Matthew 6: 25-34

            Humorist Erma Bombeck once wrote about the child she and her husband called the Hysteria Connection. Usually this child would wait until family trips. Then, when the family was driving many miles down the road, and Dad was smiling from ear to ear as he looked forward to a week without pressure, the Hysteria Connection would lean over to him and say, "Did you mean to leave the garden hose running, Daddy?" When Dad was just beginning to recover from that one, the Hysteria

            Sometimes when I see the expressions people are wearing on the sidewalks, or in the mall, or most anyplace, I wonder if they don't have a little Hysteria Connection inside them - the voice of worry. This is the little voice that says things inside our minds like, "You goofed that up." "You should have done it this way." "Someone doesn't like you." "This can't turn out good" Or, "Wo boy. That's going to be trouble." And you can just see the stress on peoples' faces.

            Make no mistake. There are some things to worry about in this world. A few weeks back, writer-reporter Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide. Many people hadn't heard of him, but among a certain Baby Boomer group he was a voice of dark reality. In a 2003 column he wrote, "I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it. Our highway system is crumbling, our police are dishonest, our children are poor, our vaunted Social Security... has been looted and neglected and destroyed..." and on and on he goes, finishing with the ominous words, "Big darkness, soon come." And finally he took matters into his own hands and ended it.

            Was he right? Is it really that terrible? I think the answer to that depends on how you look at the world - what glasses you have on. And I'm not talking about the difference between having rose-colored glasses and dark-colored glasses - half-full or half-empty. I'm talking about having the lens of faith, or having nothing to hold onto. I believe that makes all the difference in the world.

            It seems to me that we have a choice between three different ways of viewing life - which amounts to three ways to view God. One view says that the universe is out to get you. The gods are hostile, and out to ruin your life. In this view, the best we can hope is that the gods will forget about us, or leave us alone, so that our hard luck isn't made worse. The second view of life is that the universe is indifferent or powerless. Either there is no such thing as God, or God has left us and doesn't care anymore, or, things have gotten so bad that God can't do anything about it. Whatever the reason,

there is no help from beyond, in this view. We are simply on our own, without a God to turn to. And if you believe that the gods are out to get you, or that the gods either don't exist or don't care - then there is plenty of reason to worry.

            But there's a third view - the view from faith. It is believing that life is a blessed gift, and God watches over it, and sends the gifts of grace to bless us along the way.  The bedrock of this faith is that no matter how the world might be treating us, we have an Almighty Force on our side. We were created out of grace, and we walk in grace. Needless to say, this is the view of Jesus; it is what this church is founded on; and it is the faith of the Bible. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." "The Lord works for good in all things..." "The Lord is my strength and my shield." These are words of confidence, based on a secure faith that this universe is not hostile or indifferent. This universe is created and watched over by a loving, providing God.

            It is in this faith that we hear the teachings of Jesus about anxiety. These are words from his Sermon on the Mount: "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life..." And then Jesus goes on to dissect the falsehood of worry. First of all, we worry about the wrong things: "Is not life more than food," says Jesus, "and the body more than clothing?" In other words, we worry so much about material things, that we forget the more important spiritual matters. We see this kind of worry, for example, among parents - many people are parenting today out of sheer anxiety. They are so intense on making sure their children have every material advantage, and are protected from every material threat - that they raise their children to be tense, worried, and spiritually empty.

            One mother wrote this in a letter to the editor: "No wonder the depression and suicide rates among teenagers are so high. Too many children have been raised to believe that they are (worries) instead of blessings. Parents need to lighten up and have some fun with their kids. .." A pediatrician wrote that his teenage patients have told him that what they remember most about their parents is that they were always worried. Said one, "They never smiled!" That's not how parenting is supposed to be.

            We worry about the wrong things, says Jesus. We also worry unnecessarily. "Your heavenly Father knows you need them all..." he says in verse 32. That's his way of saying no matter how hopeless it seems sometimes, God knows what we need, and he is not about to desert us. There is goodness and love in this world. There is hardship, to be sure. Some days we can hardly stand to read the newspaper; or read the history books; or listen to the gossip on the streets. People are facing some terrible things in this world. But, as someone once said, half of them never happen. Half of the things we face are the beasts of worry that we let loose in our minds. There are enough real problems in this world without our making them up. And for the real problems, we have a Savior who can bring the power of God's hope and love to bear. That's what Easter means. Even death itself cannot stand up to him. Jesus said, "In this world you will have tribulation; but cheer up! I have overcome the world." Don't worry unnecessarily.

            We worry about the wrong things; we worry unnecessarily; the third thing Jesus wants us to know is that our worrying accomplishes nothing. "Which of you," he said, "by being anxious, can add one cubit to his span of life?" We can't add to our lives by worrying about them. If anything, we do just the opposite - we shorten our lives by worry. Someone said, "We don't stop laughing because we get older. We get older because we stop laughing." Worry takes away our laughter. In fact, I should rephrase this part of the sermon - it's not that worry accomplishes nothing - it's that it accomplishes nothing good. It accomplishes all the wrong things. Once I  read a list of things that people have actually reported to insurance companies about why their accidents happened. One of them was this: "In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole." That's the gist of our worrying. We worry about little things so much, we create bigger and bigger trouble - ulcers, hurt feelings, heart conditions, missed communications, lost opportunities, premature aging, on and on it goes. I venture to say that, whether you're talking about our individual lives, our community, our church, our nation, our world, you would be hard-pressed to find any decisions that were based on fear or worry, that turned out to be the right decision.

            Jesus is offering something different here. In another part of the Bible, it is described as the 'love that casts out our fears.' We don't have to live under a constant cloud of worry. Jesus gives us a perfect formula for an anxiety-free existence: Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and everything else will be added unto you. A simple formula for life: Seek God first, and you have nothing else to worry about. A woman facing cancer surgery once said to me, "I have a choice. I can live my life in fear, or I can trust that whatever happens, God and I can handle it. I choose trust." I believe that woman had found the secret to life - and I mean life that is more than just breathing and moving. Life that is deep and peaceful and fulfilling, and not ruined by a shadow of constant worry. Have you found that life?

            Are there great obstacles to face in this world? Of course. Can God handle them? I believe with all my heart that he can. That's why Jesus, gathered with his disciples for their Last Supper together, told them once, and twice, and yet again: "Let not your hearts be trouble. Believe in God. Believe in me."

            And today, as we come to the Lord's table, let not our heart be troubled. Believe and trust - that's what Jesus wants. For you and me, whatever we're facing in this life, to know that God cares, and God will watch over us. And if we seek God, all other things will be added. I love the expression I heard once: Fear came and knocked loud upon the door! But faith answered, and found nothing there. Faith makes the fears and worries of our lives disappear.

            A woman named Mary Fithian wrote about a large rock in her back yard. It was an ugly, dull orange - the part above the ground was about a foot in diameter. It was there when she moved in as a bride, and had been there ever since her husband's family owned the farm, going back to the Civil War. No one wanted to tackle moving it, guessing that it was a huge boulder under the earth. So through the years they tripped over it, mowed around it, skinned their knees on it - it was a big obstacle in

the middle of anything they tried to do in the back yard. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. She told her husband that somehow they were going to move that rock. So one day they gathered a bunch of help. They brought in shovels, a tractor, chains, and other equipment. They set in and started to dig - and found out that the rock only went down a couple inches into the ground. A couple strong people could lift it. For a hundred years, nobody had tried because it looked big.

            Yes, it looks like there are some big boulders in the middle of our lives. But most of them are not nearly what they appear. And not one of them is worth a nickel of worry when held up to the love and power of God.