Matthew 6:25-33
25 “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? 26 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? 27 And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 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? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For it is the gentiles who seek all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God] and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Luke12:22-31
22He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. 23For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 26If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? 27Consider the lilies, 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. 28But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! 29And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. 30For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
I remember reading Mad Magazine as a teenager. Alfred E. Newman’s face appeared on the cover of every issue, with the quote: “What, Me Worry?” That didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me at the time, so I just basically ignored it and devoured the magazine cover to cover. But the enigmatic phrase kept knocking around in my head. Over the course of many years, I developed many interests other than reading Mad Magazine and consigned it to the growing pile of “been there, done that” in my brain. Except, “What, Me Worry?” still pricked at my conscience. So, I looked at it more closely and paid attention to the punctuation. It dawned on me that it probably meant “Wait. Step back. Take a breath. Is this anything I should be worried about? Can I do anything about it? What is really important here?”
So it is with Jesus’ exhortation to the crowds, as we see in Mark 6 and Luke 12. Once again, Jesus uses a bit of hyperbole to make a point. Birds and lilies do not hold the same consequence in life as do we humans. But God cares for them, nourishes them, protects them and lifts them up as part of God’s Creation. Jesus was trying to make the crowd understand that God the Father is Father to all, from the lowliest to the loftiest.
Delving a little deeper into this passage, a few nuances come to mind. I think that Jesus was pointing out to the people that their lives are unnecessarily consumed with earthly, physical concerns. We naturally need to wear clothes and eat food; no one should go around hungry and naked. But too many of us concentrate our attention on glamorous attire or a rich diet, to the neglect of our spiritual needs. Jesus wants us to end our obsession for satisfying the addiction to pleasure and appearance, and instead become obsessed with turning our thoughts, desires, and energies to our spiritual selves. For everything that we are physically will eventually die. The only part of us left at the end of our days will be our immortal souls. So why waste time worrying about something that is so impermanent? Perhaps it’s because that it is much easier and is more immediately gratifying to focus on the here and now, the pleasures of delicious food and attractive clothing. In fact, our society worships the beautiful, rich and famous. News, social media, and the entertainment industry prey on the human tendencies to embrace the superficial. It takes real effort and conscious thought to turn away from the glitter and glamor and think about what’s really important in life.
Jesus also pointed out the futility and uselessness of worrying. So, what do we do when we worry? For me, I tend to catastrophize, imaging the worst possible scenario of what could happen in any situation. The more I imagine those awful things, the worse I feel physically, mentally and emotionally. By imaging disastrous situations, my mind becomes unable to differentiate between thought and reality, and my body reacts as if the disasters really are occurring. It took a long time to train my mind to engage in positive thinking and to live in the present. If I had believed, truly believed, what Jesus said about worrying, I could have saved myself a lot of grief. But thankfully, the message is finally sinking in.
I also detect a bit of frustration on Jesus’ part when he calls the crowd “you of little faith.” For as long as Jesus was on his mission, preaching the Good News, so few of the listeners actually got the message. In fact, so many stories from the Torah available to the Jews at that time illustrated God’s promise to care for God’s People. Consider Exodus, where God beckoned Moses to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt. Moses had many doubts and worries about his ability to lead, to speak to Pharaoh, to turn against the Egyptian family who lifted him out of the Nile and raised him to adulthood. But God told Moses, don’t worry, I got this. What would have happened if Moses sat down and fretted his life away worrying how to accomplish the monumental task before him? Well, the Bible would have been a lot shorter, for one thing.
Consider the Psalms, particularly Psalm 23. It essentially says I’m not going to worry; I am under the protection of the greatest Shepherd of the Universe. Nothing will harm me, I am safe. Consider Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God.” In other words, Do. Not. Worry.
It is so hard to give over our earthly concerns to God and live in God’s Peace and Love. It takes practice. It takes commitment. It takes a great deal of self-awareness. It takes a great deal of courage to, as it is said by members of Alcoholics Anonymous, “Let Go, and Let God.”
I think it’s hard for us humans to break the habit of worrying because we live in a physical world, where we witness so many disturbing and distressing events! We know through the Bible that God’s got us and is only a prayer away, but we need to exercise that belief every day until it comes naturally to us!