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.