Matthew 6.25-34 Worry

Matthew 6:25-34

 

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

So, here we are, still on the hillside with Jesus as he develops, in the passage we’ve come to know as the Sermon on the Mount, his theme of what it means to be a true man or woman of faith to the crowds who had come to listen. If you use your imagination you can see that it is spring time in Galilee.  Jesus had no rows of chairs to set up or pulpit to preach from, so he moved among the crowd as they sat on the ground and listened. Walking around he can see the flowers, he can hear the birds, and they provide him with a theme which he uses to talk about worry.

Interestingly verse 24, which is usually included in this lectionary reading, has been missed out. It’s the verse about not serving two masters and ends with the phrase, You cannot serve God and wealth. I’m pleased it’s been missed out because including it tends to skew our understanding of the passage as being all about money and worrying about it.

So, let’s be clear: Jesus is addressing the basis for excessive worry and anxiety that can result from a life out of kilter with God. We worry about our food and our clothes.  We worry about our houses and how we fit into society and any number of things but the text calls us as disciple to a different set of values, different priorities, a life characterized by a way of being that’s aligned more and more to the priorities of the Kingdom, a kingdom not of power, not of might, but a kingdom of mercy, justice, and grace.

It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t acquire possessions or need food, clothing and other necessities. Rather, once we become disciples, we adopt the values, behaviours and priorities that God affirms. God knows our needs before we ever ask him.  God hears our wants and Jesus is warning us of the danger of forgetting God's role in our lives and the importance of depending on him. When our wants are shaped into God's will, then our contribution to bringing the kingdom closer becomes more focused.

I have a friend who lives with anxiety: it comes and goes, but at its worst, the smallest thing can throw his equilibrium and lead him down paths of paranoia as he looks for some motive or outcome that’s designed to do him down. In his mind he has what he calls the reverse Midas touch – you remember that everything King Midas touched turned to gold? So reverse Midas? Well, I’ll leave that to your imagination. That’s not only emotionally challenging for him but it’s also draining for those of us he unburdens on. He looks inwards all the time and rarely seems to look outwards.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to live with that level of worry and yet worry seems to be an inescapable fact of life. Just take a moment to think about what your worries are.  It seems to me that worry is a continuum and we’re all on that line somewhere but what does worrying accomplish? An ulcer? Sleepless nights? Added stress? Is that how we want to live our lives?

Yes, of course significant events can push us further along that line but most of us live relatively worry-free lives in that we’re fed, we’re clothed, we’re housed, we’ve parented reasonable effectively and most of us have enough money to cope, even if sometimes it feels a bit nip and tuck. We also live in a society that, whatever its shortcomings, has various social safety-nets in place for the most vulnerable. Where does that leave our personal concerns – the one’s we’ve just considered? How many of them I wonder, are just … well, a bit trivial in the wider scheme of things? 

Knowing that, of course, isn’t much of a consolation if you happen to be prone to anxiety or are going through a particularly difficult patch at work or with the family or have a serious health problem or an unexpectedly large bill. Being told to get a sense of perspective because other people elsewhere are much worse off than you is at best trite and at worst downright insensitive.

My mother’s mantra was always, “Remember the starving children in Africa.” Strangely, remembering them didn’t make me feel any better. And how well do we take to the suggestion that we should count our blessings in times of personal trouble?

However, Jesus’ statement, … can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life span? is clearly true because medical studies suggest that prolonged anxiety significantly shortens our lives.

I was thinking this week of one of the men who regularly came to chapel in the prison. I was remembering a conversation where he’d had a very rocky couple of weeks: he’d lost his job in the prison kitchens for snacking on the food, and therefore his major source of income; his partner had gone off with someone else: he’d started dabbling with drugs again and had lost his two front teeth in a fight. (Those of you who’ve watched any of the recent documentaries on prison life will have some inkling of what I’m talking about.) His take on things was very interesting. “I’ve hit rock bottom because I took my eyes off the Lord.” His main worry wasn’t all the woes he faced but the fact that, in his own words, he’d ceased to be a pillar for the Lord but had become, instead, a pillock for the Lord. He’d stopped looking inwards and was looking outwards.

His troubles had driven him to some extreme behaviour but his main concern was for his compromised Christian witness. His concern wasn’t what people thought of him but what people thought of the God he follows because, he feared, people judged God through his discipleship. “Call yourself a Christian?” And his response? “I’ve given it all to the Lord. It’s my only option. I’m back on track and I’m going to use this as part of my testimony of what God can do in your life.”

“I’ve given it all to The Lord. It’s my only option.”

That led me on to remembering another man I’d been spending some time in the prison: a man who had murdered his wife. There had been serious provocation, but murder is murder. I’ve never met anyone as remorseful, and he’d attempted suicide so was on a constant watch because he might have tried again. In the early stages of our conversations he saw suicide as his only solution. However bad life his in prison she’s worse off, was his reasoning, and he couldn’t rationalise that while he was fed, clothed and warm, she was lying in the cold ground. “There is no punishment good enough for me.”

He asked if I could take him to the chapel at the exact time of her funeral and there’s a short liturgy for those unable to attend a funeral. Distraught as he was, it was a profound experience for him and it shifted the way he saw things: he wanted to start coming to chapel regularly; he was starting to understand that God has forgiven him and that’s the first step to being able to forgive himself. There’s a way to go yet for him, and I’d be grateful if you’d keep both these men in your prayers, Delroy and James - and they’re happy for you to know their stories - but I use these examples because for me they illustrate today’s Gospel in a way that most of our lives probably can’t. For both of them the way out of worry and anxiety and, indeed, self-loathing, has been to turn to God: either to turn back or to begin that journey. Out of the depth of their experiences, their pain, their guilt, their messed up lives and their bad choices, is a sense that hope comes through faith in God. They had started looking outward rather than inwards.

Now, I don’t want to suggest that to experience what Jesus is saying in today’s Gospel needs each and every one of us to plumb the depths and I know that what I’ve said comes perilously close to saying, “Look, other people have it worse than you so get a grip”,  but the context of these stories shows how true Jesus’ words are when 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. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? …. You of little faith …. your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness ….  The Kingdom of God: our spiritual lives and how we live as disciples should be the focus of our concerns. Instead of turning our worries inwards, we should have a wider concern for how we bring God’s Kingdom closer to others.

For Delroy, the witness that he was so concerned he’d compromised is part of bringing the Kingdom of God to others: he’s striving for it for himself and for others – and prison is not an easy place to be a man of faith. For James, it’s about learning that no one’s beyond redemption in God’s eyes and, as he undertakes a basic counselling course, he’ll become the go-to man for other prisoners who believe that no punishment is good enough or who are deeply remorseful, to speak to and gain support from. That too will serve the Kingdom of God.

Can we take a leaf out of their books? Can we trust that despite our woes and worries God is in control? And if we believe that, can we leave those worries behind and concentrate on the job at hand, our witness as disciples and the part that plays in bringing the Kingdom of God closer? Looking outwards and not inwards.