GENERATION TO GENERATION: WHAT ME WORRY? Luke 12: 13-34; Psalm 46:1-3, 10-11 A sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church by Carter Lester on September 27, 2009

Introduction: Today, we continue our series on generation to generation. If you have not been here the past two weeks, Kerry and I asked the different generations of the church these five questions: What is good about being the age you are? What’s not so good? What do you worry about? How has your faith helped your life? What do you struggle with in your faith? We heard from nearly 100 of you and the conversations are continuing. What did you say? Let us turn first to what Jesus says – as we find it in

Luke 12.

Read Luke 12:13-34

When we speak about what unites and divides generations we can talk about the events in the world that have left an indelible impression. What do you remember – what made an impression on you? Raise your hand if you remember - Pearl Harbor?

The McCarthy hearings on television in the 1950s? The assassination of JFK? Neil

Armstrong’s first stepping on the moon? The Watergate hearings and resignation of

Richard Nixon? The freeing of Nelson Mandela from prison in South Africa or the massacre of protestors in Tiananmen Square? The crash of the planes into the World

Trade Towers on 9-11?

But we can also talk about smaller things closer to home that capture our imagination for a time or even leave lasting memories and impressions. Consider the books we read as young readers. Raise your hand if you remember reading a Tom

Swift book or a Bobbsey Twins book? What about a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys’ mystery? Who remembers reading Johnny Tremain or A Little House on the Prairie? 2

And, of course, how many of you have read at least one Harry Potter book? How many of you can remember reading a Captain Marvel or Archie comic book? How many of you know who Alfred E. Neuman is?

For those who don’t know, he was the jug-eared, freckle-faced boy with a missing tooth who graced nearly every cover of Mad magazine. And his most famous statement was always: What me worry?

Which brings us to that which unites the generations. We all worry. No one had much trouble answering that question among the generations. If we are youth, we worry about grades, peer pressure, college, and sometimes, our families. If we are young adults, we worry about jobs, how to raise children, and making wise decisions for the future. If we are middle-aged, we worry about our children making wise decisions and the health of our parents. If we are of retirement age and older, we worry about our health and the future for our children and grandchildren

But there is one answer that was given more than all of the others when we asked. You know what it is. Money. Money for college. Money for retirement. Money for health care. Money so that we are not a financial burden on others. Money for the end of the month. Certainly money has been on many people’s minds in the past year as we have been going through the longest recession since the Great Depression. But money has often been on the minds of God’s disciples, because this is not the first time there have been tough economic times.

“I tell you, do not worry about what your life, what you will eat, or what you will wear,” Jesus says in verse 22. He is speaking here to his disciples, the ones who know him best, the ones we would expect to worry less. But clearly they worry – and financial 3 issues are at the center of those worries. Worrying, it seems, has been an issue for all generations since the beginning of time.

And since there is no shortage of worrying, there is no shortage of advice for dealing with worry. Someone tells us in a best-seller, “Rule number one is: don’t sweat the small stuff.” And rule 2 is, “it’s all small stuff.” Mark Twain advised: “Drag your thoughts away from your troubles…by your ears, by your heels, or by any other way you can manage it.”

Perhaps you find those words of advice helpful, but I don’t. The fact is, I don’t think it’s all small stuff. It is not small stuff when we lose a job, or our retirement or college savings accounts plunge by 40% or the doctor tells us, or someone we love,

“that it is cancer.”

And not thinking about our troubles is far easier said than done. Perhaps I can do it during the daytime when I am busy and there is much to distract me. But not at night, when the house is still and everyone but me is asleep. Telling me not to think about something just seems to make me think about it all the more.

In Luke 12, Jesus offers better advice about our worries.

First, he tells us, worrying is unreasonable – that is, it is not logical if you think about it, Jesus says. “Consider the ravens,” he says to the disciples. You can just imagine him pointing out a flock of ravens in the fields. “Those birds neither sow nor reap;” they don’t have storehouses or bank accounts. And yet they are fed. “Of how much more value are you than the birds!”

And then he points out a field of lilies. “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 4 of these.” But they grow only for a season. Don’t you think that the One who made you and gave you life will give you at least as much? Worrying is illogical.

Second, worrying is unproductive, Jesus tells the disciples. “And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” Far from adding to our life, medical studies show that worrying helps to shorten our lives.

Worrying accomplishes nothing. As Corrie ten Boom once put it, “worrying is like a rocking chair – it keeps you moving but doesn’t get you anywhere.” Rather than fidgeting with worry, we would do better to get out of that rocking chair and face the problem squarely, figure out what we can control and what we cannot control. Then we can focus on doing what we can do about the things we can control. And recognize that worrying will not do any good for the things we cannot control.

Worrying doesn’t help – unless you believe in the logic of a comic strip someone passed on to me: “Worrying does help! 90% of the things I worry about never happen.”

Third, Jesus tells the disciples, that worrying is unfaithful, that is, it shows a lack of faith. Jesus mentions the “nations of the world.” What he means are the Gentiles, those who do not recognize, worship, or trust in Israel’s God. The “nations of the world” strive after the things of this world, Jesus tells the disciples. They think that if they have enough wealth, status, or power – then they will have found the key to a happy and worry-free life. But they are as foolish as the rich man in Jesus’ parable who builds great storehouses and thinks that now he can relax, eat, drink, and be merry – only to find death coming before he can do any of those things.

Jesus wants his disciples to be different from the nations of this world and from the rich fool in the parable. We are to be different. As Christ’s followers, we are to seek after the things of the kingdom of God rather than the things of this world. We are to 5 trust that God, and not any wealth, status, or power that we might accumulate, is the key to our happiness and our peace.

Worrying just does not make sense for Christians, Jesus tells us here in Luke 12.

It is illogical and unproductive - and it shows a lack of faith. Those are good words of advice.

But even Jesus’ words of advice, if that is all that they are, will not be enough.

Because words of advice just go to our mind and thoughts. Sound words of advice help us to think differently, which is not unimportant. But when it comes to worries, our problems are not just in our minds. Our problems are also in our heart. The problem with worry is that it is not just a distraction in our head; it is also the pit in our stomach, the gnawing place in our hearts that can keep us awake at night.

We need more than words that we can put up on our bulletin board at home or on our screensaver at work, as important as they may be. We need help. And Jesus gives us more than advice; he gives us help. Hear the tender words he has for the disciples at the end of this passage: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

God made us, God loves us, and God wants to take care of us – it gives God pleasure to take care of us, and God will take care of us, Jesus reminds us. In Jesus

Christ, God comes and takes on our flesh so that he might take on every burden or worry that weighs us down.

When it comes to our worries, Jesus wants us to know he will share the load.

But we have to be willing to give it to Him. The way to peace goes through prayer, when we name what we are worrying about and cannot control – and turn it over to him.

Because he is in control. When worry comes in the middle of the night, or anytime else, 6 the best way I know to find peace is to recall the words of the psalms: ‘Be still and know that I am God” or “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” And then turn over what I am worrying about and cannot control to the only One who is in control.

You know, if we had not gone through what we have gone through financially in the past year, we might be feeling better and worrying a lot less these days. But if that were the case, we would not be any better off. Because all that means is that we were finding our greatest security in the size of our bank or stock accounts. Times such as this past year can strip away the illusions we have about where our true peace and security lie.

There is a reason why Jesus told this parable about the rich fool building his great storehouses and congratulating himself before he tells the disciples: “Do not worry.” We are always inclined to trust more than we should in what we can touch and count. But the truth is, as Psalm 46 puts it, God is our only “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea.”

In a few moments, we will have a chance to offer our financial gifts. We can do that casually and not have it mean much. Or we can have it be nothing less than a demonstration of our faith and trust in God: that God is the source of all that we have, that God is the one and only one who will provide us with what we really need, and that

God can take what we offer, as meager as it might seem, to make a difference in the world, especially for those who have less than we do. Letting go of material things is a spiritual act of discipleship that leads to true security and peace.

But God does not want only part of us – the material things; God wants us to offer our selves – inside and out, warts, burdens, worries and all. 7

And so this week, I also encourage you to make a second offering. Take the salmon-colored blank sheet in your bulletin. After I tell you one last story, I will give you some moments of silence: in those moments, write down on that sheet what you are worried about – what keeps you awake at night or hangs over you like a cloud.

And when the plates come, put those papers in the offering plates as well. As you put this paper in the offering plate, be mindful that you are turning this worry over to

God, putting it in God’s hands. God invites us to do this. It is God’s pleasure to help us.

Now, the story. A man who had not had any children yet came upon a friend who was tossing his young son up into the sky. To the bystander, his friend’s actions seemed reckless: surely, he thought, they would scar the young boy for life. But the young boy hardly seemed the worse for wear: he was laughing gleefully each time he was tossed. The bystander told his friend: “I cannot believe your son is not scared to death.” The father replied with a smile without taking his eyes off his son: “Well, he knows I have not dropped him yet!”

God does not want us to be scared to death. God wants us to laugh gleefully each time we are tossed about. And we can – because God never takes His eyes off of us.

And he hasn’t dropped us yet.

What are you worrying about? Write it down and offer it to the Lord. Perhaps then you too will be able to smile.