Matthew 6:25–34 Worrying gives us a false sense of control.
But Jesus provides a life-giving way to think about present and future.
No day but today
A friend of mine is married to a
woman with early-onset
Alzheimer’s. Her memory
lapses are confusing for her and
heartbreaking for him. Once while
they stood at the sink brushing their
teeth, she said, “This is a really good
time in our lives.” Shocked, he
thought, “Well, not really.” Later he
wrote to friends, “Can I build a
bridge into her world? Maybe I can
lay down my concerns for once ...
just live in this moment.”
Jesus’ invitation not to worry
about the future — to trust God’s
providence that cares for birds and
lilies and the likes of
us as wel l — is both
comforting and
aggravating. “Easy
for you to say!” we
might be tempted to
retort. In fact, it
probably wasn’t easy
for Jesus. He came
by this wisdom the
hard way, after time
in the wilderness,
wrestling with
hunger and thirst, tempted by Satan
to do whatever it took to satisfy
those pressing needs. When Jesus
says, “Is not life more than food?” he
knows what he’s talking about.
Many of Jesus’ exhortations focus
on how we should relate to one
another and the world — what some
call “kingdom living.” His command
to live in the moment nurtures the
kingdom of God within us, a way to
serenity and greater communion
with God. Yet still we worry — even
though, in the words of a friend,
“Worrying is like being in a rocking
chair. It gives you something to do,
but you don’t ever get anywhere.”
As “good Calvinists” who take
pride in our Protestant work ethic,
we may agree that worry is
unproductive. Still, we want to be
the industrious ant in the fable, not
the good-for-nothing grasshopper.
Besides, the Greek word for “worry”
in this passage can also mean “to
care about,” and isn’t it right to care
about the future? Don’t we want to
provide security for our children, a
more just society, a healthy planet
for future generations?
Facing our anxieties
During my first pregnancy I read a
book with a chapter entitled, “Worry
is the work of pregnancy.” When
fears about labor, birth and
parenthood come, it is best to face
these anxieties and to think through
how one might cope with them. To
deny them only increases their
power. It made sense. Our challenge
is not to live as though the future
doesn’t matter, but to avoid being
crippled by anxiety over what might
come to pass. As many a pastor says
when praying over a newly baptized
child, “We do not know what the
future holds for this child, but we
know the One who holds her future.”
In the midst of the images of lilies
and Solomon’s glory, it’s easy to miss
Jesus’ simple statement: “Your
heavenly Father knows that you
need all these things.” And that’s the
crux of it. Worrying gives us a false
sense of control over our time and
destiny. Like the person who can’
relax on an airplane because of her
irrational sense that she is somehow
holding the plane aloft through sheer
force of will, our fretting drowns out
the simple reality that God is quite
capable of providing, even without
our itemized checklists.
Jesus asks, “Can any of you by
worrying add a single hour to your
span of life?” I find this a strange
question. The purpose of my
worrying is not really to gain an
additional hour or two. The issue is
control: If I can imagine every
contingency, I can manage it, and
nothing bad will ever happen.
The King James Version has Jesus
asking, “Which of you by taking
thought can add one cubit unto his
stature?” The issue here is not
increasing our time, but our standing
or sense of importance in the
universe. Maybe if we carefully
consider every outcome, we won’t
need God anymore.
“Span” (as in “span of life”) is the
unit of measurement from the thumb
to the pinky finger with the hand
fully extended. The image of the
outstretched hand is evocative — in
our worrying, we grasp desperately
at something just beyond reach.
A job for us
Jesus does not harangue us for our
faltering. (Sure, we are “of little
faith,” but isn’t that better than
having no faith at all?) What he
offers are images as lovely as any in
Scripture — birds soaring as if for the
pure joy of it, and lilies like a
fragrant blanket on the earth. And
for those of us who simply must do
something, Jesus has a job for us: to
strive not for control, nor for the
answer to all life’s worries, but for
the reign of God.
MaryAnn McKibben Dana is associate pastor of Burke (Va.) Presbyterian Church. |
