Text for the Week: Anxiety or Serenity

Scripture: Matthew 6:25-34

²⁵ “Therefore, I say to you, don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, or about your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t sow seed or harvest grain or gather crops into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth much more than they are? ²⁷ Who among you by worrying can add a single moment to your life? ²⁸ And why do you worry about clothes? Notice how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t wear themselves out with work, and they don’t spin cloth. ²⁹ But I say to you that even Solomon in all of his splendor wasn’t dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If God dresses grass in the field so beautifully, even though it’s alive today and tomorrow it’s thrown into the furnace, won’t God do much more for you, you people of weak faith? ³¹ Therefore, don’t worry and say, ‘What are we going to eat?’ or ‘What are we going to drink?’ or ‘What are we going to wear?’ ³² Gentiles long for all these things. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ Instead, desire first and foremost God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore, stop worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Questions

1. What if any connection does this paragraph have to the preceding paragraphs in Matthew 6?
2. Jesus discusses what we consider very practical needs in verse 25 what does it mean to worry about the provisions of food and clothing and is it different from showing practical concern?
3. Does Jesus simply mention our need for clothing as it relates to fashion and looking good or does he include clothing for its protection?

Background

Related Scriptures: Exodus 16, Psalm 19, Matthew 10:9-15, Luke 12:22-33 1 Corinthians 7:32, Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Peter 5:7

The “therefore” at the start of the passage references back to the distinction between serving God and Mammon. To serve God is to lay aside the anxiety of self to commit to what is true and right.

We tend to think of flowers being clothed with beauty—the same is true of the rich robes of a king like Solomon—but Jesus seems to want us to focus on the flowers being given the “clothing” they need to survive, not their beauty. The beauty is an emphasis that they are given more than enough.

“Who among you” is a common phrase Jesus uses when he wants a negative answer and we are supposed to ponder how the obvious inability of verse 27 relates to the more manageable tasks of verses 28-32.

This passage corresponds to the Lord’s Prayer’s provision “give us today our daily bread”, worrying is counter to the understanding that God will provide for the day.

Matthew 28:14 uses the antithesis of worry to describe how the Jewish leaders will protect the soldiers who guarded Jesus’ tomb from any negative reproductions.

Reflection

I find this passage difficult for two reasons, first is that while there is certainly everyday worry and anxiety, we also need to understand there is a clinical diagnosis of anxiety. Too many Christians today do not keep this distinction in mind and equate the clinical diagnosis with what Jesus is discussing in this passage. They further oversimplify the struggles to say that being anxious is sinful and in doing so heap more pressure on people who are struggling and further harm their mental state. This is contrary to what Jesus would have us do, he would want us to help those struggling and build them up rather than placing additional burdens on them. This means that when we discuss worry and anxiety we need to speak carefully and differentiate between the anxieties we can control and those we cannot. I also find this passage difficult because even though Jesus says we should not worry, he never addresses why it wrong nor what steps to take to eliminate worry from our lives. My natural urge is to want and expect Jesus to tell me how to eliminate worry from my life, but he never does, he simply says give up worrying and desire God’s kingdom.

But as uncomfortable as I am with how Christians have misapplied Jesus’ words and the fact that Jesus does not offer simple steps to overcome worry, I must also recognize Jesus’ intent in this paragraph. Jesus has said we cannot serve two masters and therefore do no worry, his point is not to give us simple steps for overcoming the anxieties in our lives, his point is for us to meditate on the fact that our worries are a sign that we are giving place to Mammon. Mammon likely derived from a Hebrew word for security and what Jesus wants us to recognize is that when worry takes control it is a sign that we are placing our security in something other than God. Worry is defined as dwelling on the negative prospects of the future, particularly those prospects that are outside our control. Worry then is not completely a conscious choice, but begins as a subconscious response to the world that we then magnify through continued repetition of our fear and insecurity. Worry is a response to the world based in the idea that the thing we have placed our security in will let us down and we will ultimately fail. Worry is the sign that we need to shift priorities and focus on God’ Kingdom.

Worry comes because of fear of a perceived lack in our world, God’s kingdom lacks nothing so as we focus on this kingdom (verse 33) we begin to recognize the plenty that God has for us. This is not inherently an easy process and will take some longer than others to accomplish. To overcome worry we need to place ourselves in positions where we can meditate on and develop trust in God’s provision within our lives. The first step I recommend in this journey is to meditate on passages like Psalm 16:1-6 asking what it means for God to protect me and where are the boundaries in my life that have been pleasant. Meditating on a passage like this allows me the opportunity to see where God has provided for me in the past and prioritize on what is truly important in my present world. Such an exercise can help me focus my mind on what God sees as important which might be at odds with the type of security I desire. When I focus on the boundary lines in my life I might notice they do not include wealth or privilege but they do include a loving Church community. Also, this practice helps me understand that when I have endured difficult times in the past God has come through so there is less fear about any potential future issues. The next practice is prayer, I think back to the Lord’s Prayer and the line “give us today our daily bread” and I recognize this is shaping me to both expect God to provide and to make my needs known to God. Prayers like this help me to further focus on what matters and how I am cared for by God. They also allow me the opportunity to take my concerns to God instead of merely dwelling on them myself (cf Philippians 4:6-7). In all of this as I focus on God’s kingdom, the purposes, the goals, and the support it brings, I lose my own fear and insecurity about life because my security is in God.