Busy Bees

Matthew 6:25–34 NRSV

“Therefore I tell you, 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 sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Ok, so quick question. How many of you have ever immediately stopped worrying when someone told you to stop worrying? Right. Probably nobody.

Or calmed down because you were told to calm down. Probably the greatest mistake you can make in a relationship is to tell your frantic spouse, family member, friend, whoever to just calm down. It’s never worked in history right?

Ok one more question. How many of you are really good at just being. Really good at just sitting and reading a book or just sitting and enjoying your surroundings?

And how many of you are constantly on the move. Always doing something or planning to do something, or thinking about the next something that you’re going to do?

Then theres the third category: really good at doing nothing until you remember that you really should be doing something so you spring into action and frantically do that something, or all of the somethings simultaneously… This is my entire life. I wrote this sermon at 4:30am if that gives you any indication of how I’ve been operating lately.

Sleeping soundly, baby wakes up, mind remembers a thing that needs to be done, can’t turn it off, and here we are. So if you think this sermon stinks, well now you know why.

But in all honesty we are all wired to interact with the world differently. Some of us are very low heart rate, not high strung people. Some of us are busy busy bees. And some of us are both -- depending on how much junk is happening in the world around us or how long our to do list is.

All of this leads us to our topic for the day: Anxiety.

We are in a sermon series called “All Your Mind” in which we are looking at Jesus’s command to love the Lord our God with All our hearts, all our souls, and all of our minds and to love our neighbors as ourselves and seeing how loving God with our mind and loving ourselves gives us key insights into how we are called to manage our mental health.

You see, loving ourselves means being honest with ourselves about what’s going on in our heads or our minds. And it turns out that what is going on in our minds has a massive effect on our ability to truly commune with and practice loving God.

Probably, and this could be just for me, the greatest thing that stands between me and my relationship with God is the number of things on my to do list and the frantic stream of thoughts in my head about when I’m gonna do the things I need to do.

And that’s all the stuff that I can control. That doesn’t even factor in all of the other stuff that I have no control over — like the economy, world conflict, politics, and just other people in general.

When the mind is consistently occupied with all of this clutter, it creates a condition of living that we call anxiety, and anxiety blocks our ability to just sit with the presence of God and be filled with the knowledge of God’s love for us.

Now, Anxiety is often caused by imbalances in the brain or as the nasty side effect of trauma. Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Panic attacks are common for a lot of Americans now, and they are conditions that need to be treated by professionals. But some of the therapeutic interventions for anxiety are really good practices for all of us as we seek to find more balance and less clutter in our own minds.

Which brings us back to the words of Jesus. I know I said that telling someone to calm down is like the worst way to get someone to calm down… but somehow when Jesus says it, it’s ok. I don’t make the rules. I’m just here to relay the message.

Jesus says “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and clothing?”

To which I say… what? I don’t know about you all, but I definitely spend a great amount of my time thinking about food. And probably clothing too. These are like the basic bare minimum necessities for humans. Food, water, shelter, clothing. You take any of these away and quality of life plummets.

But Jesus is not saying these things aren’t important. Jesus is saying, “God knows how important they are. God will take care of these things. Look at the animals and the plants… are they not cared for by God?”

I think this is a very important distinction because it sets things in order of priority and places the work of worrying on God. God is concerned about these things. God will take care of these things.

He says “have you every added an hour to your life by worrying?” The answer is no… but I bet we can all agree that we’ve thrown away a lot of hours worrying right? Even worrying about things that are within our control, not to mention all of the stuff that is beyond us.

Jesus finishes his argument by saying “strive for the kingdom of God and all of this stuff will be given to you.” And this really helps us to see what our priorities are meant to be. Our minds should be primarily occupied by seeking after righteousness and fulfilling our vocation of making this slice of the world more like the kingdom of God.

If our minds are occupied by seeking after a deep loving relationship with God and deep meaningful and transformational relationships with our neighbors, then we won’t have as much time to worry about things that aren’t ours to worry about.

You may be thinking, this is all very nice. But how is this practical? And you’re right, I understand this. We live in an age of anxiety, and we also live in a world of personal responsibility. And I’m not advocating against being responsible and taking care of ourselves. What I am trying to point us towards is the deep dissatisfaction that we face in our lives when taking care of ourselves is the only thing that occupies our minds.

This dissatisfaction is a part of our human condition that is cured by right sizing ourselves and trusting God to take care of the things that are just too big for us to take care of on our own. We often believe that we have more control over our circumstances — even our needs than we actually do.

We are conditioned to believe that because we have money in our bank accounts that we will be able to provide everything that we need for ourselves. We take for granted the fact that Publix is fully stocked and that the clothing stores are not only filled with clothes, but that they carry our particular size, and our particular style.

But all of that relies on trucks rolling into the back of the store. Which rely on processing plants producing the foods. Which rely on farms to produce the material for the food. And what do farms rely on? The work of farmers… and the conditions for growing plants or supporting livestock, or whatever. They rely on God. They rely on factors out of your control and my control.

And that’s a really good thing to remember. In the end, God gives. It’s our job to just put one foot in front of the other, and while we’re at the grocery store or the clothes store to remember that maybe God is wanting to give to others through us. So throw some extra clothing and food into the cart and bring them on in here to give to the shower ministry and to Harvesting Hope to feed the kids in our community.

ok that shameless plug is over. But that’s the point here that Jesus — the traveling nomad dude who basically just relied on the hospitality of others in order to eat — had to say about why we shouldn’t worry. God’s got it dude. Just do what you were created to do — seek after a right relationship with the world.

But Jesus’s final words here are I believe the practical thing: Don’t worry about tomorrow, worry about today.

What this points to is the practice of being present. What drives situational anxiety and feeds it is an inability to live in the present moment. When we are constantly projecting out onto our fears of the future, of the to do list for tomorrow and the next day and so on and so forth we are unable to live in the present moment.

We are so deeply distracted as a society by things that are happening outside of our own lives and our own current moment in time that we can’t truly live our lives in the present moment. We can’t pour ourselves into our relationships. We can’t take time to commune with God and truly love God with all of our minds, because our minds are too busy trying to do God’s job of worrying about all of the things.

But friends this is not how we were created to live. We were created to exist in the moment and to savor it. We were created to live in the relationships that God has blessed us with and to live in the relationship that with him that we were created for. One that trusts that someway or another — God’s got this.

It reminds me of that old childhood tune: He’s got the whole world, in his hands, he’s got the whole world, in his hands, he’s got the whole world in his hands, he’s got the whole world in his hands.

What would our lives look like if we just slowed down. Just took it in. Just breathed in the gift of life with God. Just devoted our time to remembering that fact — God’s got the whole world — including our concerns and our to do lists in his hands?

Before I put Ezra to bed every night I read him this book called “Don’t forget to remember.” And I’m going to close out today by reading it to you, then I’m going to invite Mary to come up here and lead us in a time of anxiety release.

“Did you now Creation is talking to you?

Wherever you go and whatever you do

The earth will keep giving you clue after clue

So you won’t forget to remember what’s true

Like every day when the sun rises high

The warmth that you feel is God’s love by your side

Oh and just like the birds who keep humming their tunes

Remember God sings song of joy over you

Don’t forget to remember, you’re never alone

No matter if you’re up high or down low

And as sure as the sun will keep rising above

Don’t forget to remember that you’re dearly loved

And when you catch the snowflakes that fall from the sky

Each of them whispers ‘you’re one of a kind’

Oh, and after the winder and cold are all through

The flowers remind you God makes all things new

So just like the stars won’t forget how to shine

Don’t forget to remember that all of the time

God’s light will guide you wherever you go

And you’re loved from the top of your head to your toes

Let the whole earth remind you of what God has said

From the moment you wake up ‘til you go to bed

Oh and even on days you forget what is true

Don’t forget to remember, God won’t forget you”