Don't Worry, Be

Note: The following is my sermon manuscript for a message I preached at Woodmont Christian Church in Nashville on October 2. The text was Matthew 6:25-34. I strayed from this manuscript here and there, but this is mainly the gist.

It’s weird how some memories stick with us. For example, I remember this one day in elementary school when they let us bring in music that could be played over the PA system at lunch. In hindsight, I’m kind of impressed that they were able to pull this off because we were all brining in cassette tapes, which, for those of you who were born in the last two and a half decades, were a horribly inefficient way to listen to music. Regardless, this opportunity was pretty exciting for a bunch of six and seven year olds.

I only remember three songs that were played in the cafeteria that day. This was around 1990, so every third girl wanted to play “Right Stuff” by New Kids on the Block. I brought a Disney cassette and requested “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” because no matter how far I travel back in my memory, I’m still a dork. And then the third song was one that I apologize for mentioning because for the rest of the day it will be trapped inside the brains of those who know it: Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

I bring up that ode to positivity because, as we continue in our series on the Sermon on the Mount, we come to Jesus’ admonishment to not worry. I think that we sometimes we gloss over the passage and water it down to where Jesus is standing on the mountain singing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” And that song is a lovely sentiment, but it often doesn’t stand up to the things in this life that truly cause us concerns: job pressures, financial stress, challenges in family, a rancorous political season, your pastor asking you to preach a sermon when you haven’t even figured out how to operate voicemail on your phone. I’m kidding about that last one. I’m happy to be preaching this morning. Though I am having trouble with my voicemail.

Jesus does indeed tell us not to worry, but what he pushes his listeners towards runs deeper than simple happiness. Our passage today begins, “Therefore I tell you do not worry about your life…” We have to pause there because “therefore” is a bridge that connects this passage to what Jesus said previously about trying to serve God and wealth. We won’t rehash all of what was said last week, but there is a clear connection that those who throw their being into money and material possessions will have a difficult time following what Jesus teaches about worry.

So don’t worry about your life, about what you eat, drink, or what you’ll wear. If we stopped there, many of us would be like, “No problem, Jesus. We’re good.” Most of us don’t have to worry about where our next meal will come from or whether we’ll have the clothes to keep us warm come winter. We are fortunate to live in a very different context from which Jesus and his original listeners lived. Survival was an all too real concern for those who were listening on the mountain that day. Yet these people were encouraged to trust God in spite of those hand-to-mouth circumstances. A first century rabbi named Eliezer the Great put it this way, “Whoever has a morsel of bread in a basket and says, ‘What shall I eat tomorrow?’ is one of those who have little faith.”

Now on one hand that puts some of what I worry about in a completely different light. Suddenly my worries of missing a football game or it taking three hours to turn on to Hillsboro when I get off work seem small when I consider that people around the world and in this city don’t have a place to lay their head. Yet not all that worries us are, as they say, first world problems. The sickness of loved ones, a desire to give our children a good education, wondering if we are making the most of our lives: these are legitimate situations that can cause us great concern. So we should continue to listen on Jesus’ teachings.

“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 I will be honest with you, this is where I have trouble with this passage. Because birds are not always fed. The lilies of the field, which Jesus mentions late in the passage are not always clothed in resplendent colors. Drought, natural disaster, and predators can cut the lives of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field quite short. And if we extend that model to humans, then many of us can think of people who have followed God who do not have all of their needs provided.

This is one of places where it’s important to remember that there are parts of scripture that, as Douglas R. A. Hare wrote, we should read as poetry rather that prose. If we’re going to treat these images like a nature documentary then, yeah, they start to unravel. But Jesus is not saying that we are supposed to mimic the birds or the lilies. Otherwise there would be the implication that we should simply do nothing and God will take care of us. 

And I don’t think that Jesus is suggesting that we are not supposed to work, that we are not supposed to plan ahead. The issue here is not the action of work or preparation, but rather a state of mind in which we are caught in a vicious cycle of anxiety over securing our wants and needs through our own efforts.

We ought to see the birds of the air and the lilies of the field as this beautiful picture of God’s care for creation. In fact this picture is supposed to be a starting point to consider something even more breathtaking. Jesus remarks that the beautiful grass of the field will simply be tossed in the fire for fuel. How much more does God care for you than for grass which is hear today and gone tomorrow? The early church father John Chrysostom seized upon this simple pronoun “you” and said:

The force of the emphasis is on “you” to indicate covertly how great is the value set upon your personal existence and the concern God shows for you in particular. It is as though he were saying, “You, to whom He gave a soul, for whom He fashioned a body, for whose sake He made everything in creation, for whose sake he sent He sent prophets, and gave the law, and wrought those innumerable good works, and for whose sake He gave up His only begotten Son.”

Are you not of more value to God than birds and grass? You matter to God greatly. Each of us is a being that God cares for more than I could ever convey. Jesus wants us to trust that and not let our hearts be flooded with worry and anxiety. Worry is only a beast that consumes. It does not add any time to our lives. Worry will not fill our bank accounts. It will not stop terrible things from happening. It won’t magically make that political candidate you don’t like more palatable or suddenly unable to talk. Worry only creates more worry. Jesus knows this and Jesus wants us to trust God, which I understand is far, far easier said than done.

A little over a year ago, our oldest son Jim was getting ready to start kindergarten. In the weeks leading up to his first day, he was constantly asked whether he was excited about starting school. With most people he would hide behind myself or my wife. But when our family asked him, Jim would lower his head and whisper almost as if he were telling a secret: “Actually, I’m a little bit nervous.” I don’t where he got that from, but if he gave an answer to anyone, that’s what it was. He was worried.

And I totally understood that, because I was a little bit nervous too. It wasn’t because I was worried that Jim wouldn’t do well in kindergarten. I was worried because he was worried. I was also probably worried because we were speeding past another landmark on the steep road to him growing up and it was becoming more and more clear that there were not any brakes.

This realization brought a flood of anxiety-inducing questions. What kind of man is he going to become? What if kids are mean to him in school? What if the wrong group of kids influence him? What if he gets overwhelmed? What if he takes no interest in God? What if we grow apart? What if he turns out to be a jerk? What if we do everything “right” and it still all falls apart?

I realize that these kind of questions were not unique to me, but when I look into the bright eyes of both my sons and I see so much hope. Yet fear, anxiety and worry always come swooping in under the doorways. I want to protect them, but I also know that I had to let them go little by little. I have to relinquish control and let my sons be out there in a world where wonderful and terrible things happen. I knew this was all part of growing up. I knew this was good and needed, but it all makes me a little bit nervous.

EA and I walked Jim in to school on that first day of school. We were the first ones in this bright and colorful classroom. As we said hello to his teacher, Jim tugged on my pants. EA and I kneeled down to him. “Mommy, Daddy, I’m a little bit nervous.” We told him that it was okay to be nervous and talked about the times we had been nervous. His teacher admitted that she was nervous too. Eventually Jim warmed up to being there and as we left he and his teacher were coloring a picture of a monkey. Jim wanted to color him red.

EA and I made it all the way outside before we both cried. We prayed that Jim would be safe and make friends. We prayed that he would always know that he is loved. Our hearts were nervous, but we asked God to help us trust that everything would be okay. 

Jim had a great first day of school. That’s literally all we got out of him when we picked him up. “How was your first day of school?” “Great!” “Awesome! What did you do?” “I don’t remember.” I have now literally had hundreds of conversations like that now. But Jim said something cool that night. After reading our bedtime story and saying prayers, I kissed him on the forehead and told him good night. As I left the room, he piped up with something I almost missed: “Daddy, I started having fun at school today and I forgot to be nervous.”

Do not worry about tomorrow. Do not focus on being nervous. Live in the now, love, focus on what is around you. You cannot do anything about the future. You cannot change the past. Don’t worry, be. Be present and you just might forget to be nervous. It doesn’t mean that bad things are not going to happen. We have no control over whether the terrible, the wonderful, or even the mundane are going to come our way. All we can do is be the people that God has created us to be and trust that God is bigger than what causes us worry. You are loved more than you could ever imagine. Trust that. Don’t worry, just be.

What are we to be? Jesus says to seek first the Kingdom of God before everything else in this world. The Apostle Paul tells us in Acts that it is in God that we live and move and have our being. All that we do—our job, our schoolwork, our relationships, our day-to-day existence—all of these things that add up to make our lives are means by which we can seek God and demonstrate God’s love to the world around us. Our lives are canvases on which God’s grace can be displayed. There is much in this life about which to worry. That is going to happen and there’s nothing you can do to change it. But be the people that God has made you to be. You are loved more than you can imagine. Trust that. Do not worry. Just be.