Rector's Blog, What, me worry?

Then it all disappeared. The money was gone. I was 13 years old, and there’s a lot about that time I suppose I’ll never really know. But what I do know is that my parents were apparently deep in debt. They sold my childhood home, Dad traded in his Mercedes for a Honda (Hondas were still “economy” cars back then), the jet skis and dune buggy were all sold off, and we moved into a rented house about a third the size of our previous place. We got really into coupons.

This happened to me more than once, by the way. My parents climbed out of that hole, and then did it all over again. We got a BMW and a big, beautiful house with a big, beautiful yard. We went to Hawaii and Spain. I went to a pricey, small liberal arts college, no loans. My sophomore year of college, Dad called me up and said, “You’re gonna have to figure out how to pay for your own tuition next year. I can’t.”

This has been wonderful material for my therapist.

I have experienced both financial stability and instability. But you never really get over the instability. I’m in a stable place now, but I’ve seen the bottom fall out before. You get what I mean. Security doesn’t linger in my psyche quite the way insecurity does. I have experienced both, and of course I strongly prefer stability and security – however tenuous it can feel. That being said, it occurs to me that when I am in a state of financial insecurity, when I am wondering if I’ll be ok next month, I am much closer to the experience of the vast majority of humans past and present on this planet. My childhood was the outlier.

Of all the teachings of Jesus, there is one that is the most challenging, the most perplexing, and the most tempting to reject. It is not the command to love your enemies, or to turn the other cheek. It is not when he tells lustful men to pluck out their eyes. It’s not even when he tells people to eat his body and drink his blood: No, the most difficult, impossible lesson in Jesus’ repertoire is, “Do not worry.”

“Do not worry,” Jesus says, and I nod my head out of respect and deference and all the while I don’t believe him. Or at least I find myself tempted to think Jesus is just being idealistic or simplistic or impossible. But this is Jesus talking, so I keep listening anyway. Here’s what he says.

He says, “I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and for God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

When I read the whole way through, I find myself believing him. This teaching isn’t any less challenging because of that, but in the act of reading it I find myself centered in the moment, in the right now, in this breath, this breath where God is.

Contrary to how we sometimes treat him, Jesus is not an idealist. Idealists set forth pretty pictures of how the world would be if things were perfect. Jesus is living in the real world and speaking to us as we are. Jesus’ teachings are practical descriptions of living in response to your belovedness. Jesus says, since it’s true that God is Love, and it’s true that the God who is Love is present and active in the world right now, here's what it looks like to live into that truth.

I’m about to turn 43. I have a family and a beautiful house in a safe neighborhood. We’re planning a trip to Europe for next summer. I understand my parents better now. I understand how they could go into debt. I can even understand how they – who were both practicing Christians – might have read Jesus’ words and taken them to mean that they should just keep plowing forward, trying to live the life they want without worries. The text has been interpreted that way many times before: Just do what you want and God will provide. It’s not good theology, but it’s tempting and understandable.

“Do not worry” was used by many Christians throughout the pandemic to justify reckless and inconsiderate decisions. “Choose faith over fear,” some said. But it didn’t feel like faith to me. It felt like denying reality, and trying to plow forward with our version of normal regardless of the circumstances or consequences. It felt like if we just said “Do not worry” loudly and often enough, we might feel faithful and safe.

Jesus is never telling you that if you just believe or pray or act the right way your life will be worry-free, smooth, or prosperous. It is helpful to remember that Jesus and his twelve closest followers were all killed for their beliefs, prayers, and actions. Neither is Jesus a person of privilege. He is poor, as is most of his audience. They are people who know trauma. They know uncertainty. Jesus is not telling them to dream of better days, to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, to check out of reality. Jesus is speaking to them, to me, to you, to us in our shared scarcity. Jesus is not telling us how to escape this reality: He’s telling us how to live in it.

“Do not worry” is not a challenge. It’s not a commandment. It’s an invitation. Jesus is inviting us to see God’s presence, God’s love, God’s care for us in every situation. We are being invited to see the world as God sees it – as a place full of beauty and terror and death and life, and above all, with a Love that never ends.