Don't Worry!

Based on the text from Matthew 6: 24-34. A paraphrase:
– Don’t worry about your lives… what you’ll wear, or eat. Isn’t life more than clothing and food? Look at the birds, they don’t sow or reap, or gather food in barns, but doesn’t God feed them? And aren’t you worth more than birds in God’s eyes? Can you add one more day to your lives by worrying? Look at the lilies of the field… they don’t work! But I tell you... even in all his glory, King Solomon wasn’t dressed like them. But if God so clothes the lilies, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown away... will God not much more clothe you? You of little faith. SO don’t worry about what you’ll eat or drink, or what you’ll wear. The Gentiles worry about these things. Certainly God already knows you need these things. Seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So don’t worry about tomorrow! Tomorrow will have worries all it’s own. Today’s troubles are enough for today.


DON’T WORRY

Jesus says to his disciples, “Don’t Worry”. Do we take this at face value? If we do, then what does this mean… “don’t worry”? Does it sound irresponsible? “Don’t worry, God will figure things out for you… God will plan things out”.

Does it sound condescending? Imagine a man patting a woman on the head while he tells her, “Don’t worry your pretty little head about things… I’ll take care of it.”

How can we not take things that are happening seriously? The economy is tanking, the value of the dollar is dropping, the price of gas is at $4.00 per gallon, and some experts say it is not an unrealistic expectation that within 24 months, we could see 5 and even 6 dollars per gallon. How do you think that will change things? A lot, to say the least!

And this is not to mention our personal stuff; illnesses and health concerns, people being laid-off, or losing their jobs, or other things happening in our lives.

What if I said “Don’t Worry”? Would I mean, God will take care of you, or that nothing bad will happen to you?

Here is the background of not only the reading, but the Gospel of Mathew. The gospel was written to a community of Jews that most other Jews didn’t fully accept. They were following Jesus. They began to feel very much like exiles. Right off they were a fringe group. The Jewish people weren’t that excited to be connected with this new group, since they were noticing how much attention this new group was getting from the Romans. So the people in this new group began to ask themselves, “God, are we going right?” “Are we doing the right thing?” “Is this what we’re going through worth it?”

The book of Revelation is an example of Apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic literature is a kind of literature that essentially says… “I know what you are going through right now. But stay on track. Remember, in the end God will prevail!” The Book of Revelation was written during the time the Christians in Rome were being persecuted and killed. Of course you would see they needed some form of divine encouragement.

What if this Gospel was written for a people in a very similar situation? What if this Gospel was written for a people in some sort of crisis? And what if this reading was written in a way to round-aboutly encourage the young “church”?

We hear Jesus saying “Don’t Worry!” God loves you more than you’ll ever know. If God loves you… God will not abandon you!

Here’s the story of the Exodus in Readers Digest version. The Israelites were in bondage and slavery in Egypt. They prayed to God, asking God to release them. Lo and behold God actually does this. “I’m coming to get you out, get yourselves ready! I’m coming to take you to the Promised Land.” And out they go. They know, deep in their hearts, the Lord will take them to the Promised Land. God promised them this. So they get ready. God shows up, gets them out. They cross the Red Sea. And whammo – all bets are off.

Now they are in unfamiliar land. No food, no water, no way of getting clothes, etc. And they pray, “Lord – did you bring us out here to kill us?” The first thing they do is complain. They knew God was there, yet they were in a state of anxiety! Yet at every turn, God kept saying them, “Trust me. I love you. I’ll get you there!”

They knew God had called them from slavery to freedom. They knew God would eventually get them to the Promised Land. But… the unknown in between was the hardest to bear.

The first trip to Ghana, back in 2000, was full of the fingerprint of God! What an experience that was! And in the midst of this, this is where we met that little girl that would later become our daughter. The thing is, we never went to adopt a child. We went to experience a new thing. But from the very beginning I knew God was somehow involved in this! So by the time we got back from our experiences there, we were certainly transformed. Three days before we left Ghana we went to a village that had never had white people like us come a visit there. There were quite a number of children there, with a minority of them orphans. And there in this dusty village in the middle of a foreign African country, something happened that took me a few weeks to process. I saw, among the many children, a little girl that would later be our daughter. I knew right away she would be part of something special. And we would be a part of this too. Why this little girl? I can only say it was God.

After much prayer, questions, processing, and more prayer, we began the process of adopting her. I had no doubt God was calling us to do this. So, in January of 2001 we traveled to Ghana to finish the adoption process in Ghana. However this trip was as frustrating and anxiety-producing as the first trip was God-filled and Awe-inspiring. I entered into one of the most stressful three weeks of my life.

Although I knew God was calling us to do this, it still wasn’t easy. In the midst of this, we did in three weeks what we later found out “normally” takes somewhere between six months, in the best-case scenario, to two years at the outside. I couldn’t allow myself to think about what was happening too much. If I had, I would have filled my mind with anxiety. So, I planned and organized for sure, bit then I had to disengage by reading to maintain my mental equilibrium. I went through about six paperbacks similar to the typical John Grisham thickness.

I kept falling back on the belief I had… unwavering, yet in a real time of anxiety… that God was leading this. In the midst of uncertainty, all I could do was fall back on the promise that God was in this somehow. All I had was this promise. But that didn’t make it easy to go through!

But I knew I couldn’t fall into the habit of anxiety or fear! Or it would not have happened. I would not have been free, or available, to emotionally go through with this.

Let me tell you some prison stories from my time doing prison ministry. One evening, before services at one of the prisons, a guy came in. I remember him because he had some very interesting tattoos on his face. After the service I went to talk to him. He told me he had been raised in a White Supremist group. But he didn’t want to live with hate and anger any more.

After some months, more and more of the story came out. He had all the tattoos on his body of this past life of hate. It got to the point where he wouldn’t allow even dark wood in his house. And he wanted to be free of this.

As “chance” would have it, he was given a new cell-mate; a black African Muslim from Egypt. Not long after this happened, he began telling me this guy was bringing up in him all he was hoping to escape; the history of hate and anger. He was having a harder and harder time dealing with this guy. It was getting so hard, I feared something terrible was going to happen. We would pray about this together, and we would talk about what was happening. He was a former Marine, so I told him he was accustomed to being tough, to going through tough things, and making it out the other end. Well here’s an example of a tough situation for you… what kind of a man do you want to come out the other end of this?

He disappeared for a while. And when he returned to services, he told me what had happened. He told me he finally had to sit down with his new cell-mate and have a serious discussion. He shared with me told the other man his history. That part of his history was written in ink all over his body. He told him he had led a life of hate… and that he didn’t want to live this way anymore. But he also told his new cell-mate that he was bringing all that history back up again just by who he was. So, he told him, I need you to tell me about your religion and who you are, and I’ll tell you about mine and who I am. He told him about Jesus calling him to another way of living. When he told me all this, he sounded liberated!

And story number two. In one prison, a younger guy began to come. He struck me right off as a person that really wanted to learn about the faith. He asked rather insightful questions, made very interesting comments. Then after a few months, he got transferred to another prison. Fortunately, he was transferred to a prison that had just started a Lutheran Service. So he began showing up. It was to see him again.

But as time went on, I began seeing a more and more angry fellow. He made racist remarks, questioning the teachings of tolerance as is interpreted in our form of Christianity. One particular day, I had to call him into the hallway to have a “Come to Jesus” meeting. I told him this wasn’t acceptable, that I was disappointed at this change in him, and that I didn’t want to see hate and fear twist him. He told me prison was different. He gave me some examples of how prison was a place of anger and fear and worry and anxiety and desperation. Well, it’s true in many respects. Prison is not an example of a healthy environment. But people can and do make it through without losing theirs souls in the process… and in some case even finding their souls again. Last I heard he as in a White Supremist gang on the inside.

We have all seen what fear can do.

In World War II, we saw the German leadership try and convince the people that all their problems were a result of the Jews, and gypsies, and homosexuals, and anyone else that didn’t agree with them.

Who could we blame things on today, in the troubles we’re having? Although it’s still a minority of people, I have been hearing more and more people buying into the idea that our problems are a result of illegal immigrants. Or Hispanics. Or Arabs. Or the Muslims… after all, their religion is a religion of hate.

My point is, it’s just as easy for us today to fall into the trap of scape-goating another group of people today, out of fear and worry, as it was for the Germans to do with the Jews.

Don’t Worry
– Does this mean we’re not supposed to plan? We’d be stupid not to.

Don’t Worry
– Will God hand it to us on a silver platter? Maybe, maybe not.

Don’t Worry.
– Will we get to the other side of this unscathed? Maybe, maybe not.

What does it mean… “Don’t Worry”?
Trust that God has a plan.
God’s plan comes out of love for us.
Don’t let fears and anxieties strangle your hope in God’s promise to you!

You are not a people of fear! You are not a people of hate.

Don’t let worry and anxiety turn into a habit!
Don’t let worry and anxiety turn into fear!
Don’t let worry and anxiety lead you into paralysis!
Don’t let worry and anxiety lead to hate!

If all you have left is to fall into the promise of the God of light and life… then do it! As hard as it may be… don’t let “Worry” win!