5/25/08                                                                             MATTHEW 6:24-34

“WHO’S ON FIRST?”

Rev. James Singleton

I’ve heard some pretty annoying ring tones in my time, but the most annoying one I have heard was when Jan and I were in a restaurant talking over some issues that have us deeply concerned, alright, they have us worried, when someone’s phone went off to the tune of “Don’t Worry—Be Happy.” You remember that irksome little song by Bobby McFerrin back in the 1980s that goes in part:

Here is a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don't worry be happy
In every life we have some trouble
When you worry you make it double
Don't worry, be happy....

I hate it when someone tells me not to worry. When someone tells me not to worry I conclude that they don’t know me and they don’t know what I am facing. I confess that I can be a worrier, but that’s because I have important things that need worried over.

• I worry about my kids’ safety, I worry about getting them through school, I worry about them getting good jobs and finding good mates.

• I worry about paying my bills, the car breaking down, and the house needing a big ticket repair.

• I worry about what the doctor is going to say to me and what the doctor is going to say about some of you.

• I worry about if we will make budget, I worry about whether you will vote for the upcoming chancel renovation and if so, I worry about how we are going to finance it.

• I even worried about this sermon on worry!  

I learned about a website called The Worry Bank at www.worrybank.com so I went there to see what they could do for me. They said that I could deposit my worries into their “Worry Bank” by writing them down and sending them in, and in return I would receive what they call “words of wisdom” like: “A diamond is a hunk of coal that made good under pressure” or “Things usually seem worse than they are.” But these fortune cookie sayings are no more help to me than someone singing, “Don’t worry—be happy!”

When I first read our passage of Scripture for today, I worried. I worried that Jesus was saying nothing more significant than “Don’t worry—be happy!” “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…” And then he goes on to talk about birds and flowers and how they never worry, etc. etc.  

But birds and flowers don’t have the responsibilities that I have. And besides, can you see telling the people who have suffered from the earthquake in China or the cyclone in Myanmar to not worry, but just look at how the birds and flowers around them are handling this crisis? It sounds naïve, doesn’t it?

But the more I read, the more I realized that Jesus was saying something more profound that just a shallow don’t worry message. He was forcing me to look deeper. “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

It is the words, “strive first for the kingdom of God” that really struck me. Maybe Jesus wasn’t telling me not to worry so much as he was challenging me to examine what all my worries say about what I strive for first. To strive means to exert a lot of energy and effort toward something. To strive means to contend and implies that I am struggling against an opponent. What am I striving toward?  Who am I struggling against?

When I examine my worries and the place they play in my life, if I have them first then I am striving hard toward a life that I believe is either out of control or only in my control. I am saying that I believe that life is a contest between chaos and me and if I can’t get things straight and right and the way I think they need to be, then chaos will rule.

Jesus isn’t telling us not to worry, but to reprioritize our lives. We are not meant to be God. We are not meant to be in control of everything and everyone. We are not meant to live first for ourselves. We are not meant to contend against chaos and uncertainty all alone.  

We are meant to strive first for the Kingdom of God. We are meant to seek God, trust God, do what we believe is right by God first, and let the rest of life’s responsibilities come in second.

            Take for example, the chancel renovation. Yes, we worry about making changes because change is frightening. We worry about taking on a new debt in this economy. If worry is first and foremost, then we will find ourselves paralyzed and unable to be the church to a changing world.

If, however, we strive first for God’s kingdom and believe that God is calling us to change for the sake of this church’s future, then our worries have to take a back seat and we have to trust that God will lead us in the right way just as God has led us in the past with other great changes.  

We have to strive to keep God first ahead of our worries, and if we do, then this project will be blessed and we will move forward into the twenty first century and on to new challenges.

On this Memorial Day weekend, we remember and honor men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice for this country in time of war. I don’t believe for a second that any of those fallen heroes were without worry for their own safety or comfort. It’s a matter, rather, of priorities. The only way a soldier can charge into battle is to put worry behind a greater cause and be willing to give one’s life for the protection of home, for the justice of those who are being oppressed, for the freedom of those who are captured.

Myron and Irene Voorhees, members of this church, woke up to their entire apartment complex ablaze a couple of weeks ago. With smoke rapidly filling up the apartment, they knew they had to evacuate immediately or they would die. Quickly making her way out the back door and out into the yard, Irene looked behind her to make certain that her 90-year-old husband was following her. He was not.  

She assumed that he was overcome by the smoke and was trapped in the building. However, in a few minutes out he came with a 92-year-old and a 95-year-old woman under each arm. Was he worried about his own safety? I have no doubt. But worry came in second to what he put first—God’s will to show compassion and love to those who are in need.

Yes, we have things to worry about. We have needs. We have problems. We have challenges. We can’t just wish them away or pretend they are unimportant. But if we put worry first then we are saying something about the way we think the universe works. We are saying that we believe that ultimately it is every dog for himself and the point in life is to get mine first. When we put worry first we are saying that the universe drifts always toward the negative and our strength alone must stop it.

But to strive to put God’s Kingdom first is to say that the universe is not about every dog for himself, it is about compassion and love for one another. To put God’s Kingdom first shows we believe the universe is ruled by a God who ultimately bends all things toward His will and it is a will we can trust.

To put God’s kingdom first is to believe that whatever we face, it is no match for the power of God to change it, raise it, renew it, and overcome it. 

Dr. Edward Hallowell is a child and adult psychologist who taught at Harvard for more than 20 years. Writing about worry a few years ago for Psychology Today magazine, he offered several suggestions for dealing with excessive worry, but finally he said this:  

“Talk to God when you feel worried.... Brain scans and EEG monitors show beneficial changes in the brain during meditation and prayer. The changes correlate with most of our measures of improved health, including longevity and reduced incidence of illness.” In other words, putting worry first cannot add to our lifespan, but putting God first can!

When worry is first, we assume the worst is yet to come. When we strive to put God first, we assume that whatever tomorrow brings, it brings God with it.

Worry wants to narrow our focus so that we see only what we are concerned about and nothing else. Faith seeks to elevate us to see a bigger picture.

Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, tells the story of his time as a Nazi prisoner of war and his observations as to why some prisoners survived and others did not. He told about the afternoon in one of the camps when the men had tramped back several miles from their work site and were lying exhausted and sick and hungry in their barracks. It was in the winter, and they had marched through a cold, dispiriting rain.  

Suddenly one of the men burst into the barracks and shouted for the others to come outside. Reluctantly, but sensing the urgency in the man's voice, they stirred themselves and staggered into the courtyard.

The rain had stopped, and a bit of sunlight was breaking through under the thick, dark clouds. It was reflecting on the little pools of water standing about on the concrete floor of the courtyard and creating a rainbow of colors. "We stood there," said Frankl, "marveling at the goodness of the creation. We were tired and cold and sick, we were starving to death, we had lost our loved ones and never expected to see them again, yet there we stood, feeling a sense of reverence as old and formidable as the world itself!"

That rainbow reminded them of what comes first. It reminded them that despite all of their worries, the world was still a place of value, beauty, love, and hope. It put them in touch again with their faith and the belief that God would eventually overcome the cruelty and unfairness in the world.

Yes, we may feel sick and exhausted from worries, but today Jesus comes running into our barracks where worry has us captive and calls us to come out and look at the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. We did not make the flowers and the birds. God did. God is God and we are not.  

·        If we strive first to do what we believe the Great Creator and Provider calls us to do

·        If we strive first to be faithful to our God of love by showing love and compassion

·        If we strive first to believe that all things can work out for the good for those who are in Christ Jesus—

·        Then all of the things we worry so much about will have to take a lower priority in our lives.  

And when they take a lower priority, then we will find that we don’t worry quite so much about them anymore and we will marvel at how they seem to be taken care of.  

A life free from the tyranny of worry is not achieved by someone telling us, “Don’t worry.” It is achieved by Jesus reminding us that in the contest between worry and God, it matters who’s on first.

AMEN.