at the heart of life, our worries become cares not catastrophes, proper concerns not debilitating perplexities. The sovereign God is gracious and faithful – that’s the experience, and the promise, of Jesus the worrier.
