2022.08.07 | What Me Worried?
“What Me Worried?”
Rev. Pepper Swanson
Eden United Church of Christ
Jul 31, 2022
Luke 12:22-34
The COVID lockdown of 2020, the California wildfires, life-threatening racism in law enforcement, the 2020 Presidential election deniers, the Jan 6 insurrection, the COVID re-openings, the Omicron surge, growing inflation in the cost of food and housing, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the strong possibility of recession and collapse of the overheated stock and housing markets, the persistence of Omicron variants, and the rise of monkeypox.
If you aren’t somewhat worried or slightly afraid or completely freaked out by now, I’d be very surprised. Our news feeds are filled with advice on how to cope with what is a completely logical and understandable uptick in worry and fear.
Thankfully, there’s a lot of expert and amateur psychological advice available to us. For example, you may have you heard or read these suggestions for addressing excess worry and anxiety triggered by recent events and how they impact our lives:
Limit how much news you watch
Allow yourself only 15 minutes each day to worry
Make a list of your worries
Take action to manage or reduce worries
Talk to a friend or a counselor
Meditate
Exercise
Cut out caffeine
Stop drinking
Eat a healthy diet
I don’t know if you have tried any of these techniques or if they’ve been effective for you. I come from a long line of worry warts and ruminators — we worry through good times and bad — so I’ve tried almost all of them at one time or another but recently I find myself pulled almost daily back into what I call unhelpful thinking by this one unavoidable truth: so much of what worries me is out of my control.
I cannot control what the Indiana legislature did yesterday to eliminate abortion rights, I cannot control what the Republicans of Arizona did this week in electing election deniers to be their nominees for this fall’s governor, attorney general, and secretary of state races, I cannot control how COVID/Omicron keeps on making people sick, I cannot control the economy’s impact on my budget — heck, I can’t even control the people at the local Costco who think wearing a face mask is passe or weak.
So, for today, I thought we would explore the advice Jesus offers for those who fear or worry in our passage from the Gospel of Luke.
Today’s reading follows on the heels of last week’s reading in which Jesus chided a man for wanting his brother to share his inheritance and told a parable criticizing a rich man for storing up excess wealth in order to ensure his future. I like to think that in today’s reading, Jesus is having a moment of insight that his disciples and followers are, as we are often these days, intensely worried about having enough money.
He offers four suggestions about how to think about worries:
First, Jesus tells his disciples that life is more than food and the body is more than clothing.
This is not a request for those with no food to simply focus on something else but an invitation for those who have food and clothing to decenter its acquisition from the central meaning of their lives.
This is sage advice for those who take refuge in our consumer culture with its emphasis on good food and ample clothing, which is probably all of us. In other words, one should look more broadly at what, other than cooking and online shopping, gives one’s meaning.
Second, by comparing humans to ravens, Jesus invites us to examine our trust in God’s ability to provide for us.
This is an invitation for those who are obsessed with storing up goods, like last week’s Rich Fool, to lessen their anxieties about what might happen in the future by trusting that the same God that cares and provides for birds will surely provide for humans, the most valuable of God’s creation.
In our time, many who worry about the future often carry a worst case scenario in their minds, imagining being homeless, eating cat food, or having to beg. Jesus says decentering those thoughts and trusting that one’s needs will be provided for can help reduce worry.
Third, Jesus rightly points out that worrying accomplishes nothing for the worrier. He says if you can not even add a single hour to your life or an inch to your height by worrying, why worry at all?
He invites us to see that anxiety itself is ineffective and unable to improve our lives.
He doesn’t mention it but many of us know that excess worrying can add to our waistlines and that’s why we have those COVID 10, 15, or 20 pounds now. Rather than add to our life, worrying detracts from the quality of our life.
Fourth, Jesus points to the lilies that grow wild and how beautiful they are, though they are weeds that will later be collected and burned. Jesus invites us to use our logic that God will provide for us as God provides for the wild lily because we have a greater value.
Jesus’ four-fold advice might be summarized as: 1) there is more to life than what you are worrying about and 2) see and believe that God will provide what you need and more.
It’s sound advice overall but thankfully the passage doesn’t end there. Jesus goes on to add this key thing: the kingdom of God. He asks his disciples to both strive for the kingdom and reminds them that it was God’s pleasure to give them the kingdom.
In the Gospel of Luke and its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, the kingdom of God is the core message of Jesus’ ministry. He proclaims it as his purpose at the beginning of his ministry, he travels from town to town preaching it, he send out missionaries to proclaim it, he rebuts the idea that it is still forthcoming and claims it is already among the people, he describes it as open to all, and he is crucified for his relentless promotion of it. Even as the Risen One, he continues to teach and preach the kingdom of God for 30 days.
If being given the kingdom of God is central to not worrying about food, clothes, and life in general, it’s important that we know what the kingdom of God is. Luke teaches us that the kingdom emerges with Jesus and becomes visible through what he says and does. In short, the kingdom is within those who share their material wealth, give to those who ask, refuse to judge others, forgive each other’s wrongs, and who take action that corresponds with their faith. The kingdom is wherever Jesus’ followers step over cultural boundaries with compassion, love God and their neighbors, and practice genuine humility. The kingdom, Jesus says, is a small thing that will grow and the kingdom is a precious thing that is lost and will, when found, be a cause for much joy.
By connecting his thoughts on worrying to the kingdom of God as he himself taught and embodied it, Jesus is asking his disciples to worry less about what is out of their control and to focus more on what is in their control by becoming someone who see and believes in the values of the kingdom and its potential to reduce the worries and fears of others.
If I connect the kingdom to my worries, if I see and practice kingdom values, I focus not on Indiana but on the people of Kansas sustaining the right to chose in their Constitution, not on Tucker Carlson’s latest screed but on the verdict against Alex Jones for claiming Sandy Hook was a lie, and closer to home, not on road rage and masks but on backpacks and Comida, and even closer to my heart, not on judgment and grievances but on forgiveness and mercy. I trade in my sense that what I worry about is out of my control and I focus more on what is in my control, especially the daily practices of Christianity such as Bible reading, prayer, offerings, and open heartedness to others through giving freely of what I have and what I do.
The final sentence of today’s reading is one familiar to Harry Potter fans. Harry finds Luke 12:34 (“For where your treasure is there your heart will be also.”) on Dumbledore’s tombstone in Book Seven and is baffled what it means. Later Harry discovers that his beloved headmaster faulted himself as a young man for placing his attention, his focus, not on what matters in life but on the pursuit of power and control and domination of others. Our life, in other words, is a product of where we put our emphasis each and every day.
I believe Jesus’ point about worry is much the same: it matters where we put our focus. It matters to our minds—whether we are wracked with worry or not—and it matters to our families and it matters to our communities and it matters, ultimately, to our nation and our world.
My friends, don’t worry about your life, have faith that God will provide, and put your treasure in the kingdom of God, so that your heart will be there also, now and for the rest of your life. Amen.