Sermon for All Saints-by-the-Sea
Second Sunday after Pentecost, May 25, 2008
by The Rev. Dr. Jeffrey L. Bullock

“...I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 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 can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?”

Can you listen to this Gospel this morning and not ask yourselves, “He’s got to be kidding! Jesus can’t possibly mean this.” Worry? Worry?! Maybe they didn’t have headlines in Jesus’ day but think about ours. What about the typhoon in Myanmar? What about the earthquakes in China? What about the tornadoes and hurricanes in our own country? How can Jesus possibly say to us, “Don’t worry about your life...?” If we can’t worry, what can we do?

My mother, who once could turn a phrase as well as anyone I know would often respond in her own way to worry. When I told her where I was going on a date or borrowing the car, I’d try to reassure with “Mom, don’t worry.” And without a moment of hesitation, she’d respond, “Worry’s my middle name!” On still other occasions when she would be fretting about something (her terminology), my father would try to reassure her in his own way. Her sharp response was, “Worry’s my only hobby.”

My mother, who was an exceptionally intelligent woman, could easily make fine distinctions between different uses of the same word. She could tell my father he was a “worry” to her and you knew very well, she meant she was always mindful of his well being. But if she urged you not to “worry” something, she meant don’t obsess over something over which you had no control. My mom’s first use of worry would stand any of us in good stead; we can be mindful of our concerns, especially for those we love, without trying to force the outcome. On the other hand, when we get fixated on a worry, it’s the worry that controls us, not we the worry.

So what kind of worry do you think Jesus is talking about? Let’s take Jesus at his word. If he really means we shouldn’t worry about tomorrow, how can we do that? How can we keep from worrying?

I think we can go back and start with Jesus’ teaching: we can’t serve two masters. We will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to one and despise the other. In other words, we cannot be of two minds in our loyalty. We will fixate on one and ignore the other. If you try to ride the fence, the only thing you will collect is splinters.

Think about it: there are two different kinds of worry. On one hand, we have no control over worries like natural disaster and economic downturns. On the other hand, we do have power over to whom we serve our allegiance, to God or mammon, to our redeemer or to wealth. We can’t stop from worrying about things we can’t control. But if we listen to Jesus, we can stop worrying, even obsessing, over things we can.

Let’s think about these two different kinds of worry: if we live by the ways of God, what do we need to worry about? If on the other hand, we live by the rule of mammon or wealth, what do we need to be concerned about? Let’s take the rule of the god Mammon first. What does the god, Mammon, promise? Wealth promises if you live by its rule of life, and if you are successful at following the rule, you will have clothes, and food and shelter in abundance. Not bad. Except as Jesus points out this morning, even the lowliest of creatures, sparrows and lilies of the field, live just as well. Do you think birds get up worrying about tomorrow? Do the lilies of the field, which indeed only last for a few days, obsess about tomorrow? Most importantly, neither then birds or the lilies are caught up in the repeating cycle of compulsion and anxiety which grinds down those who follow the god of wealth. With the god Mammon, no one wins. Whether you are birds of the air, or lilies of the field, or for the matter, human, all of the life of this world comes to an end. You can worry all you want, Jesus tells us, but you can’t add a minute to your life by obsessing about it.

Now, on the other hand, if we are loyal to the God who made us, we don’t have to worry about our life anymore than birds or lilies. This is not all the life there is. Unlike the god mammon, life is not a zero sum game made up of winners and losers. How do we know that? Very shortly in this story, Jesus will be resurrected from the dead and go to life before all of us. But even if you find God’s promise hard to grasp (and who doesn’t from time to time?), let me offer this. Test your worries. Try living without compulsion and obsession and anxiety. You wonder how? We can take this right from Jesus. Try living charitably, caring more for others than yourself. Try being generous of spirit, forgiving others before they seek to be forgiven. For that matter, trying loving others with the love of Jesus, the sort of love that builds up other people rather than tearing them down.

Let’s think about how we listen to Jesus. What if we took him at his word? What if we were merciful? What if we were charitable? What if we were loving? Worry, that old grinding fixation only on tomorrow, will just go disappear. Amen.

The Rev. Jeffrey Bullock
All Saints-by-the-Sea Church
Santa Barbara, CA 93108