Don’t Worry, Be Happy!

Epiphany 8, Year C, 2011

Text: Isaiah 49: 8-1a; Psalm 131; 1 Corinthians 4: 1-5; Matthew 6: 24-34.

Let us bow our heads in prayer –
Loving God, sometimes life makes us feel powerless. Speak softly your words of grace to us until we believe that we are beloved and do not worry. Amen.
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I wonder what I would think about this gospel reading, telling us not to worry about what you will eat or drink or wear, if I was a person sitting in a congregation in Christchurch this morning. And I wonder what I would make of it if I was one of the 800,000 refugees in one of the many refugee camps that were set up in Haiti after the earthquake that struck there a year or so ago.

It is one thing to read this gospel to a group of people who have jobs, places to live, and cars and completely another to read it to people who are caught up in a devastating event. What does it mean ‘don’t worry’ if you facing the loss of a loved one, your home or don’t have the necessities of life?

I don’t think Jesus here is saying that the basic necessities of human life don’t matter, and nor is he saying that these necessities will magically appear if we believe in God correctly, otherwise his encouragement not to worry would simply be cruel, and this is not the compassionate Jesus we meet elsewhere in the Gospels or know of in our hearts.

This passage is part of Jesus’ teachings in his Sermon on the Mount. His audience were ordinary people who had been crushed by their oppressive Roman conquerors. They had much to be worried about, just like the people in Christchurch or Haiti or the millions of people across the Middle East and Africa who have been uprising against oppressive regimes in recent months. So on one level Jesus’ hearers no doubt would have heard him say ‘Don’t worry, trust, God has things in control.’ But as in his other teaching as part of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus is also calling his hearers to deeper spiritual truths, even within their hardship. He’s calling them to look at the bigger picture for their lives, and is challenging them to look at what is real and to seek after truth.

The universal truth is that ‘Truth is Truth’. There can be, and is, only one truth. People can have different perceptions to each other and some of these perceptions may point towards the truth, but perceptions can be wrong, and they are not ultimately the truth because a perception comes with a level of doubt. “No one can serve two masters,” Jesus says. In other words, truth doesn’t come with a choice, truth is truth. You can not seek after what is real within illusions or perceptions about life that are false.

So, is what you are seeking in life real and is it the truth? Or are you covering up your own fears about who you are and where you are going in life with illusions you make up about yourself and your life situation?

Are you worried about tomorrow? Whether your hair is going grey or if you’re grey already if it’s thinning a bit on top? Are you worried about what you wear, or whether you have Weetbix or Cocopops for breakfast, or if you’re the wrong shape, or about your job or your home or your future?

Jesus says not to worry about tomorrow, “… for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” That doesn’t sound particularly encouraging when you first hear it !) but …..

The truth is, there is only the ‘now’. The past has gone and the future actually hasn’t happened yet, and yet we all lament the past or worry about the future to some extent. Some people even take this to the degree that they see themselves as victims of life.

Jesus says however that if we “… strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all these things will be given to you as well.” In other words if we seek after and are truly present to God, if we choose truth in our lives, we will find meaning and peace. We won’t be worried about the past or the future; we will be at peace with God and life right now, in the ‘now’.

A lot of people say to me how busy they are and how they don’t have any time even to reflect spiritually in their lives. One of the consequences of our modern life is busyness. However, we are all busy, and being present to God, or spirituality in our lives, is not a part time job! It isn’t part of what we do but should be part of everything we do.

Being present to God involves letting go of our constant preoccupations, immersing ourselves in the here and now, and giving ourselves wholeheartedly to whatever is at hand. It’s about becoming more aware, alert, awake to the fullness of the immediate moment, engaging with God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength.

As I said last week, God isn’t interested in what we do, but we can find God and ourselves spiritually in the relationships we encounter in our daily lives, moment by moment. And it is through these relationships that God has places all around us that we are healed and in turn move into a deeper relationship with God.

Of course such wholeheartedness requires patience, time and discipline, a word that doesn’t sit comfortably with many of us.

If you’re finding it hard to be present to God in your life at the moment can I suggest the following exercise, and I challenge you to do it over the next week. Simply set some time aside, perhaps five minutes, to do nothing. Just sit down somewhere and say “I’m seated; I’m doing nothing and I’m not going to do anything for the next five minutes.” Having declared your intention for this little space of time, decide firmly that nothing will distract you during these five minutes. If you find your mind wandering into the past or future, bring yourself back to the here and how with the thought, ‘I’m here in the presence of God, in my own presence and in the presence of all that is around me, just still and moving nowhere. God help me surrender, show me the truth’. Doing a simple meditation like this regularly builds up the capacity to live more deeply in the present within our daily lives.

To end my sermon today I thought we might actually try this exercise out simply for one minute. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but if you could just be patient with those of us who are. So let’s declare together that we are not going to do anything for the next minute, and if you find your mind wandering remember to say ‘I’m here in the presence of God, in my own presence and in the presence of all that is around me, just still and moving nowhere. God help me surrender, show me the truth.’ ………….. Amen.