“Is Not Life More?”
Matthew 6:24-34
First Presbyterian Church
The Reverend Donald Ray
May 25, 2008
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I received an email a few weeks ago from a friend
whose son in the military is stationed in
Often in preparation for a sermon, I do some random exploration of the topic and subtopics that I see may be part of it. Googling the word “anxiety,” among the listings I selected was a chat page for sufferers of chronic anxiety. One contributor wrote about his nighttime struggles with panic attacks . I was surprised to read the advice of a fellow chronic anxiety sufferer who should know better. “Try to think positive” she offered.
Anxiety results from our sense of not being in control of a situation. “Positive thinking” rarely is effective in the midst of fears because in the throes of anxiety, thoughts are overwhelmed by feelings.
I may have been a little obsessive about “anxiety” this week but when I opened the internet explorer on my computer one morning and noticed a headline, “Beat bikini season anxiety” I clicked on it—to check what it had to say about anxiety. Columnist Stacy Nadeau offered this equation: “Thoughts lead to feelings which lead to actions which produce results.” For example she writes, “If I get the thought in my head that I don’t look attractive in my bathing suit, it makes me feel down and bad about myself. A thought led to a feeling, but I can change the thought to: ‘I don’t have time to worry about you; I’m here to have fun.’ I am able to shift my thought into a positive feeling. Once I feel good again, I’ll get up and go enjoy the day with my friends and the result will be that I didn’t allow my inner critic to get the best of me.” Not being anxious about clothing, I thought was a pretty good example of this morning’s text
There is the anxiety triggered by threat to ours or our loved ones safety and security; health and well being. This results from circumstances beyond our control and it’s human nature to fear the worst.
But there is anxiety that we pretty much cause for ourselves. We teach ourselves to be anxious. That happens by way of what we allow ourselves to think are the most important things in life. In what we have come to call the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew quotes Jesus as saying, “do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about you body, what you shall put on.” (Matthew 6:25)
In William Martin’s “Contemplative Reflections on the Art of Pastoring” based on the Tao Te Ching which we have been digesting or sometimes having indigestion over in Thursday’s Aging and Saging group, Martin writes”
“Only the Word is without end
(Word could be understood as God, Spirit, the Tao, Christ)
Therefore be aware of the temporary
and never give it too much importance.
If people gave less attention to the multitude of things
temporary,
and more attention to the one thing
permanent,
there would be room in their hearts
for the writing of the Word (1)
Jesus concludes: “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘what shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘ What shall we wear?’…your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.” (Matthew 6:31-33)
“Trying to think positive” has minimal to no effect in the midst of anxiety. But adjusting what we think is important, even vital to and about our life can ward off anxiety. The temporary is temporary. There is nothing we can do to make it otherwise. When we try, that takes us out of our control and we become anxious about our needs and wants. Luke in his Gospel tells us the story of Martha and Mary. This is one we guys love when pressured with a “honey do” list. Martha’s anxiety rises when she can’t accomplish all the hosting preparations she thinks are important. Things are out of control. So she comes to Jesus with a plea for help, namely her sister Mary’s help. That’s kind of a symptom of anxiety. If we’re anxious, why shouldn’t everyone else be too. But Jesus reminded Martha that her anxiety was off target. Mary had chosen what was important.
The too frequently offered formulary of praying for God to give us the things we think we need for life is little more than an attempt at thinking positive in the midst of our anxiety. Jesus’ consistent answer to anxieties in Matthew’s sermon and Luke’s Martha tale is not to bring in God’s help with the things we are anxious about but the change in our thought pattern that gives “less attention to the multitude of things temporary and more attention to the One thing permanent.” (Martin)
At the joint meeting of our middle and senior high groups to begin planning for Youth Sunday, Tom shared an email he had received that day outlining a plot to force lower gas prices by a boycott of the current major oil company. Tom asked the youth what they thought about it. I was entertaining the idea, thinking about the curtailing of my camping travel plans because of the high cost to fill the tank. But the youth, admittedly many of them not currently paying at the pump, weren’t sure that reducing the present price was the most important thing. Maybe we should be focusing on conservation choices for the good of all, for the sake of the future. Did Jesus say something about a child, or youth shall lead?
Our text is not about attempting to stifle the feelings of anxiety. Feelings are not so managed. Rather, it appeals to our thinking process. Do we think we can add to our life span by getting into a frenzy about it? No we can’t. So it makes sense to shift our focus and our energy from the momentary to the larger picture.
To seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness is to align with the love, joy and peace that is God present in life. Righteousness is to link life with God in whom we live and move and have our being. Therein is the “more” of life. It is life reduced in the anxiety coming from obsessing over the temporary at the expense of the permanent.
Anxiety is the antithesis of hope. We could wish that it be certainty. If we could be certain of the future, that would relieve all our anxieties. But as Benjamin Franklin observed, “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Certainty is not so reassuring, to say nothing of its tendency toward selfishness and shortsightedness.
This faith journey message from Jesus is not about certainty—that God is going to take care of our wishes. He says God does well by the flowers and the birds, so surely will do well by us—but the flowers and birds live a brief life span. Only certain is as Paul wrote to the Romans: “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…”(Romans 8:38-39) That is the kingdom Jesus says to seek.
In his closing benediction of that same letter, Paul wrote: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” (Romans 8:13)
Hope is a response to our trust in God’s faithful love. The Christian faith is characterized by a strong sense of hope in the future. The earliest Christians lived in the belief that Jesus Christ would return. That reality has somehow been lost in the waiting for a “Second Coming” of Christ. Those who are only waiting usually do so with little patience, lamenting the state of the present.
Hope is not about enduring the present while awaiting the future. The earliest Christians lived in their present. They lived in the reality of God’s kingdom of love and joy and peace. There hope in God was of future and present. Hope is a present stance which is part of shaping the future. Anxiety muddles the present because it fears the future. Hope fills the present with energy and courage.
What of my friend whose son is at risk in
Though we live with the threats of inflation and diminishing resources to the life style with which we have become accustomed, we can change how we pursue the stuff of day to day from anxiety to the hope in God’s love that surrounds us and is within us. Hope in a world of love gives energy, sparks all we live and do with joy, and engages us as peacemakers.
Amen.
(1) “The Art of Pastoring” by William C. Martin p. 32
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