I want everyone to close their eyes, and don’t worry, nothings going to happen. And I want everyone, as we recently sang, to take a deep breath and relax your shoulders and neck, let the tension start to flow out, and I want you to picture a calm nature scene. It could be the beach, or the mountains, or a rain forest, or a desert, or the ocean. Picture something peaceful. Got that in your mind? Now, don’t think of an elephant. And now of course what just happened? And you can open your eyes. Most of you instantly thought of an elephant. And the same thing might happen, and does for some people, if you start a statement with “now, I have to tell you something, but don’t worry…” what do we instantly do? We start to worry, and so as we have been making our way through the things Jesus tells us not to do, today we move onto the injunction do not worry. Now my beautiful wife, the mother of our wonderful three daughters, asked me what I was going to be preaching on after Easter and I told her that we were going to be looking at things Jesus told us not to do. She then asked what I was going to do for Mother’s Day, and when I told her she said “you can’t do that. Worrying is what mothers do. It’s who we are and what we’re known for. Do you think that’s a good idea to tell mothers not to worry?” and I told her I did, and I’ve been worried about it ever since. And so, if you think that I have made a terrible mistake with this injunction for this morning, please tell Linda that she was right and you will have given her the best Mother’s Day gift she could receive.
Now when we think about this command so not worry, it’s just like we talked about last week when we looked at the injunction not to judge, we treat that as if there’s a period that follows it. But that’s not the case here. There’s not even a comma, like there was after do not judge, but instead the thought simply continues strait on. Three times the phrase do not worry is used in this passage and none of the times does it stand by itself. And, just like with the other nots we have looked at, Jesus is not actually saying not to worry about anything. There are some things we should probably worry about, as Jesus says in the last line, “today’s trouble is enough for today.” so, moms, please know that some worrying, or some anxiety is okay. Those things are not sins, as some preachers might lead you to believe. It’s a matter of what we are worrying about and why. I had a mother at one of the churches I serve whose son was an army officer who was trained in defusing bombs who told me that when he was sent to Afghanistan that she finally understood the Apostle Paul’s injunction to pray without ceasing. And so, she worried about him, a lot, which is completely understandable, and that is related to today because there is a strong anti-war background to the creation of Mother’s Day as a holiday.
