ANYthing!

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

February 27, 2011

ANYthing!

Matthew 6:24-34

John McEnroe, the great tennis star of the late 1970s and early 80s,

was famous not only for his skills as a tennis player,

but also for his temper tantrums on the court.

If he didn’t like an umpire’s call,

he would stand at the baseline,

glare at the umpire and shout words

that have since become famous,

“you cannot be serious!”.

Hearing today’s lesson

many of us may find ourselves wanting

to sit down with Jesus and say the same thing:

“You cannot be serious!”

None of us would say it in a fit of McEnroe-like rage, of course;

But still, do you think Jesus really expects

that we will stop worrying?

Over the past few weeks we’ve talked about how much

Jesus expects from us:

that we are called to live “Sermon-on-the-Mount” lives,

called to live holy lives,

that we are even called to be perfect.

But “don’t worry”?

The call to holiness sounds easy by comparison.

        

After all, who doesn’t worry?

Even the calmest person worries from time to time.

We’re wired to worry.

I am guessing that psychologists probably see

a moderate amount of worry as a good thing:

a little worrying may help us to think through

something that confronts us – a problem,

a concern, a relationship –

so we can figure out a constructive, positive way to deal with it.

                 

A careful reading of this passage

reminds us that Jesus isn’t issuing a blanket command,

“don’t ever worry.”

No, he shows us that he understands that

it is human nature to worry about some things.

A parent is going to worry about a child

who is driving home from college in a snowstorm;

A job applicant is going to worry about the interview

he’s just had, wondering whether he said the right thing;

A person facing surgery is going to worry about

the procedure and whether she’ll recover completely.

We heard Jesus clarify things for us at the end of our lesson,

“So do not worry about tomorrow,

for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.

Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

(Matthew 6:34)

Jesus is helping us to let go of at least some worry

by telling us not to worry about what might happen tomorrow;

that we should stay focused on today.

It’s the wise lesson that is at the very heart of

any 12-step program:

One day at a time.

Deal with tomorrow when tomorrow comes.

As Scarlett O’Hara said so famously

at the end of “Gone With The Wind”:

“Tomorrow is another day.”

But our text really isn’t about worrying.

Like most of Jesus’ teachings,

we have to dig a little deeper to discover what it is

that Jesus wants us to learn from his words to us.

This is principally a lesson about putting our trust in God;

putting all our trust in God.

Choosing to trust God in all things,

everything,

anything.

It’s why Matthew pairs the story with the first verse we heard,

that we cannot serve God and mammon,

God and wealth,

God and money.

The text that most clergy save for Stewardship season.

The two lessons do go together, though,

for together they remind us that

we are called to make a choice of where we will put our trust:

in ourselves, our money, our own abilities;

in idols and gods we can see,

touch, count.

Will we put our trust in the comforting idea that

the more we have, the more successful we are?

If we can quantify it, then it must be good:

how much money we have in the bank;

how many friends we have on Facebook;

many texts we receive each day.

Jesus calls us to put our trust completely in God.

He calls us to do so even though he knows that

in spite of his examples,

there’s no guarantee that such a life will be easy:

The birds of the air still have to deal with

heavy snows that can make food all but impossible to find,

fierce winds that can destroy a nesting spot,

and bitter cold that can kill.

The lilies of the field may have their moments of glory,

but drought and brutal summer’s heat can wilt the very life

of a even the most glorious flower.

Is there anyone in the Old Testament who suffers more than Job?

Everything he’d spent a lifetime building is taken from him:

his family, his wealth, and even his health.

The wreckage of his life is strewn before his wife and his friends,

such awful carnage that his wife sees no road

for her husband other than to, “Curse God and die.”

(Job 2:9)

But even in the depths of his suffering and his misery

Job speaks so powerfully of his unwavering faith in God:

“Though he kill me, yet I will trust him.”

Or, as it can also be translated,

“Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.”

(Job 13:16)

Job is part of such a small group we find in the Bible,

such a small group we find anywhere:

men and women who put their complete trust,

their complete faith,

all their hope in the Lord God.

Abraham,

Moses,

Mary, with those trusting words of hers

to the angel Gabriel:

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord;

let it be to me according to your word.”

(Luke 1:38)

None of them lived easy, carefree lives,

lives of comfort, wealth, security.

But still, they put their trust in God.

They put their trust in God

even though they could have chosen otherwise:

Abraham could have stayed put in Haran;

Job could have done as his wife called on him to do,

cursed God and died;

Moses could have ignored his Jewish heritage

and lived in privilege and comfort

in the house of Pharaoh’s daughter;

Mary could have shouted in angry anguish to Gabriel,

“Why would the Lord shame me so? Begone from me!”

But they did no such thing, any of them.

They did as God asked of them;

living holy lives,

lives in obedience to God’s will,

confident of God’s presence in their lives

both on good days and on bad days;

when the sun was shining brightly on them,

and when they walked through

the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

In his letter to the Philippians Paul wrote,

“Do not worry about anything,

but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving

let your requests be made known to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

(Philippians 4:6)

“Don’t worry about ANYthing,” Paul tells us;

Don’t worry because God is never more than a prayer away,

always there,

always with you, always with me.

We can walk through life with that knowledge,

that promise, and leave worry behind

because we will be filled with such an extraordinary peace,

a peace that surpasses all understanding,

peace that comes only from God,

peace that comes only from putting our trust,

our faith,

our hope,

our lives in God.

Peace that comes from knowing

that when we do worry about something,

when something troubles us,

we have only to lift our concerns, our worries,

our anxieties, our fears

to God in prayer,

and God will hear our prayers,

and answer our prayers,

of course, with the caveat that

God answers prayers in God’s time,

and in God’s way.

This is a time of anxiety and worry

for high school seniors here in our church,

in our community, and across the nation,

as they wait to hear from the colleges they’ve applied to.

Many of them are fervently lifting up their prayers to God,

“Please God, let my first choice school admit me.”

And then a few weeks from now,

they’ll open up their mailboxes,

and some will find acceptances,

while others, inevitably, will find
that telltale thin envelope,

the one bearing the news they’ve dreaded,

every school using the same language,

“we regret…

in spite of your impressive record…

we wish you success in your future endeavors.”

The student who has put her faith in God,

his trust in God will still be disappointed, of course,

but they’ll know that God has not abandoned them,

turned a deaf ear to them.

They’ll know that the promise of Deuteronomy has been kept,

that underneath them still and always are the everlasting arms;

the words spoken by God through the prophet Isaiah still true:

“I will be with you, because you are precious in my sight.”

And that student will know

that he’ll end up where he’s supposed to be,

that she’ll be where God wants her to be,

and eventually peace will fill them,

replacing the feelings of disappointment.

I have “written you on the palm of my hand.”
(Isaiah 49)

is one of the more curious ways God reminds us

that he is always with us, walking with us,

“neither slumbering nor sleeping”

as the Psalmist puts us, even when we are.

If we trust in these words

then we can quiet our souls,

trust in God, and walk through life,

through the sun and the warmth,

and the wind and the dark and the cold.

We’ll still worry, of course,

but much less because we’ll know

that with God’s help we’ll find our way through

whatever it is that life might hand us.

A commentator observed that

“followers of Jesus should be the freest persons –

free from anxiety,

free from social conventions of materialism,

free with their generosity toward others.”

Free because we’re at peace;

Free because we’ve lifted our worries to God;

Free because our trust is in God,

our hope is in God,

our lives are in God.

To go through life as Jesus calls us to

is not to go through life singing glibly,

“Don’t worry, be happy.”

Rather, Jesus calls us to the serious work

of living holy lives,

lives in service to God as we follow him,

striving for the Kingdom and God’s righteousness,

lives dedicated to serving,

to building up,

to ridding the world of those things

that get in the way of God’s Kingdom,

things like greed and violence,

poverty and injustice.

But if we set worry aside

and put our hope, our faith, our trust in God,

we can walk through life filled with the peace

which surpasses all understanding,

Paul’s words on our lips and in hearts:

“rejoice in the Lord always,

again I say rejoice.”

AMEN