June 27, 2004

Was anybody here a teacher? Then you ought to appreciate the story about the third grade class that was struggling through a math class on fractions. The teacher called on a little boy in the front row to see whether he was listening, and asked him, “Johnny, tell me what is three fifths of 5-16ths?”

Johnny scrunched up his face real hard, trying to squeeze the answer out of his brain, but like an empty toothpaste tube, nothing would come out.

Finally Johnny gave up and replied, “I don’t know, teacher, but I do know it’s not worth worrying about.”

Today, as hard as it is to believe, we are half way through 2004; six months completed, and six months yet to go. Half-way home. I hope it’s been a good year for you thus far. The remaining six months look to be unusually interesting, with a lot of events still to come, such as the Summer Olympics, the presidential elections and the Pirates winning the World Series. (I just threw that last one in to prove I believe in miracles.)

But I can also guarantee you that things are going to happen this year that are totally unexpected, maybe even shocking. I just know that whatever they are, they’re not worth worrying about.

Worry is a lot like a rocking chair; you can rock and rock, but you don’t get anywhere. Too many people rock back and forth worrying about the future, and it gives them something to do, but they never get anywhere. Jesus told us, “Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let’s the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.”

In other words, don’t borrow trouble from tomorrow, for you’ll only have to pay it back, with interest.

Instead, take the attitude of Billy Graham, who said, “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”

Our eyes see only the present, and our memories see only the past, and sometimes neither one sees very well.

But God exists all around us. He is behind us in the past, he is beside us in the present and he is before us in the future. Do you understand that third part? God is already in the future waiting for us.

It’s natural for us humans to fear the future. Do you know what Shakespeare called the future? The undiscovered country. But when we set foot on that undiscovered country, we’re going to find God waiting for us—and he’ll not only show us around, he’ll protect us from any danger.

Of course, trust in God isn’t easy, and we always want to see what lies ahead before we arrive. That’s good when you’re booking a room at a resort, but not too practical when we’re talking about what lies ahead in life. Many people claim that they can predict the future, but you know what? Nobody really can. I can’t, you can’t, and neither can the horoscopes you read in the paper. Not those TV psychics that charge 99 cents per minute on the phone. Not palm readers, or tea leaves, or crystal balls, or Chinese fortune cookies. Not even Joe DeNardo. In Pittsburgh, if you predict “cloudy with a chance of rain,” you’ve got a great chance of being right most any day.

The point is, none of us know what we’ll face in our own future, but we do know it’s not worth worrying about.

Worry is a universal problem, but it seems to hit Americans especially hard. As many as 100 million Americans will spend today stressed out because of their worries. People who study such things say that 13 million will worry intensely today for at least 90 minutes. Worry doesn’t respect age or class. The young and the old worry, and everybody in between. The rich and the poor worry. The rich worry that somebody’s going to steal what they’ve got, the poor worry where their next meal’s coming from, and people in the middle worry about making ends meet.

And yet it gets them nowhere. Worry adds nothing to our bank account, or to our lifespan. “Which of you,” Jesus asked, “can add one day to your life through worry?” He said that the Father cares for every bird that flies overhead, every flower that blooms and even every blade of grass that springs up between our toes. It’s because God’s spirit fills the universe that the bird sings and the flower is clothed and the grass greens up.

But you? He made you just a little short of the angels. He gave you a soul that cannot rust or tarnish. Your life, unlike the grass or the flower or even the bird, is tied into eternity.

What do we know about this life that we’ve been given? It’s short. It’s like a mist that rises in the morning and then vanishes in an instant. But it’s more than that. Life is tied into eternity. There is the seen and the unseen. The temporary and the eternal. Jesus said live in the eternal, and you never have to worry about the temporary. It’s not that God doesn’t know that you need food in your stomach and clothes on your back and a roof when it rains. But some things are meant to be a little higher priority. In The Brothers Karamazov, one of the characters sums it up so well: “The secret of man’s existence is not just to live, but to have something to live for.”

One thing I’ve always tried to avoid is making my sermons sound like I’m hollering down from the top of a mountain, like some great holy man. The reality is, I’m just another pilgrim walking beside you on the road to our eternal home with God. So often when I pick a topic, I know I’ll be preaching to myself as much as anyone. And so it is with worry. I’m a natural worrier, as probably some of you are. I’ve worried about my newspaper job and making a profit.

Lately, as I get older, I catch myself worrying about my health and the polio and whether I’ll still be able to do this, what I’ve come to love, in five years or 10 years.

What answer should I give myself, church? Say it with me. It’s not worth worrying about. I can’t do a thing about it, I can only leave it in God’s hands. And so should we all. Leave it in God’s hands, and today, this very day, try to live faithfully to God’s call, whatever that may be, whatever our circumstances. So what would Jesus tell us about worry as we live in the 21^st Century? Three things come immediately to mind. One thing I think he would tell us is to stop trying to worry about everything at once. Face your worries one by one and defeat them.

In 480 B.C. a badly outnumbered Army of Spartans held off the Persian army by meeting them in a narrow mountain pass, where they could fight them one by one and defeat them. Now suppose this handful of Greeks had fought the Persians on a wide-open plain? They would have gotten slaughtered. Christians stand in the narrow mountain pass called today. If we try to fight every worry at once, we are sure to be overwhelmed.

 But if we trust God and take on our worries one by one, we will find that our strength is sufficient for the day.

In preparing this message I read some statistics. It didn’t say where these numbers come from, but they made sense to me. See if you don’t agree. Forty percent of the things we worry about are based on events that are never going to happen. In other words, no matter how real our fears seem to be, we’re just making them up out of our imagination. Another 30 percent of our fears are based on things that happened in the past. But the past is the past, and we can’t do a thing to change it.

Twelve percent of our worries are based on what other people think and say about us, and that one really hits home with me. I really flip out over what other people think about what I say and do, but the only one I have to please, the only one any of us have to please, is The Boss upstairs.

Another 10 percent of our worries concern our health, but worrying about our health only makes the problems worse, not better. Help me out now; 40 plus 30, plus 12, plus 10, makes what? Right, 92 percent.

That only leaves eight percent of our worries to be based on real problems that we have to face.

And you know what? God promised that he’ll be right by our side to tackle our problems together. And with God on our side, whom should we fear?

The second thing Jesus would tell us is, Don’t sweat the numbers so much. Instead, take my word into your hearts.

We as a culture are totally obsessed with numbers. At the moment of our birth we are assigned a nine-digit number that’s supposed to make sure we’ll get some numbers from Uncle Sam when we get old. Then you grow up and get a job and find out Good Ol’ Uncle Sam wants 28 percent of the numbers on your paycheck every year to run the country. Then there’s the 7.65 percent of your numbers you have to pay so that you’ll get back some numbers when you hit old age.

Remember what it was like the first time you got paid and you looked at your pay stub and said “Who’s this FICA guy, anyway?”

Buy a house and you’re promising to give 25 percent more of the numbers to the bank for the next 360 months. Buy a car, and give another 10 percent of your numbers to the bank. Put gas in your car, and the numbers make you shudder. Send your kids to college, and wave bye-bye to the rest of the numbers forever.

And because people are so wrapped up in numbers, that obsession spills over into their spiritual life, and they think of God as the biggest number of all. The infinite number, that’s what they call him. Think of the biggest number you can imagine, and then add one. That’s what God is like, they say. And what’s more, God must be the keeper of numbers. If you have lots of numbers in the bank, that means God loves you and if you don’t have big numbers, or maybe no numbers at all, well, that’s a sign that God doesn’t love you very much.

Into this world so obsessed with numbers came a stranger, so mysterious, so different. It was as if he wasn’t a number at all, he must be a word. Maybe THE word. This stranger made people very uncomfortable with his message, which said, “Don’t worry about numbers. Numbers don’t mean anything. The Infinite cares for you infinitely, no matter what your number.”

And some people, especially those with little numbers, were intrigued. Quickly, the stranger developed quite a following. He spoke about the Infinite’s loving heart. He said it was the nature of the Infinite to give and give and give and still be undiminished.

And he added, it’s the same for you and me. The way to have a happy life, the stranger said, was to be unconcerned about numbers.

“When you give,” the stranger said, “that’s when you get. You’re like a candle lighting other candles. No matter how many times your light is borrowed and divided and shared, your light is never diminished. In fact, the more it is shared, the brighter the world becomes. In the same way, the Infinite gives and gives to you, more abundantly than you can ever give away.”

And then he added, “You can never reach the Infinite. He is always the highest number you can imagine, plus one. That plus one always puts him out of reach.”

Someone asked him, “Then how can we become one with the Infinite?” And the stranger replied, “You can’t.” And all the people were shocked and silent. Then the stranger added, “But rejoice. For the Infinite has become one with you.” And the chief numbers cruncher of the Temple sneered, “That’s crazy. The Infinite can’t become a smaller number.” The stranger said, “The Infinite is above and beyond all the games you play with numbers. Because he loves, he loves high numbers and low numbers, perfect and imperfect numbers, fractions and broken numbers.”

The chief numbers cruncher, growing angry, said, “And you say the Infinite has chosen to become you?” Replied the stranger, “You have said it.” “Blasphemy,” said all the numbers crunchers. “Heresy. Cancel him. Erase him. Take away his nine digit number.” With many such shouts, they put the stranger to death.

But then the Infinite did what the Infinite does: he gave. He gave new and everlasting life to the Stranger. And then people knew that the stranger had been right all along. He gave so much that he died without a number to his name. Yet he was one with the Infinite. In fact, he was the Infinite. And he is one with us. The message that the stranger told was true then and it’s true today, and bears repeating over and over again: don’t worry about the numbers. When you give, that’s when you get. No matter what your number, the Infinite cares for you infinitely. 

Finally, the third thing that Jesus would tell us about worry is, Keep your eye on the prize. Never forget that this life and everything in it, it’s all temporary. “You are like a puff of smoke,” the letter of James says, so don’t boast about what you have or weep about what you lack. Your awesome God will set all accounts straight in the final analysis. In the meantime, live in joy and hope.

Your Father knows you need food and clothes and shelter, but put the kingdom of heaven first, and all these will be yours and much more besides.

There once was a bird and a snail. Let’s call them a beautiful bluebird, and a homely little snail, the kind that leaves a slimy trail behind him. One warm spring morning when the trees were all in bloom the snail started to climb a cherry tree, and the bird looked down from a branch and asked the snail, “What are you doing?” The snail replied, “I’m going to climb this tree and get me some cherries.” The bird replied, “You silly snail, there are no cherries yet, it’s only springtime.”

But the snail wasn’t so dumb. He knew that every blossom on the tree had the potential to become fruit, and he said to the bird, “There will be cherries by the time I get there.” And he went back to climbing the tree.

No, I can’t predict the future, but I know that our great God had promised us that our labors are sure to bear fruit; all we have to do is keep climbing, and leave all the rest in his hands. Whatever your problems, God’s power is greater. Whatever your failures, God’s grace is greater. Whatever your heartache, God’s love is greater still. Don’t cringe from your problems. Meet them on the mountain pass and defeat them, one by one. Today we are half-way home; let’s all call upon the name of the Lord, and he’ll see us safely the rest of the way.