Saturday, August 17, 2013

Worry and Strive

Was it only two Fridays ago, or three?  I don’t remember.  When the skies fell, when the rain poured down and we wondered if we ought to be building an ark, when the cry “man the lifeboats” was in the back of our minds and we were sure we saw Leonard DiCaprio floating by.  You remember.  I sat here in our house perched on a hill and didn't think much about it, until my wife pointed out that the patio off the walkout basement was flooding.  We went down and watched it rise bit by bit and then went to bed hoping it wasn't coming in to soak the floor and the stacks of boxes down there (most notably, thousands of comic books I've been saving since a teenager).  I didn't sleep much, worrying.  Ran down to check at 1:30am and again at 4am.  Just in case.

My daughter Maddie is excited about college.  She tweets about it regularly.  Has been texting with her new roommate, also called Maddie (who’s idea was that, I wonder?)  She has even started to pack, well, to make piles anyway.  People keep asking how I’m doing with her going away, and my standard answer is the Scarlett O’Hara approach - “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”  Then she comes to me saying she finally opened up her college email inbox and found three alerts from the security telling them to watch for a suspicious person on campus who seemed to be up to no good.  Just watch, the email said.  And worry, it might as well have said.  Because I did, and I am.

Mom and dad are settling into their place at Heritage Pointe in Warren, just down the road.  It is a good place, and they are doing good things.  Dad is unsettled, but seems to be understanding, wishes they could be together, and more independent.  But not bad, really.  Except the bills are coming in.  Insurance is balking at switching from Tennessee to Indiana, Medicare is like starting all over, it seems.  And I worry.  Is this the place they need to be, have we done right by them, can we afford it?  I worry.

We are on the brink of something at Aldersgate.  A seizing of the future, a claiming of the heritage.  Something new and different and Spirit-driven.  It is exciting, amazing to watch the pieces begin to fall into place as though it is a part of some divine plan somehow.  And scary.  Darn it all, scary.  That is the nature of change, as wonderful and sought after as it might be, it is also worrying.  So many questions that come to mind, so many doubts, so many fears.  So many voices saying “better safe than sorry”, saying “been there, done that, didn’t work”, and most of all “why?”  Why mess with something that works, sort of?  We’ve been fine for years, before you got here, we’ll be fine again.  Won’t we?  Will we?  I worry.

Luke 12:22-32  He said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.  23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.  24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!  25 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?  26 If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest?  27 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 of these.  28 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you-- you of little faith!  29 And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying.  30 For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them.  31 Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.  32 "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 

Jesus gives many commands that seem impossible to follow.  Or if not impossible, than really, really difficult.  But then there are others that are just unreasonable.  Out of step with the way we live in this world.  Disconnected from the kind of community that elsewhere he wants us to create.  How are we supposed to be the caring community if we don’t worry about what is going on in the world?  Hundreds killed in domestic violence in Egypt in one bloody weekend.  Thousands living hand to mouth in drought stricken Africa, where they don’t have to luxury of debating whether climate change is man made or not, they are just dying from it.  Even here in the greatest country in the world, we fear that our differences are simply too great to live together in community any longer, with a society that seems to think violence is not just an appropriate response it is the only one, in a weaponized culture that wants bigger and more powerful ways to take out an enemy, who can live without worry?

Because both Matthew and Luke chose to record these words of Jesus, we have trouble just dismissing them.  And yet, if we are honest, we have to admit we can’t do it.  Live worry free, that is.  Which seems to be what he is saying.  We’re supposed to watch birds and study flowers and somehow that sets us free from the anxiety of living in this world.  We are supposed to let go, let go of those things that bind us, and just live free and unfettered by the concerns of a messy world, of a world that seems to be the antithesis of the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed.  Just let go.  Right?

“Instead, strive for the Kingdom.”  Strive.  The word is zeteo, and it sometimes means look for, seek out search or look for; but also try, attempt, strive for, want, ask, ask for; and even demand, require, expect; consider, deliberate, examine investigate.  Whew.  Doesn’t sound like letting go to me.  Sounds like digging in.  Sounds like following, like committing your life to something bigger than yourself.  Sounds like being willing to move ahead even when you don’t have all the answers or even all the questions.

If you look carefully at the words that Luke records from Jesus, he never really tells us to stop worrying.  He just tells us to quit worrying about our own lives.  And what is worrying anyway?  The word there is merimnaho, meaning anxious, distracted, or to worry about.  I think he is talking less about caring and more about prioritizing.  What will we care about most?  What will we let guide our feet and our hands and our thoughts day to day?  Jesus is asking us to commit ourselves to the Kingdom first and everything else will be placed into a more proper perspective.

Wait, what?  We are supposed to spend all our time mooning about going to heaven and then the stuff that needs doing in this life will seem less important?  Or will get done by magic?  Or ... what?  Seeking the Kingdom.  What does that mean, exactly?  And why does he tell us to seek it, no, to strive for it in verse 31, and then in verse 32 he tells us God wants to give it to us?  Is it a treasure hunt or a hand out?  Is it a prize to be won, an achievement to train for, to sweat and strain for?  Or is it a gift unexpected, an answer we stumble across?  

Or somehow both?  Ah, now we are on to something.  Seeking the Kingdom is not living some otherworldly kind of existence.  It is not wishing for streets of gold and pearly gates, and closing one’s eyes to the asphalt and rusty hinges of this life.  It is, instead, living with eyes wide open, striving for connection, for relationship, for wounds to heal and brokenness to bind up.  It is desiring an intimate relationship with God and a community within which to share it.  Seeking the kingdom is looking for rooftops from which to shout, darkness in which to light lights, tears to wipe away and hope to restore.  It is tearing down the walls that keep us separated and diminished.  It is seeing the face of the savior in the face of a stranger, but not one who helps you as much as one you can help.

I know that some of you looked at the title of this study and said, whoops, it’s not “worry and strive” but “worry and strife.”  Well, you’d be right if you were thinking of this world in which we live these days.  But you’d be wrong if you were seeking the Kingdom.  Jesus isn’t wagging a finger at us, telling us to get over ourselves - well, not completely anyway.  Instead he is giving us insight on how to handle the worries of this world.  And that’s by making a change.  A Kingdom change.  Make this world, make your world, more like the one Jesus describes.  Once you get started, you’ll be surprised how easy it is (God’ll give it to you) and what a different it makes.  

And worry?  Yeah, I’ll worry, about all that stuff.  But I will try to not let it distract me from seeking what God out of good pleasure wants to give me.

Shalom,
Derek

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