Anxiety
Matthew 6:25-34
I don’t think that anyone here would doubt the wisdom of the words of Jesus. But in private, most of us set his words to one side. This is a part of Jesus teaching which is both treasured and quietly ignored by most people in the Christian community.
So let’s get real; who here does not worry about money? Who here does not worry about how they look and what they wear? Who is not concerned about their children, and what the future may hold?
So what does Jesus mean and how do his words apply to us today?
The worship of cash (verse 24)
Jesus words remind us of the background to this; the little word 'Therefore'. He has been challenging us about wealth. "Don't let money master you” Jesus has been saying (verse 19 to 24) “You should be free of slavery to wealth”.
Wealth and poverty are a distorting influence in most people’s lives. Wealth can make us careless of God; poverty can make us insecure and anxious. A powerful driving force behind the worship of money is this fear and insecurity which can mutate into a horrible quest for wealth that turns us into people who will do anything to get one over on others.
So anxiety is at the heart of a lot of human misery. What does an anxious Christian do?
Two kinds of anxiety
We need to be clear from the start that there are two very different kinds of worry.
If you are worried about not having enough money, or about what your kids are getting up to when you are not watching them, or about your relationship with your partner you have the first kind of worry. Everyone goes through periods of anxiety that can be miserable, but are pretty natural.
Most of us feel this way from time to time – but some of us feel anxiety all of the time. We worry about money, but when we check the bank balance and it is healthy we worry about our relationships instead. Then, when our partner and our kids shower us with love and affection we worry about something else. This is the second kind of anxiety, and it is quite different from the first.
Let’s give them names, these two kinds of anxiety. The first kind is anxiety about the things you should be worried about, your income, your kids, your exams or your marriage. This is natural anxiety and God knows that we will feel it from time to time, Jesus is telling us how to overcome it.
Last Thursday I was walking to a coffee shop in Sunderland feeling tightness around my chest and the sensation that my guts were n a knot. I couldn’t understand it and later shared these feelings with my colleague, Pete. He said, “Well, you do have rather a lot going on in your life right now”. “What do you mean?” I said, incredulously. “You are moving house, your sister is seriously ill with cancer. The car you were travelling in last night crashed into a tree and you are off tonight to speak at a Jazz Café full of non-Christian students and you are not sure how to play it”, he replied! When he put it like that it was obvious – I was naturally anxious.
The second kind is anxiety that finds an excuse to worry even when everything is fine. Your anxiety is not natural, it is an illness and you probably need a bit of extra help to get it under control.
What Jesus says here will cure natural anxiety and it will help to cure anxiety that is a kind of illness. But some people with serious anxiety-related illness will need medicine to help them – this is perfectly normal and is not a sign that you do not trust God; you are just poorly and need extra help.
Christians can make people with this second kind of anxiety much worse by quoting Matthew 6 to them. It is not that simple – let your friends seek medical help and do not hinder them, support them until they can help themselves again!
Two words for the anxious and one for the comfortable
When you are worried the word is TRUST (31-32)
Jesus says that it is a distinguishing mark of the pagans that they will dissolve into anxiety, but Christians have a covenant God that they can trust.
Do not worry, but trust. Don’t worry about tomorrow, but live for today.
When you are comfortable and you know that you have nothing to worry about the word is SIMPLICITY (25-27)
Jesus says that life consists of more than clothes and stuff. Our society disagrees strongly. Weekend papers full of stuff you must have. Try telling Kate Moss that life is more important than clothes! So we live in obedience to the consumerist God and fill our minds with the desire to have stuff. Now, here is the psychological bit, People who are comfortably off are much more anxious about money that people who have much less. Jesus nails this one directly in the parable of the seeds - Matthew 13:22.
People who are comfortable don’t worry about food and drink, they worry about stuff. Their worst nightmare is having to wear older clothes, live in a less salubrious area… drive a less prestigious car. That is why we worry.
So the word is SIMPLICITY – a forgotten spiritual discipline.
- Resist the desire to have things for their own sake
- Keep your finances simple
- Get out of debt and then don't borrow money for anything
- Don't use shopping as a way of easing your boredom or depression, get help
- Learn to give away as well as to spend
Whether you are worried or comfortable, a Christian or not, the word is SEEK (33)
We are human and we worry about all kinds of things. The radical challenge of this passage is to re-focus our life's goals. To seek God’s rule in everything we do.
When I was a kid all my friends started school before I did, I was left playing in the street by myself. If only I could start school, I used to think, my worries would be over. When I started school I got quite a shock. You had to go every day for years and years! I began to feel that when I started the big school all my worries would be over. Well I got to grammar school and quickly discovered what a terrible place that was – I spent most days longing for the holidays and when they came I spent most days dreading the day we started school again.
I began to long to go to university, when I started university all my worries would be over. University was great, I loved every minute of it, but I was skint all the time and in the end began to long for a job, “When I got a job all my worries will be over”, I thought. Then I got a job, but I was lonely and used to think that when I got a girlfriend all my worries would be over. I got a girlfriend, we got married, and we used to talk together and say, “Won’t it be fantastic when we have kids”. We had two lovely kids, but recently we have started to say, “Won’t it be fantastic when the kids leave home – think if the freedom we will have!”
I know people whose kids have left home, and they are working so hard, they say “Won’t it be brilliant when we retire, all our problems will be over”. And people retire, but get older and frailer and less able to look after themselves. It is a worry, and their kids say to each other, “Won’t it be good when the old folks go into a home, all their worries will be over”.
Look into the eyes of an elderly manor woman in a care home – a shadow of their former selves, being patronised and shouted at by and adolescent care assistant. When will their worries be over?
Every age of man brings its own worries and challenges. What can give us the purpose we need to enjoy each stage and not be paralysed by worry? Jesus says that it is a heart set on God’s agenda and not my own.
Our goal will determine what we worry about. The Kingdom is our goal. Seek this and everything else will follow.