Don't Worry, Be Happy!

Matthew 6:25-34
July 19, 2009


I’m taking a U.S. History class this month
because even though I was bored to tears by history
when I was back in high school
Since I’ve grown up, I feel very strongly
that knowing history is essential
to help give us insight into human nature
and hopefully help us make better decisions
for the future
One can hope!
But one thing I’ve learned is that as much as the details change
there’s a whole lot of other things that never seem to change--
that we tend to do the same things over and over
and find ourselves in the same messes
only with different names
One thing that seems to be a common element
in human nature throughout history
is fear
People act crazy when they are afraid
they say the craziest things out of fear
and sometimes do terrible things because of fear
For forty-five years we went through the Cold War
and how crazy was that?
Some of you remember practicing drills
where you hid under your desks at school
to practice what you would do in case of a nuclear bomb
when of course we know now that hiding under your desk
wouldn’t have done anything to protect you
There was the McCarthy era, when a lot of innocent people
were accused of communism--
arrested, tortured, publicly scorned,
lives ruined because of paranoia
Well, we got through the Cold War
only to find ourselves now in that abstract thing
called the War on Terror
Ever since 9/11, of course, people are AFRAID
and the terror alert is orange
we can’t fly on airlines without major inconveniences
and of course people still act a little crazy
if someone of Mid-eastern appearance should sit next to you
People buy guns who never dreamed of owning a gun before
because somehow it makes them feel better

We’re afraid
And we tend to act crazy when we’re afraid

I’ve also observed that when we’re afraid
we may try even harder to be in control
Of other people, of a group, of a situation
I find that people who are always trying to control
are usually people who are hurting a lot
who are afraid of something
Somehow afraid that if they are NOT in control
everything will fall into chaos
They can’t trust other people, and they can’t trust God

Jesus is walking along with his disciples
that are a lot like you and me
They are a little nuts
they worry about having enough food,
enough work to make enough money
They worry about their enemies
and whether their enemies will take something away from them
They worry about their lives
because they lived in very violent, unpredictable times
While they’re walking, perhaps some of them brooding
about a fight they had with their wife over money
or about how they’re going to pay next month’s mortgage payment
or about whether there’s enough food for dinner
or if the Roman government will take away any more
of their freedoms
whether the frustrations of their people will heat up again
whether there will be more violence
and who will get hurt this time

Jesus cleared his throat
and shook them out of their daydreaming,
he looked up to the sky and said,
“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 plant or harvest
or store up food,
and yet God feeds them.
Are you not of more value than they?”

They looked at him questioningly
They wanted his peace, his trust
but their neck muscles were sore
and tight,
their teeth were sore from grinding at night
with anxiety
they were tired from not sleeping …
‘Do not worry…’ they thought
‘Easy for him to say…’
He spoke again, “Do any of you add one single hour to your life
by worrying?”
Well, the doctor did say they needed to cut down on stress,
that their blood pressure was high
and they needed to get more rest ….
We all know that feeling of tightness in our chests
that comes with anxiety
that sick feeling in the pits of our stomachs
that ache in our necks…
Worry, Jesus said, is not good for you
long before it was clinically proven…
Stress takes years off your life,
he said, basically, it doesn’t add to anything
and yet he’d never been to medical school
Isn’t it true that we have a hard time NOT worrying
because we figure somehow
if we DON’T worry about it
it may happen?
If we stop worrying, somehow everything will fall apart …
So in a way, we feel more in control if we’re worrying
about something
and worry, fear makes us do ugly, crazy things

Fear makes us hate
because hate makes us feel more in control
If we can blame someone for our problems
than somehow we feel more in control
Because if we have to face our problems
and what part we might play in them
then that’s too scary, too overwhelming

Whoever came up with that little acronym, WWJD
What Would Jesus Do?
was very wise --
although of course, it became so popular
it was pretty much watered down
People wore it, but I don’t think they thought about it anymore
People ask, what does God want to do with my life?
As if there’s some great calling that each of us are created for
and if we miss it, then somehow we’ve missed something
But what if we started each day
with the question, “What would Jesus do?”

Tony Campolo, a Baptist preacher, and sociologist at Eastern College,
wrote about the time he was talking on social problems
and he asked his students,
“Can you imagine what Jesus would say to a prostitute?”
One of his students raised his hand
and said, “But Jesus never met a prostitute!”
Campolo chuckled at the student’s biblical illiteracy
and flipped open the Bible to the Gospels
showing him exactly where Jesus met up
with prostitutes and what he said to them
but the student said confidently,
“Doctor, when Jesus met a prostitute, do you think
he saw a prostitute?” --
and Campolo admitted being stymied
Indeed, he believes that when Jesus sees a person
he sees what that person could be
what that person can become
Jesus believed in people, Campolo said
And we need to be believe in people the way God does

What would Jesus do?
Would he say bitter, nasty, hateful things
about anyone because they didn’t agree with him?
Would he hurt people, tear them down
to their faces or behind their back
because he didn’t like who they were?
Would he make violent comments about them
and what he would like to see happen to them
just because they were from a place
whose government might be at odds with ours?
Would Jesus EVER forget that every human being on this planet
has a beating heart, blood pumping through their veins
gets hurt like we do, can bleed like we do
and has a soul like we do?

Anne Lamott, one of my favorite Christian writers,
wrote about doing a lesson for children at her church
a bunch of rambunctious, antsy,
sugar-infused 6 year olds
She had several lessons for them that morning
But one lesson was about Letting Go
So she asked them, “what does letting go mean?”
The kids looked around and stared at her
a little confused
So she took a couple of Magic Markers
and held them out at arm’s length on each side of her,
gripping them tightly
so tightly that her knuckles turned white
And she said to them,
“What if, when we go in for snacks,
someone offers me a juice box
and I won’t let go of these markers
even though I’m thirsty?”
Nobody answered
She told them to watch,
and she said it was like she was doing a magic trick
as she slowly unfurled her tight grip on the markers
and they fell to the floor
with a echoing clunk
She smiled at them,
“Now,” she said, “Why would you let go?”
And immediately one 6 year old jumped up
raising his hand in an ooo ooo sort of way
and said, “Because you’re thirsty!”
bingo!
She got through!
And she said,
“sometimes, if you’re lucky,
you get so sick of a problem ,
or you’re worn down by tinkering with it,
or clutching on tight to it.
And letting go of it,
writing it down, talking with a friend
and sending it away,
buys you time and space,
so maybe freedom and humor sneak in—
which is what you were praying for all along.”

In the book and the movie,
“The Secret Life of Bees,” May Boatwright is a very sensitive soul
she was a twin, and her twin died very young
and now she lived with her two grown sisters
But she never really recovered from the grief
She was always just a little bit more sensitive to pain
and heartache than most people
What her sisters finally did to help her
was to get her to build a wall of stones on their property
and that would be May’s very own Wailing Wall
When she’d get upset about something,
she’d leave the house, and go out to her wailing wall
she wrote down what was breaking her heart
or worrying her
and she’d slip that piece of paper into the cracks of the wall
She’d sit there a while, in the quiet
and the beauty
and after awhile, she’d return to the house
having left the pain behind
Having let go of it, offering it up, if you will
letting God take the burden away from her

If only we could do that, huh?
Imagine how many friendships would be saved
imagine how many marriages would be helped
if we all had a wailing wall?
If we didn’t just blow up and say what we wanted to say
in that moment
if we didn’t hurt each other out of fear
anger and our own needs for control
Imagine….
Imagine how much calmer we could be
if we could physically let go of our worries, our hurts,
our anger, our fears
and surrender them to God --
stick them in the crevices of a wall
whose stone is strong enough to bear their weight?
For after all, rocks are more solid
than human hearts

What if we let go?
What if we unfurled our knuckle-white grip
on our lives, on any given situation
and opened our hands, opened our arms
and let God in?
Because if we don’t let go,
if we don’t unclench our fists
we can’t hold another’s hand …
If we don’t open our arms and hearts
God can’t get in
And it gets really, really ugly

What does Jesus want us to do with our lives?
I think, if we all got to know Jesus and his teachings
so much so that we could ask ourselves every day
“is this what Jesus would want me to do?
Is this what Jesus would want me to say?
If Jesus were here, is this how he would respond?”

Tony Campolo talks about a friend of his
named Mike
who asked a deacon of his church to drive
a group of young people to the old folks home
and lead a worship service
This deacon was someone who just wasn’t sure
how he could live out his faith
he always hung back, didn’t get involved
he was afraid
But he agreed to drive the youth to the nursing home
That first Sunday they were there, the deacon stood at the back
with his arms folded
as he watched the kids do their thing
All of a sudden, someone was tugging at his arm
He looked down and there was an old man in a wheelchair
He took hold of the old man’s hand
and the old man hung on to his hand
for the rest of the service
The next month that was repeated
The old man wheeled himself toward the deacon
and held his hand through worship
The next month again, and the next month, and the next
then the man wasn’t there for worship
The deacon asked about him
and was told, “Oh, he’s down the hall, right hand side,
third door. He’s dying. He’s unconscious,
but if you want to go down and pray over him,
that’ alright.”
The deacon went and there were tubes and wires hanging
all over the place
The deacon took the man’s hand
and prayed that God would receive him
that God would bring this man from this life into the next
and give him eternal blessings
As soon as he finished the prayer,
the old man squeezed the deacon’s hand
and the deacon knew he’d been heard
He was so moved by this that tears began to run down his cheeks
He stumbled out of the room, wiping his eyes
and as he did so, he bumped into a woman
She said,
“He’s been waiting for you. he said that he didn’t want to die
until he had the chance to hold the hand
of Jesus one more time.”
The deacon was amazed and said,
“What do you mean?”
She said, “Well, my father would say that once a month,
Jesus came to this place.
‘He would take my hand and he would hold my hand
for a whole hour.
I don’t want to die until I have the change to hold
the hand of Jesus one more time.’

I don’t know what you think God wants us to do
as Christians in this world
I don’t know what you may think
being a representative of God means
when we’re out there, Monday through Saturday
But I think that the very least we can do
is try, every day, in everything we do and say
to be Jesus in the world
To be Jesus to those who are in need,
to be Jesus to those who are beat up by the world
to be Jesus for someone who needs a friend
And that means believing in people,
forgiving people, showing mercy to people
even if we don’t like them
even if our politics or beliefs are in direct conflict
and finally, it means to show unconditional love
If we could just do that,
imagine what our corner of the world would look like--
it would light up,
it would shine for miles
and everyone would be drawn to the light
Don’t worry,
let go, let God be at work in the world
you don’t have to run the world
you don’t even have to save the world
that’s God’s job
but in the meantime, let’s be Jesus to one another
let’s be gentle
let us be sanctuaries of grace and mercy
Let’s breathe deep of God’s enduring grace
and make room for each other