Oct.12, 2008 Psalm 23
Phil. 4:4-9
“Anxious Times”
“Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Phil.4:6-7
September 30: I take my 2003 Honda to the local Honda Dealership for an oil change and a recall having to do with the windshield wiper motor. By 8:30, I am settled into the waiting room with my laptop and cell phone. The work will take about an hour and a half. That’s all right. It’s a little longer than I expected but it’s OK. I can get some work done.
Not surprisingly, the work takes longer than expected. At about 10:15, my name is called and I quickly pack up my laptop and head to the service counter.
“OK, Mr. Scovil. You’re all set. The oil and filter have been changed and your windshield wiper motor is not the one involved in the recall, so we just put a plastic cover over it-no charge for that, of course. Your total comes to $29.99.”
As I reach for my wallet, he casually adds the zinger.
“By the way, starting tomorrow your license plates will be illegal.”
“Excuse me?” I said.
“That’s right. If this were tomorrow and we were inspecting your car, your license plates would fail. That means starting tomorrow, the police can pull you over and give you a ticket. The red paint on you plates is pretty washed out.”
Suddenly, my day was starting to go sour.
“So, what should I do?”
“You have to go to DMV and get new plates. I’m not sure how much they will cost.”
A few minutes later, I am back home venting. Diane gets to hear the entire story, unabridged.
“How come I never heard anything about this? Why didn’t the dealership tell me at the last oil change? Why wasn’t there something in the news? I can’t believe this: starting tomorrow, we could get ticketed because of our plates!”
Now, I feel the pinch of time. It is 10:30. If I leave right now, I should be at the DMV by 11:00. If I can get out of there by noon, I will be back home by 12:30, grab a quick bite to eat and be in Mashpee by 1:30 for my afternoon appointment. But that’s if all goes well, if DMV can “process” my request. We all know how things can go in DMV and the waiting rooms in doctor’s offices.
Convinced that this can all work, I hop into the car and head for
“How could I possibly have thought that this would work.”
As I get caught in traffic around the Airport Rotary in
“I hope that driver knows what he’s facing tomorrow. He better be on his way to DMV or he’s going to get a ticket!”
Finally, I pull into the parking lot. I grab the pliers and start to loosen the screws holding the plates in. Parked next to me is a woman doing the same thing. I’m thinking I need to get inside before her, after all the line must be huge in there-look at all the cars in the lot-she may be the reason why or why not I am on time for my afternoon appointment. I start racing to get the job done!
She has a screwdriver. I have pliers. She has the right tool. She has her plates off in no time. The screws on my back plate are rusted and the pliers are slipping. I lose the race.
That’s it! I now know that I am doomed! I am going to be in that waiting room to nowhere for hours!
As I enter the building, I have just a little bit of an attitude. I am primed to take on the red tape of bureaucracy.
Through the second set of glass doors I go and much to my amazement, there is no line. The sign says, “You must talk with the receptionist first.”
“Oh, I get it. The receptionist gives you a number and then you take a seat and wait forever.”
I approach the counter. The receptionist smiles.
“How may I help you?”
“I just had my car serviced and was told that starting tomorrow, my plates would not pass inspection. I need new plates.”
“Certainly” she said.
She looks at my registration, punches a few keys on her laptop, reaches under the counter, hands me two new plates. A printer on her right finishes printing out my new registration which she hands me with another smile and says, “Have a good day.”
I stand there motionless.
On the way home, all the lights are green and as I walk through the door, Diane says, “Wow, that was fast!”
On a communion Sunday, why am I spending so much time telling you this story?
For one thing, it’s funny. It shows just how ridiculous we can be sometimes. Laughing at ourselves is a good thing, especially now.
By the same token, this story is a practical application of today’s words from Paul:
“Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Phil.4:6-7
Paul urges us to focus not on our anxieties but on things spiritual.
My story shows how worked up we can get over things that in the bigger picture mean very little. Anxiety begins to build upon anxiety.
First, I became anxious because I realized that I could be stopped by the police because my plates were washed out. I lost sight of the fact that come October 1 that there would be other cars on the road as well, in fact, thousands of them with the same problem. My judgment became skewed, anxiety moving toward panic. By the time I got to DMV, you could have called me “Chicken Little.”
These are strange and scary times for us. We don’t know quite what to do and how to behave. The experts tell us that we are in unchartered waters. If that doesn’t feed into anxiety, I don’t know what does.
But, you know what? We are not the first generation ever to face scary stuff and we will not be the last. These words of Paul have been around for two thousand years and they have been a source of inspiration and hope for every generation and in every time. There is more to creation than us.
Let’s do something very basic, something very fundamental : trust in God to get us through these challenging times. Let’s allow our faith to take its rightful place in our lives. Let’s come back to the good words of the Gospel that tell us that in the end, after life has spun itself to completion, through the saving Grace of God in Jesus Christ, we will return back to God’s loving arms. There is a place prepared for us. With that certainly, all the worries about volatile markets and shrinking 401 Ks and bankruptcies and depression, become secondary to who we are as a people of God.
Last Wednesday as I entered the dining room for Rotary breakfast, I discovered four people in a rather heated discussion about the economy. Later as a prologue to the blessing which I was about to give, I shared my joy of getting up on such a beautiful day and being able to come to a breakfast with such good people.
The bears and the bulls of the market will battle it out. The governments of this world will work their strategies to fight the downturn. In time, governments and nations will come and go as they always have, and the prospects for anxiety will always be there.
Rest assured. As someone once said, “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.” Paul says, “Have no anxiety about anything.”
And why? Because the peace of God will prevail and the One who holds our future loves us more than we can ever know.” AMEN
