The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee



Proper 3, Year A, 2008, May 25, 2008, St Mary Magdalene’s Church, Fayetteville

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…” (Matt. 6:25).

Charles Schulz’s cartoon character Charlie Brown was a great worry-wart. “On Tuesdays I worry about personality problems,” said Charlie Brown in a strip from that anxious year 1960, when adults were worrying about the “missile gap” between the US and Russia. “Thursday is my day for worrying about the world getting blown up”. Most of the things Charlie Brown worried about never happened, but every so often his worries came true. In one cartoon strip he wrote a letter to the “Little Red Haired Girl” but then wondered what would happen if his hand stuck in the mail slot while delivering it. “Charlie Brown, you worry about the most impossible things”, his friend Linus tells him. And of course, in the next frame there’s Charlie Brown, with his hand caught in the slot.
When Jesus talks about worry, he’s talking about the future: concern about what will happen, about what we will do, about what others will do, in the future. When we’re worried, we’re projecting ourselves into the future, into situations that either have not yet arisen or have not yet been resolved. Jesus says it himself, “Do not worry about tomorrow…” (Matt. 6:34). We’re worried, anxious about will happen to us or to those we love, in the future, tomorrow. But the worry and anxiety are now.

This way of “living in the future” is no fun. When we’re worried and anxious about what’s unresolved, it’s hard to think clearly or to concentrate on the other things before us. It’s also not easy to sleep. It’s uncomfortable and demoralizing, sapping strength and energy. Worry is sometimes part of the process of moving toward action, toward resolution, but worry never adds anything to the process of moving into the future. Worry distracts us from what is right before us, from paying attention in the present.

If we’re not paying attention, we’re in trouble. Spiritually speaking, we need to be focused and faithful if we’re going to see what God is doing around us, and advance with confidence into the future God is creating. Some people have the idea that by our anxiety we can shape the world to come. “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” (Matt. 6:27), Jesus asks, and he’s right. If only Charlie Brown could’ve learned this lesson! Our anxiety and worry won’t shape the future, but they will drive us crazy with distraction.

God is the One who brings the future into being, and Jesus invites us to place our trust in him. When we have confidence in God, we are liberated from the distraction and stress of taking thought for the morrow. Or, when we take thought for the morrow, we are able to look forward to it with hope, confident at what will be revealed. Jesus is inviting us to leave behind the worry and anxiety that will paralyze and kill us, slowly but surely.

Remember what the ground of our confidence is: Jesus Christ, crucified for us and risen from the dead. He is the Door into the future that God is creating. We walk through the Door, not knowing the details of the future, but knowing with certainty that God holds it in his hand, and holds us in his hand. When we go through the Door into the future we find life with God, new and everlasting life.

Our confirmands today are powerful signs of the future that is coming into being. Instead of being paralyzed with anxiety, people are coming forward with confidence, trusting God for the future, cooperating in its creation. Maybe there are things that we are anxious about, but it’s exactly here that we are called to trust in God. Worry won’t let us shape the future, but faith, hope, and love will. And by your faith, hope, and love today you are shaping the Church and the world, and helping us to go through the Door.

The Rt. Rev’d John Bauerschmidt, Bishop of Tennessee

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