Lester Start’s Works

1Sermon preached by Dr. Lester Start

First Baptist Church

315 W. Michigan Ave.

Kalamazoo, Michigan

October 28, 1979

“BE NOT ANXIOUS”

“Be not anxious” So Jesus tells us in verse 25, of chapter 6, the Gospel of Matthew, in the middle of the Sermon On The Mount. “Be not anxious about your life,” he says. And He goes on to advise us again in the following few verses - not once or twice, but five times in all, not to be anxious. He must have thought this advice important. And, indeed, it is. Anxiety was a common condition of the people of His day. They had anxiety about food, shelter, security in general; anxiety about disease, suffering, war and death. And anxiety is still a common condition, a common concern; and how to deal with it is a popular theme of our salvationist psychologists - how to overcome your fears, how to deal with stress, etc. But, Jesus gives us the best analysis, I think, of the cause and cure of anxiety. Let us see what He has to say.

First, let us look at the word now generally translated “anxious”, or “anxiety”. In its noun form. It means, basically, distracting care, or obsessive concern, worry. The earliest translators, Cranmer, Tyndale, wrote, “Be not careful for your life”, meaning this literally as “full of care” about your life. And this is a pretty good reading. In forbidding this, Jesus is telling us not to be full of care, not to be anxious, not to worry. It gets in the way of what should be done creatively. And He gives us several reasons why we should not worry.

First of all, anxiety is useless. No man, by worry or anxiety, can change anything. “Which of you, by being anxious, can add a cubit to his height?” asks Jesus. Now, a cubit is about 18 inches - and I doubt if a man would want to add that much (even if he wanted to be taller than she is; this would suggest a mismatch from the beginning ). This verse probably means which of you, by being anxious, can add this distance to the span of your life? Look at the birds -God takes care of them. They don’t worry about gathering into barns, yet God feeds them. The point here, I think, in these St. Francis like images of Jesus, in the midst of birds and flowers, in God’s world, is not that the birds don’t work - in spite of God’s providence, we know they have to hustle to eat and especially to feed their children. The point is that they don’t worry.. .or seem to. Their cheeriness suggests anxiety is useless. And the flowers of the field, probably scarlet poppies and anemones, which when dried, were used to fuel clay ovens for baking -reflect God’s providence in their glorious array which rivals Solomon’s, and with no sense of anxiety.

Anxiety, worry is useless, with respect to the past. What is done, is done. As Omar Khayyam says in the Rubaiyat “The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on; nor all the piety nor wit shalt lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it”

There’s not much point, when things seem to be going wrong, to bemoan an earlier action in the past. There’s no point in saying, “if only the church leaders had done something different, the church would be better off today.” For example, when I was Moderator of this church, we made the big decision to remain downtown in this historic building, rather than to build a new church in the suburbs, where there would be easier maintenance and more parking. Perhaps this was not the better decision. The point is, that is the one that was made, and there is nothing to be done about that now.

Anxiety directed towards past actions is useless, vain, a waste of time. Anxiety is useless with respect to the past, and it is similarly useless with respect to the future.

One can be anxious about the future, too, but there is no point, as the saying goes, ” to cross bridges before we come to them”. “Be not anxious about tomorrow”, says Jesus. Tomorrow will look after itself. Besides, when we stop to think about it, most of the trouble we anticipate in the future never comes. And nothing turns out to be as terrible as our anxieties make them out to be. Such anxiety is nicely symbolized by a traffic sign I’m sure you’ve all seen - not around here, but in hilly, mountainous areas. It says, “Beware of falling rocks” or “Caution - fallen rock zone’. When one first sees this, there is a moment of panic as one thinks, “what can I do about it?” I suppose one could turn around at the nearest side road or exit, and go back. What we really do is realize there is nothing to be done; if a big rock is going to fall, it is going to fall. We may note some guard fences along the way to catch one if it does fall and if it isn’t too big.

The point is, though, we see that it is silly to be anxious about falling rocks because there is nothing to be done ahead of time. And as we travel the road of life, it may be we will encounter such a zone; rocks may fall in upon our lives in the form of devastating sorrows, losses, problems, burdens. But the point is, there is no point in anxiously anticipating them. And if they do fall, the point is to deal with them in the, best way possible. And there is help. Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulations,” It’s as if He said, “Rocks will fall in upon your life.” But, He goes on to say, “Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world,” and His spirit is ever at hand to help.

Now, when Jesus tells us to take no thought of the morrow - He means to take no anxious thought about tomorrow - He means not to worry about it. He does not mean, I think, to be like the grasshopper in the old fable who played while the busy ant worked, storing up food for the future. Although there have been attempts to portray Jesus as a kind of Zen mystic, merging into the beauties of nature and the beatific vision, not seeing or worrying about the daily routine, I think such attempts fail.

Jesus was too concerned with the problems and cares of real people in a real world. And He does not say, “Forget about tomorrow.” He clearly taught the importance of prudent planning.

For example, in Luke 14 He asks, “which of you intending to build a tower doesn’t first sit down to count the cost whether he has enough to complete it, lest he be able to lay only the foundation and be exposed as a fool .” No, Jesus is not saying we cannot plan for the future. He is saying we should not worry about it. Worry, anxiety about the past, or the future, is useless, a waste of time. And if a present problem presents itself, it is not worry but creative action that will resolve it. Not worry, but work done in the creative spirit of God.

Jesus is telling us something else about anxiety. Not only is it needless, and useless; secondly, it is directly harmful. It gets in the way of our proper relationship to God, makes us spend our energies on secondary values, and fears about security, when serenity, contentment, a sense of being right with God is the only basis for true security.

We know how anxiety tears away at ourselves and is destructive, and harmful. Anxiety about our health makes it worse. Anxiety can make our stomachs hurt, can even cause ulcers, they say. Anxiety can affect our blood pressure, aggravate our chronic illnesses - how often our allergies reflect our moods, for example. Anxiety makes us irritable and our allergies flare up. There is more than a germ of truth to the teaching that our health is affected by our minds and their moods. Anxiety, worry keep us awake and then we feel unable to cope the next day. Anxiety affects us all.

I’ve seen it especially severe in young collage people competing for grades. How hard it is to realize that the energy that goes into anxiety is self- destructive and that somehow it has to be channeled into creative activity~ organized study, not panic; confident development of abilities, not paranoid fears; a sense of meeting a challenge, not a threat of defeat; and above all, a sense of inner confidence and ability that rests ultimately in a spiritual faith in the goodness of God in one’s life.

Anxiety debilitates, destroys creativity, and affects adversely our health -essentially making us less able to face the real problems that do come.

We could all learn from the wisdom of an old black laborer who said, “When I work, I work hard. When I set, I set loose, and when I worry, I go to sleep?”

But anxiety is not so easily settled, one might say. Anxiety is too much a part of our life. It has become so much of a problem that we have experts teaching us how to deal with stress, and salvationist psychological counselors advising us on how to handle our anxieties. This is the theme of Mel Brooks’ funny movie High Anxiety. The counselor himself suffered from acrophobia, fear of heights, and was hardly fit to counsel others. There is nothing funny about compulsive fears, of course, but it is silly to be anxious, and suffer anxiety, when you know that very anxiety can be destructive and incapacitate you so that you cannot handle the real problems as they emerge.

In the parable of the sons, elsewhere in Matthew, Jesus tells about some seed being sown among thorns and the thorns choked out the seed. In interpreting the parable, Jesus said that this refers to him who received the Word, but the anxieties of the world choke the Word. Anxieties prevent our being fruitful

It is interesting to note that the Apostle Paul seems to have recognized. the destructive nature of anxiety. In his letter to the church at Corinth -specifically, in the 11th chapter of II Corinthians, when he is speaking of his sufferings and listing the numerous outward events: whippings, scourgings, stripes - stoning, shipwreck and perils of all kinds; weariness, hunger, thirst and cold, - he mentions also an inner, suffering he encounters daily, his anxiety about the churches. Paul saw anxiety as a cause of suffering, and destructive of the spirit of good, to list it in this context.

Anxiety is indeed an evil and forbidden by Jesus, because it is destructive of the basic, creative spirit of man, as a child of God.

This brings me to the third point about anxiety. Not only is anxiety useless and vain; not only is it harmful and destructive: it is essentially un-Christian; it reflects a basic lack of trust in God. This is probably the basic argument in all of Jesus’ insistence that we be not anxious, If God has given us life, he seems to be saying, won’t He then give us the food; drink, clothing necessary to sustain it? If God clothes the flowers of the field in glory, flowers used for fuel, won’t He clothe man too? If God feeds the birds of the air, won’t He then take care of our needs?

Therefore, be not anxious about these things - what we shall eat or drink or how we will be clothed - for the heathen, the Gentiles, seek after these things, not knowing, not believing in, the special providence of God. God knows our needs, that we have need of these things.

“But,” says Jesus, “God’s kingdom, His righteousness is our true dwelling place. And, commitment to God will provide the security we seek in things - and all these things will come in due course.”

An old Rabbinical saying is, “He who has a loaf in his basket and who says, ‘what will I eat tomorrow?’ is a man of little faith.” He who enjoys the goodness of today, but is anxious about tomorrow, is a man of little faith. And he who finds today a problem and a frustration, but has forgotten how God has helped in the past, is a man of little faith. In the Psalm we read responsively today, Psalm 42, two verses are left out, verses 6 and 7, inexplicably it seems to me, for they are the focus of the Psalm. Verse 6 reads, “O my God, my soul is cast down within me. Therefore, will I remember Thee from the land of Jordan, and so on. Because I am cast down, therefore, I remember the goodness of God in the past. Remembrance of God’s past goodness gives us confidence in today’s problems and perplexities.

Worry, anxiety, then are characteristic of the heathen, not the believer. Worry, anxiety is essentially distrust of God. When we put it this way, it seems hard; one wants to say, “Of course I still believe in God, but I can’t help anxiety corning into my mind. What can I do?”

Jesus’ answer seems clear - seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness and these things will be added. He seems to be saying that a perfect love of God drives out the fears and anxieties. Commitment to God puts anxiety in perspective. And finally, his wise advice, shared by rabbinical wisdom and wise men ever since - live one day at a time. Don’t be anxious about the past or the future - but live for today - the present is the time for the eternal; and be sure you are anchored in, devoted to, the love of God. When we face the light, shadows will fail behind us. Be not anxious - believe in God and in His Son.

The church can suffer anxiety, too. Our church has been anxious. We must not be. It is useless to regret the past, or be anxious about the future. It is destructive to nurse anxiety, fear, resentments in our hearts. It reflects a basic distrust in God when we allow anxieties to affect our fellowship together in the Church. The way to deal with anxiety is to put first things first, God, His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and His church - and all these other things we are anxious about will be taken care of.

So, be not anxious. Let us face the light of Christ together and so may the shadows of anxiety be behind us.

1

Relevance of Religion

October 21, 1979

First Baptist, Kalamazoo

In 1643 the Pilgrim Fathers made and published this declaration:

After God had carried us safe to New England

And we had builded our houses

Provided necessaries for our livelihood

Heard convenient places for God’s worship

And settled the civill government

One of the next things we longed for

And looked after was to advance learning

And perpetuate it to posterity

Dreading to leave an illiterate ministry

To the churches when our present ministers

Shall lie in the dust

So began higher education in America. From the beginning our colleges were formed to educate people for the Christian ministry, the early schools were built to teach the rudiments of religion as well as the three Rs, and the famous New England Primer with its simple moralistic stories, prayers and hymns had a structure that was decidedly devout and instructive in the elements of religion. The ABCs began, for example, with A illustrated by “In Adam’s fall we sinned all.”

There was no question about the relevance of religion to college education and the founding of our colleges; our forefathers founded them as they said. “To advance learning and perpetuate it posterity dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches.” And there was no question about their believing that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” and that the elements of religion form the truth that makes men free.

But this surely is not the spirit of education today. Secular learning for a secular society is the rule now. Colleges that had been founded and nurtured by religious denominations have found it expedient to relax or sever their ties to a church. Required courses in religion have dropped from the curriculum and required chapel services are almost unknown.

One reason for this shift, of course, has been the changing needs of America as it has developed especially in the last century. The Pilgrim Fathers were concerned with religious leadership and built colleges to train clergy. But it became increasingly evident that America needed other specialties, other skills, other professions as well. Law and medicine could be learned on an apprentice basis, and was, but schools of law and medicine were clearly better. And it became clearer and clearer that men trained in the new sciences were needed to work for the developing industrialization of America. Businessmen saw the value of persons educated in business affairs and after the Civil War when the land grant colleges were formed, specialization in agricultural sciences was developed which has made America the leading food producer it is.

But with all this, the religious spirit in education was not denied. It was a secularized religious spirit, but still religious. It was like the spirit of Ben Franklin who turned away from Puritan religious dogma, but as a secular Puritan insisted on one’s obligation “to do good.”, to work hard to improve the world, to help others.

And so as the task of education shifted from the training of the clergy alone, to the training of clergy, and doctors, and lawyers, and businessmen, and farmers, and (as in the school of Ezra Cornell, even hotel managers). The spirit of service, the commitment to helping others, to improving the world, to “doing good” in secular ways remained as a religious motive for education. One could argue that insofar as higher education is committed to service, it is indeed religious however secular it seems. The problem, however, is that this spirit seems less and less in the picture. One becomes a doctor or a lawyer not so much to heal the sick or help others but to enter a prestigious and lucrative profession - to make money.

Another reason for the shift from religious orientation may very well be the growing spirit of materialism, militant atheism, and the philosophies based on science that view religion as a mistake, an enemy, or an illusion. As Dr. Russell Becker pointed out in his chapel talk last Friday at Kalamazoo College, vast societies are committed to materialism as official policy. He argued that it is the conflict between science and religion which is the cause of a decline in religious interest as science comes more and more to the fore in the modern world. And yet he seemed hopeful that recent studies, including scientific studies in parapsychology and the occult may lend increasing support to the central Christian dogma - the Resurrection - the promise of immortality. As we learn more and more about the possibilities of changing states of matter and energy we may see how when a man dies he might live again. This suggests that science may ultimately vindicate religion. The curious problem here, though, is, if it does, it is science that has triumphed, and one might well ask, “what merit then is there in faith?” What is the relevance of religion? In what sense can we think of the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom, or believe that the truth of the revelation of Christ is the truth that makes us free?

I would argue for the relevance of religion in education in several ways - each of which could be developed to suggest more. I will name three. First, there is an obvious reason why religion is relevant and that it is because it has been and continues to be a dominant element in our culture. It is like that opening song in “Fiddler on the Roof.” - “traditions” it is called. And the theme is we must know our traditions to find out who we are. Of course, “Fiddler on the Roof” is about a Jewish community in Tzarist Russia, and the Jews have always preserved their identity by preserving their traditions.

But the same thing is true for Western civilization nurtured from Greek and Biblical roots. We need to know these traditions to know who we are, what we stand for, as a civilization, what, if anything it means or has meant, to say that we are a Christian society. That is why history is such an important part of liberal education. And we should be embarrassed as educated people if we know or claim to know what is meant by the love of Freud, but know naught of the love of Christ. One can’t even read our magnificent English literature without knowing these rich Classical and Biblical traditions. But we tend in education to neglect the Biblical root.

And the same is true for American civilization. Especially at a time of uncertainty when we wonder about the future of America, about American values, the national purpose, if any, it is necessary to know and explore our roots. The fruits of American democracy wither without nourishment from those roots. And as we explore our traditions, as I think we should in education, we may well find that Puritan covenant theology harkening back to God’s covenant with the children of Israel is as pervasive a source of the American dream as the enlightenment philosophy of John Locke, that religious sentiment is appealed to in the American scripture, “we hold these truths to be self evident.” - not an appeal [to] reason at all, that a rethinking of the American heritage to reveal the roots of our traditions may show why our present day exclusive focus on human rights is perhaps a mistake. Perhaps those who best exemplify the spirit and promise of America - and I think of figures as diverse as Ben Franklin, Walt Whitman and John Dewey - have seen America as a larger promise a larger ideal embracing people in a higher purpose, a transcending of the narrowly individual concern with rights - and this is a religious concern.

A second argument for the relevance of religion is that it must be addressed when we are faced with questions of ultimate values and the ethical conduct of life. We seem honestly confused about ethical values. There is an old story that illustrates this. A little boy asks his father, “Dad, what does the word ethical mean?” “Well, son,” was the reply, “that’s kind of hard to explain, but I’ll give you an example. Your uncle and I, you know, have this store downtown. Now suppose a customer comes in, buys an item that’s exactly a dollar, slaps down a $10 bill, and then starts to go out, thinking he’s put down a one. Well this brings up an ethical question. Should I say nothing and pocket that extra nine dollars, or should I split it 50-50 with your uncle.” There are people who would see nothing funny here, no possibility of another alternative. At best, we tend to be very unassertive about what we think is really right or clearly wrong. We speak of different value systems, relativism in ethics, what is right for you but perhaps wrong for me as if - as Shakespeare once said; “Nothing’s either right or wrong, but thinking makes it so.”

But we know there is a difference between thinking something is right and knowing it is really right. And in the big decisions, when ultimate values are involved, as in the right to life as in the abortion issue, the right to die as in euthanasia - notice how we speak of right to life? Why not reverence for life? - when ultimate values are involved, the decision involves a religious dimension. It is not enough to point out values, it is important to see where they come from, how they are based. And the ultimate values involve religious commitment. As Tillich taught, the very concept of God is defined as ultimate concern - one’s ultimate value, commitment. Religion is indeed to relevant to all ultimate questions of value and value theory. This is why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

One final argument. Religion is relevant in education because education has tended to take over or usurp the primary function of religion - which is to offer man salvation. Now this may sound odd or extreme but it is true. In one sense, of course, there is a proper role of salvation for education. Education saves man from the tyranny of ignorance and error. The Pilgrim Fathers saw it as a necessary ally of religious truth.

But education extends this role to claim other kinds of salvation as well. There are, of course, all the schemes of political and special salvation taught in the social sciences, religion of the state as 20^th-century religion. But I am more concerned with the spinoff of psychological schemes of salvation - methods of modifying behavior, and promising a better “you.” The book stalls are full of all kinds of “how to” books, how to be your own best friend, how to assert yourself, how to get more out of life, or your marriage, or your job. How to develop your psychic powers, your hidden energies, your future success. How to be a winner. How to be slimmer. Then there is transactional analysis, assertiveness training, sensitivity training, I’m all right you’re all right - the list goes on. And I suppose one might say there’s nothing wrong with this, surely. But there is. They all are based on manipulative techniques of behavior modification and are thus unfree and demeaning. And they almost always promised more than they can deliver. They suggest a salvation they cannot achieve.

They can teach a certain self-satisfaction - they can show us various ways by which we can feel good about ourselves - but - the ultimate promise of salvation as a religious event involving the redemptive act of the love of God through Christ - means to lift the self from its self satisfaction to a new birth in which one lives in the higher spirit of God for a larger purpose than oneself - and it means to respond to this redemptive love of God in acts of love to one’s fellow man. It means not to gratify the self but deny the self for a larger self hood and fellowship in the kingdom of God.

Religion is relevant here, of course. But it functions truly in education as pointing to the ultimate relation to God. Not as a substitute for it, and knowing about God is no substitute for knowing God. Reverence for God, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and living in the spirit of the redemptive love of God is the truth that makes men free.