St. John’s United Church of Christ
May 25, 2008
A Sermon by the Rev. John Krueger
Is It Worth the Worry? Matthew 6:24-34
I have wondered about what it would be like to be a part of a small investment club. As I understand it, a group of 5 to 8 people would meet monthly, each pitch in $50 or so and decide as a group how to invest those dollars. Various people would research various possibilities and the fun would be seeing if the analysis and hunches would result in some meaningful gain. Nothing much would be ventured and therefore nothing much would be lost, so getting together would be its own reward.
We are not talking about risking one’s retirement income, for that might prove to be far too stressful. No, this would just be a small investment, the fun in being together, and probably breaking even when all was said and done.
In these past months, playing in the stock market has been an exercise in courage. It seems that daily there are these huge swings, down 200 points, up 175, down again, such a roller coaster. I haven’t heard of people jumping out of tall office buildings, yet, but the stress is real for people who are heavily invested and are heavily dependent on earnings and dividends, as if we didn’t already have enough to worry about!
What do we have to worry about? Well, there is global warming and the fate of polar bears, the diminishing bee population and the effect on pollenization, the safe storage of nuclear waste, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the national debt, climbing daily, the volatility of property taxes, the price of a gallon of gas, the cost of medical insurance and health care, the uncertain job market for some people, the risk of sharing the road with drunk and inattentive drivers, the reality of one’s health as one ages, and the national trade deficit.
If we want to make a list of things to worry about my list would be just a drop in the bucket, for great portions of our lives deal with uncertainty. And then we have these Pollyannaish words from Jesus, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…”
There is within us this urge to take the guess work out of life. We buy car insurance, household insurance, health insurance, long term care insurance and life insurance, willingly paying premiums to cushion the effects of bad news. In our earning years we try to create some sort of nest egg, some source of income for our retirement, worrying if we will have enough. When we are retired we worry if we will outlive our resources, if our money will last as long as our lives, if we will end up, horror of horrors, on welfare.
We worried through the pregnancies of our children. We worried about them as they were growing up. We worried about their transition into adulthood, spouses, jobs, children and careers. That consumed a lot of energy, and, really, there was very little we could do in making things turn out the way we thought they should turn out. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…”
A wise person said this about prayer: “I have lived long enough to thank God that not all of my prayers have been answered.” A corollary would be: “I have lived long enough to thank God that not all the things I worried about happened to me or my loved ones, and what a waste of effort that was!”
When Jesus talked about our urge to worry, he mentioned the bare necessities of life, food, water, and clothing. Jesus grew up in a peasant family, living on the edge. Many of his first followers were also from the peasant class, common working people who lived from day to day. He was talking about the basic necessities, just enough to keep alive.
We live in a much different time, and our list of “necessities” would be quite expansive. We would want not just a reliable car but a car with some amenities, not just a home but a very nice home in a good neighborhood, not just a job but an interesting, rewarding job that pays well with good benefits, not just some money in the bank but enough money to weather some financial crisis. Those are not bad things to want, to be sure, but the longer the list, the more we have to worry about. And Jesus says: “And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”
Actually, it is quite the opposite – worrying will shorten our lives. Worrying about what might happen, what could happen, tends to so burden us that our energy is sapped, our demeanor is darkened and people begin to avoid us. What a downer, for the glass is always not only half empty but leaking, and who wants to spend time with Gloomy Gus or Gloomy Gloria. The sky is always falling. Woe is me.
Is It Worth the Worry? We each will answer that question in our own way, but the Gospel, the Christian Good News, has quite a bit to say to us. The Apostle Paul says it this way in Romans, chapter 8:
“In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For 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 in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Paul wrote this to Christians in Rome who lived in the shadow of the mighty Roman Empire. From time to time our Jewish cousins had been singled out for persecution and those Christians were in the same jeopardy. It would not be easy to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ, but what could be relied on was that God’s love in Christ was stead and trustworthy. Nothing, nothing could come between us and God’s love.
On our good days, we believe this is so. We sing brave hymns about this, read comforting scripture passages and pray with assurance that all is well. But there are other times, lonely times, scary times, when the words of hope and trust seem to fail us, when the prayers do not ring with confidence and our spirits are worn and fragile.
How do we balance good news and bad news? What makes us convinced that life is good when we are confronted with much that is not good? What gets us out of bed in the morning, expecting this day to be a day of blessing and opportunity instead of a day likely to beat us down with another piece of bad news?
I suppose there are medications that can be helpful, balancing our internal chemistry to level out our moods, and such medications have a role to play. But we also have a faith stance that sustains us, one grounded in a conviction that beyond our understanding, God and God’s goodness surround our lives.
This is not a provable proposition in the same way you can prove gravity by dropping a ball. This is a stubborn choice to believe that God is present, that God cares, and that God is an active participant in the events of our lives. This God does not pull strings and put words in our mouths, for that work is ours, autonomous and accountable people. But God wills this to be a good world, a safe world, a compassionate world, one in which each of us can grow into our potential.
I do believe that all things are working together for our good, that God is alive and well, and that we have nothing ultimately to fear in this life, or in the world to come. Perhaps that is a gift I received from my mother, the Cockeyed Optimist as some have called her. She taught me that worry was never worth it. Her faith came from the scriptures such as the words of Jesus here in Matthew’s Gospel. It also came from the vision from the prophet Micah:
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Neither shall they learn war any more;
But they shall all sit under their own vines, under their own fig trees,
And no one shall make them afraid,
For the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.”