Living Abundantly: 'Do not worry'

Preached as a sermon on the Second Sunday before Lent. Readings Genesis 1.1-2.3; Matthew 6.25-end

Jesus said: ‘Do not worry, saying “What will we eat?” or “what will we drink?” or “what will we wear?”…your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things’

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Last week I went along to the Minster Infant School where the community prayer spaces project was running. There were some lovely things to do and to think about.

One of the spaces was helping children think about worries and anxieties.

How could they have worries without those worries taking hold of them?

One way was to hand them on somewhere else: so they had the ‘Worry Monster’.

The Worry Monster was a cuddly toy, albeit looking like a monster, which had a disproportionally large mouth which could be zipped shut.  The idea was that you wrote down your worries on a slip of paper and posted them in the Worry Monster’s mouth and he would eat them up, and they were gone.

If only it were that straightforward we might say!

We are all becoming very much more aware of issues of mental health and anxiety. A superficial hearing of Jesus’ words - ‘do not worry’ - seems to dismiss the very acute reality of the crippling, chronic anxiety that some people have. That is of a different order.

Jesus’ ‘Do not worry’ is about everyday living and discipleship, and not chronic mental health, although it does help us ponder how we function day by day and how we see the world.

The Worry Monster in the school reminds that we will all worry and that’s not wicked in itself– we’re human after all – and illustrates that we shouldn’t hold on to our worries or wallow in them, but that they are best let go of, and handed over.

The little worries and anxieties need to be put in perspective, and also not be allowed to grow into the deeper worries that lead to paralysing anxiety. Classically, of course, as Christians we hand our worries and anxieties over to God, in prayer.

Worry and anxiety seems to be a feature of being human. I am no anthropologist, but perhaps human worry stems from the days when our ancestors were living in caves and would worry about where the next meal was coming from. That sort of worry would spur us on to hunt and gather, so that there was food for the next day.

Jesus suggests that it’s not that way with the birds and the flowers. Take a look at them. The blue tit in your garden is not sitting in her bird box worrying about where the next peanut to peck is coming from; she flies out into an abundant creation expectant that she will be fed. The lily growing in a garden isn’t angsting about what it looks like, trying to earn approval; it simply grows and is beautiful.

So what is it with us? We worry about ‘what we will eat, what we will drink, what we will wear’. Jesus puts that to us not to make us guilty but to prompt us to consider the deep questions about where we put our trust and confidence, where we root our hopes and aspirations, for our heavenly Father knows our needs.

Of course we want to live in a world without fear and worry, a secure, tranquil world without turbulence and threat, but then we create for ourselves a world of fear with the assumption that there is never enough as its hallmark: that is scarcity.

And then we assume we need more. It’s not just about survival; we’re not even in a world where things are scarce. Globally the real inequity and iniquity is the woeful distribution of food in our world, not the amount of food. People go hungry in the same world where people eat lavishly and on demand, chucking out food, not even storing it up, and then worry about being overfed.

That’s why Jesus says ‘just look at the world around you and see its abundance’. The Old Testament reading set for today is the creation account of Genesis 1, and the underlying message there is of an abundant creation. Of course it is a creation we seem hell-bent on damaging, rather than stewarding.

If we see the world as a place of scarcity - bereft of beauty, love and hope - then our worries will grow: we would have much to be worried about.

If we see the world as a place of abundance, overflowing with beauty, love and hope, then our worries will diminish.

The Christian life is about practising habits – good habits – that shape who we become.

Those individuals, societies, churches, who assume a scarce world will live scarcely and will only find scarcity: they will be grudging, penny pinching, suspicious, unimaginative, and cautious, not delighting in others, but mistreating and demeaning them. They operate out of their worries.

By contrast, the Holy Spirit breathes abundance into our world and our lives, opening us up to abundance. Those who assume a Spirit filled, abundant, world will be loving, joyful, generous, peaceful, patient, kind, faithful, gentle and self-aware (cf Galatians 5.22-23). They will revel in beauty, in art, music and inspiration.

There are people I know, I guess you do too, who carry many cares about health, finance or relationships and yet live free and abundant lives. They operate out of abundance not fear.

Yes, we will worry. Jesus knows that. The first step in seeking the Kingdom of God is to acknowledge an abundant creation, then to trust that we will be fed, watered and clothed. That will begin to shape us into the people we seek to become, so that we depend more on God and less on ourselves.

God has given us the gift of life; God has given more than we can possibly need. So our prayer ‘give us this day our daily bread’ is not a plea from scarcity, but an acknowledgement that God provides out of God’s deep abundance, and will give us more than we can deserve or desire.

Jesus said: ‘Do not worry, saying “What will we eat?” or “what will we drink?” or “what will we wear?”…your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things’