Anxiety when the "fix" is in

Second Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 3A
May 25, 2008

Isaiah 49:8-16a
Psalm 131
1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Matthew 6:24-34

I call this “Irony Sunday” because priests and preachers all over the world have been anxious all week about writing a sermon about not being anxious.

I have found that a great deal of anxiety in this world is generated in trying to “fix” things. Especially, in trying to “fix” things about other people, problems in other people’s lives. If you’ve spent 10 minutes or more in my office, you’ve probably heard me talking about this. That’s because it’s one life’s hard lessons:

• Do not try to fix others.

• Everything’s not fixable.

• Everything does not need fixing by me – or by you.

I have found this to be a great temptation of the priesthood: to try to fix everything, trying to fix people. Much time and energy is expended in seminaries in the hopes of beating this message into young priests. The role of the priest is to be a non-anxious presence

• at the bedside

• in the hospital

• in time of tragedy and disaster

So much of being a priest is being available, but not imposing solutions. Letting people know that you are there, but not sticking your fingers into the works.

I’m talking about priests here but don’t think you’re off the hook: You’ve all heard of the priesthood of all believers.

Now I’m not a parent, but I am aware that parenthood is filled with reasons for anxiety. Several years ago, two college friends visited me in Anniston with their young son. We stood in the back yard watching him play with one of the neighbor kids. I kept wanting to step in – “Now share the ball!” “Don’t run so fast!” – but my friend put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Just let them play. They’ll figure out what to do.” He knew that the children would learn on their own and that my sticking my nose in wouldn’t help at all. The didn’t play in that manner that I would have had them do it, but you know what, they were just fine.

Those were good parents. Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven…” because we have a heavenly parent. We have someone who looks over us as a parent, who loves us like a parent. Who is a father to us and like a mother to us.

In Isaiah, God reassured the Israelites that they would be taken care of, that someone else was worrying over them: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”

How God takes care of us is a mystery. And the very mysteriousness of it sometimes brings anxiety to us. Will I get that job? Will my money hold out through the summer? Will my child make it through this illness all right?

The answer is that sometimes things don’t work out the way we want. Bad things will happen. Bad things will happen to me, and bad things will happen to you. And the knowledge of that makes me anxious sometimes … and sometimes I’m able to set that anxiety aside, to ask God to help take up that anxiety from me.

That’s not the same as going through life like a Pollyanna: not taking care of the basics and hoping the Almighty will pay the bills and raise the kids. It is being realistic – knowing that, as Jesus said, no amount of worrying will add an hour to the day or a day to your life.

This is what the psalmist means when he writes, “I do not occupy myself with great matters … But I still my soul and make it quiet, like a child upon its mother’s breast; my soul is quieted within me.” The psalmist is setting aside anxiety – setting aside worries about things that he has no control over. Praying for calm and receiving it from the Father.

As my friends and I watched those children play, the children knew we were there. No matter what precautions we took, there was a chance that one might trip and fall, might accidentally collide and – as they say where I’m from – bust your head wide open. And if that happened, a parent would be there to tend things. But as they age, those children will lose that ability to run through their days at full speed, oblivious to the dangers and the worries of the world.

And most of those dangers and worries aren’t “fixable,” aren’t things that their anxieties will change. Aren’t things that the anxieties of others will change. Aren’t things that their parents can fix – because good parents can’t always look over their children as they age, can’t always fix things for them – though they never, never forget them.

If they’ve been raised right – and I know that these particular children have been – they’ll be fine. They’ll have the tools to take care of themselves.

The Lord looks down upon those children and upon us as a parent, like a mother who cannot forget the child of her womb, as our Father who gave us life. The Lord has given us tools to take care of ourselves – tools like the Commandments, like our commitment to love one another, and our commitment to prayer – that never-ending connection to the Lord our God.

So the Lord looks over us, as our creator, and is without anxiety for us though he loves us. And because he loves us, he doesn’t want us to be needlessly anxious. So Jesus tells us, “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.” I like the translation in the Revised English Bible: “Tomorrow will look after itself.”

Or, here’s how I think of it: “Work on living today. Do not be anxious about tomorrow. And whatever you do, don’t try to fix tomorrow. Tomorrow will look after itself.”

Amen.