Geneva Presbyterian Church

Weekly Sermon

August 19, 2001 - "Changing the Way We Look at the Future"

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Geneva Presbyterian Church

Jeremiah 29:11-14 Luke 12:22-32

Jesus 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. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider 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! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider 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. But 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! And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. Prayer: Precious God, We do worry about our daily needs. Help us to strive for your kingdom instead and may the words of this message guide us on the path to your will. Amen. I'm a little nervous today for a couple of reasons. First, almost all of John's family is here. It's going to be pretty embarrassing if this doesn't go well. While the title of this sermon is "Changing the Way We Look at the Future," I'm not really thinking about the distant future. I'm thinking about the immediate future, that is the next 20 or so minutes. I'm anxious to get to the future that lies just beyond this sermon. There is another thing that is bothering me today. I have some trouble with this passage-the whole idea of not worrying about things. Jesus' words are beautiful and poetic, but are they realistic? We're all good Christians here-hard-working people-and I think most of us do worry about the future. I don't think worrying is all that bad. Worrying can be a good motivator. Worry makes us prepare for the future. By the way, I don't just worry about my own future, I worry about everybody's future. I worry about all those people who have no retirement plan and no savings. I worry about homeless people and starving children. I worry about the children in this country who are behind in school before they walk into kindergarten. I am pretty much an equal opportunity worrier. If you are not worried about your future, just let me know and I'll worry about it for you. I can probably get John to help me with worrying, too. He's a pretty good worrier, too. Is worrying really such a bad thing? If worrying makes us prepare for the future and if worrying makes us more aware of those in need, it can't be all bad. When I read Jesus' words "do not worry," I have conflicting feelings at best. It reminds me of a list that Robert Fulghum has in his book Maybe (Maybe Not). Look before you leap… He who hesitates is lost. Two heads are better than one… If you want something done right, do it yourself. Nothing ventured, nothing gained…0 Better safe than sorry. Out of sight, out of mind… Absence makes the heart grow fonder. You can't tell a book by its cover… Clothes make the man. Many hands make light the work… Too many cooks spoil the broth. You can't teach an old dog new tricks… It's never too late to learn. Never sweat the small stuff… God is in the details. [Robert Fulghum, Maybe (Maybe Not): Second Thoughts from a Secret Life, (New York: Villard Books, 1993), p. 21-22] I feel the same way about worry as Robert Fulghum feels about all those contradictory sayings: ambivalent. I think there are two sides to worry. I worry about all kinds of things. I am a world-class worrier and my biggest day for worrying is Thursday. Thursday is the day I write my sermon. Rhonda Ricci, our wonderful church secretary, and John, my husband, have both watched the Thursday phenomena. I pace and pray. I stand up, sit down, stand up, again. My eyes get a little glazed over. I walk home for lunch and walk back to the church. By mid-afternoon I'm usually at the breaking point. I've been worrying on the sermon all day, like a dog worries on a bone. By three or so, if the sermon hasn't come, I'm pretty much panicked. This Thursday it was no different. Worrying, worrying, worrying and the theme of the scripture was "don't worry." I went home to eat cereal for lunch,, because cereal is a comfort food for me. As I was pouring milk over my Frosted Flakes, I found a great laugh bubbling up from deep inside me and joyfully spilling out. Suddenly, I got it: Every Thursday I worry myself crazy, but God always provides a sermon. The message is simple: Don't worry; God will provide. That is what Jesus was saying to his disciples, to me and to you. Then he tells us why not to worry: First, worry doesn't help-especially when you are writing a sermon. Either the Holy Spirit comes or it doesn't, but worrying won't bring it. In her autobiography, The Preaching Life, Barbara Brown Taylor talks about the uselessness of worrying a sermon into being. She writes, "One of the best sermons I ever preached was at the funeral of a baby girl. Her death, which came just three months after her complicated birth, tried the faith of everyone who knew her and her parents, including me. I worked and worked at something to say, but everywhere I turned I ran into the dead end of my own grief. Finally it came time to do the service and I walked into a full church with nothing but half a page of notes. When it was my turn to speak, I stood plucking the words out of thin air as they appeared before my eyes. Somehow, they worked. God consented to be present in them. But when I received a transcript of the sermon later from someone who had recorded the service, it was as if it had been written in disappearing ink. There was nothing there but a jumble of phrases and images, trailing off at the end into awkward silence. While the Holy spirit was in them, they lived. Afterward, they were no more than empty boxes, lying where the wind had left them." [Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life, (Cambridge: Cowley Publishers, 1993), p. 85]. Worry doesn't help. Anyway, most of the things we worry about don't happen. The second reason not to worry about the future is that Christ has given us a new perspective, a broader perspective. Christ invites us to look at time through the lenses of eternity. When we worry about the future, we think about the next few days, weeks, and years, but God calls us to look at time as a continuum reaching to eternity. The world uses a time clock to measure achievement; God measures time in terms of love given and received. One of the fascinating things about understanding time through the lenses of eternity is that time becomes more precious. Annie Dillard says, "You cannot kill time without injuring eternity." [Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk, (New York: HarperCollins, 1992) p. 157] When we look at the future in terms of the kindness and goodness we share, it makes every minute more precious. In Lanterns, Marian Wright Edelman tells the story of a boy named Anthony. "He was born at Los Angeles General Hospital to a teen mother who was unable to care for him. He was placed in foster care where he was left to lie in his crib for many lonely house with no one talking, reading, or singing to him or turning him over in his crib. As a result, he later required corrective surgery on his ear and tongue from such long periods of lying on one side. Silent and thought to be retarded, he was on the verge of being placed in an institution. "Someone aware of Anthony's condition urged the Williams family to consider adopting him before he was institutionalized. Mr. Williams felt the family's resources were already stretched to the limit with two children and another on the way. Mrs. Williams disagreed and nagged her husband until he relented if she could find the money required by the adoption process. She had trained as an opera singer and got a bit part in 'Carmen' to earn enough to adopt. "Anthony, a child who had never spoken until his new mother and father took him in and loved him back to life, found his voice, confidence, and abilities in the family which eventually grew to eight children including two additional adopted children. After some rough patches, Anthony went on to graduate from Yale College, Harvard Law School, and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government." [Marian Wright Edelman, Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors, (New York: HarperCollins, 2000), p.138-139] I'm sure that some of you know who Anthony is. He is Anthony Williams, mayor of Washington, D.C. He has brought Washington back to life just as he was brought back to life. But we must remember that he wasn't transformed over night. There were rough times, but God saw him through. If we worry too much about what the world thinks, we may miss our chances to be a part of God's plan. If you died tonight, for what would you be remembered? Have you helped a child? Have you brought a smile to someone who is hurting? Have you lived a life that is a testimonial to your faith? In the sweep of life, the important questions are questions of faith. There is one more reason why we needn't worry. Worrying moves our priorities to the wrong things. Did you notice the last sentence of the passage today? Jesus says, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be given unto you." When we are worrying, we are not seeking the kingdom of God. All the other things we do are secondary to our search for God's will. And make no mistake, God has big plans for us! God doesn't have piddling plans for us. When I graduated from seminary, Eugene Peterson was the commencement speaker. He told this story, "When I was five years old I would walk across the meadow between our backyard and the fenced fields [of the farm next door]. I would stand at the barbed wire strand and watch the farmer plow the field with his enormous tractor. The thing I wished for most in those days was to get a ride on that John Deere tractor. One summer day I was standing at the fence (I would never have dared to climb through it) watching Brother Storm, for that was the farmer's name, plow the field. He was probably a hundred yards away when he spotted me. He stopped the tractor, stood up from the seat and made strong waving motions to me with his arm. I had never seen anyone use gestures like that. He looked mean and angry; he was large and ominous in his bib overalls and straw hat. He was yelling at me, but the wind was blowing against him, and I could hear nothing. I knew that I was probably where I shouldn't be. Five-year-old-boys often are. I turned and left. Sadly. I hadn't felt I was doing anything wrong-I was only watching from what I thought was a safe distance and wishing that someday, somehow, I could get to ride that tractor. I went home feeling rejected, rebuked… "The Sunday after my disappointment at the edge of his field, Brother Storm called me over after worship and said, 'Little Pete' (he always called me 'Little Pete'-I hated that), 'Little Pete, why didn't you come out in the field Thursday and ride the tractor with me' I told him that I didn't know I could have, that I thought he was chasing me away. He said, 'I called you to come. I waved for you to come. Why did you leave?' I said that I didn't know that was what he was doing. He said, 'What do you do when you want to get somebody to come to you?' I showed him, extending my index finger and curling it back toward me three or four time… "He harrumphed, 'That's piddling, Little Pete. On the farm we do things big.'" [Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992) p.158-160] We worry about little things, but God does things big. God is not just in the details. God is in all things, calling us to come on for a ride. Amen.