Sermon: Trinity 15 – 2023

17 Sep 2023

Text: Matt 6:24-34

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Today, Jesus talks about anxiety.  This is a huge problem in our society, and even among Christians.  Anxiety causes health problems, robs us of our sleep, messes with our minds, and can lead to a host of other problems.  Anxiety drives people to counselors, who then direct people to doctors, who routinely put people on medication.

But medication only covers up symptoms.  Now, sometimes we need to cover up symptoms.  That’s why we take painkillers for a headache.  But it’s important that we realize that the symptom is not the problem itself.  For notice that when Jesus goes about healing people of sicknesses, He doesn’t just mask their symptoms.  He removes the sickness. 

And here, Jesus is doing something that would be considered very poor practice for a counselor or doctor: He is scolding us for anxiety.  His scolding is gentle, but that is what He is doing.  Jesus is offering us a little bit of tough love here, but at the same time, He doesn’t just tell us to “get over it.”  Jesus diagnoses the problem beyond the symptoms, and Jesus also prescribes the cure.

Our Lord’s preaching about anxiety begins and ends with what the real problem is.  He begins by telling us “No one can serve two masters, for either He will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and money.”  The next word Jesus says, dear friends, is “therefore.”  This means that because we cannot serve two masters, because we cannot serve God and money, Jesus tells us, “do not be anxious.” 

Anxiety is tied to serving the wrong god.  For money is not just the topic of much of our anxiety, our faith in money is what leads to it.  We may have a lot of money, and then worry about not losing it – like the fool in our Lord’s parable about the rich man who builds himself a bigger barn, only to die that night.  Or we may have very little money, and we are anxious about what we will eat or what we will drink or about our body, what we will put on.

Money itself isn’t the problem.  Money is a tool that facilitates trade.  It is our faith in money – whether we are rich or poor or somewhere in the middle – that is the problem.  It is our love of, and our trust in, money, instead of God, that leads to anxiety.  And even if it isn’t specifically money or the love of money that is directly behind our anxiety, it is a disordered faith.   For we cannot have two masters.  To have a God means to “fear, love, and trust” in that God, “above all things.” 

At the end of our Lord’s preaching about anxiety, He says to the anxious one: “O you of little faith.” 

Jesus says this often to His hearers, and even to His twelve disciples.  And even when it seems reasonable to be anxious – like when they were on a boat in the middle of a storm and were about to sink and be killed, and Jesus was sleeping during the whole thing.  And Jesus woke up and scolded them for their “little faith.”  It seems perfectly normal for us to worry in the face of something like being tossed around in a deadly storm at sea, but Jesus gently scolds them for that very thing that seems reasonable to us.

But why does it seem normal to us, dear friends?  Why would it be unthinkable for a therapist or a psychiatrist to scold a patient for anxiety?  Because Jesus gets to the root of the problem: lack of faith in the true God.  Very few modern professionals would ever say such a thing.  And no doctor will get a kickback from a pharmaceutical company if he directs you to Jesus.

Just as a caution: I’m not saying that you should never take medication.  Like I said, sometimes we have to control our symptoms.  But just be aware that treating symptoms is not a cure.  If you want to be cured of your anxiety, Jesus says you need to serve the true God as your Master, and you need faith.

But what is faith?  Faith is believing in the promises of God.  What does God promise us in this Gospel reading?  He promises that we do not need to be anxious because God provides for us.  “Look at the birds of the air,” says Jesus, “they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?”

You are a person that God created to be His image, one for whom Christ died, someone who was baptized into the name of the Holy Trinity.  God put you right where you are, right now, in order for you to hear this Word.  God calls you to receive His body and blood to strengthen your faith.

“And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”  Do worry and anxiety fix anything?  Do they help?  Are you trusting that somehow if you worry that worrying will grant your prayers?  When Jesus puts it that way, it does seem foolish, doesn’t it?

“And why are you anxious about clothing,” asks Jesus. “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”  And furthermore, dear friends, Jesus is talking about grass.  You are much more important than the lawn that you cut, the clippings that go into the trash.  “Will He not much more cloth you, O you of little faith?”

When we suffer anxiety or worry, what we really need is faith.  But how do we get faith?  We get faith from God’s Word.  We get faith by hearing the Word proclaimed.  You are receiving faith right now.  St. Paul says that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ.”

If you want faith, you need to hear Jesus.  You need to eat His body and drink His blood: the “medicine of immortality,” the medicine that is a cure and not just a cover for the symptoms.  You need to hear the comforting words of God that tell you that you matter.  You are more important than the birds and the grass.  You are important because Jesus died for you, and He invites you here to hear His Word, and to eat His body and drink His blood.

Jesus doesn’t come to mask your symptoms.  Nor does He come to give you more money so that you can put your trust in wealth as a false God.  You are being thrown about in the storms of life, and it looks like Jesus is asleep and doesn’t care.  But even when Jesus sleeps, He is still God.  And God created you for a purpose.  And that purpose is always good – even when it doesn’t seem like it. 

No matter what, Jesus calls us to “fear, love, and trust in Him above all things,” because He is our God, our Creator, our Redeemer.  He invites you to pray to Him and to ask Him for the things that you need.  He bids you to trust in His mercy, knowing that He is God, that He provides for everything the world needs.  For even when we die, Jesus is still providing for us, giving us the gift of life that never ends.  Our baptism is far more valuable than money, for it buys what money cannot.  For our baptism links us to the cross.  Jesus has purchased you and everything you need for eternal life at the cross. 

So hear the Word of God, dear friends.  Believe it.  Listen to it often.  Keep coming back here to receive the Word that liberates you from false gods and anxiety.  Meditate upon the Word of God in your prayers.  And indeed, pray to the Lord for the things that you need.  He hears your prayers.  He gives you faith as a gift.  And He continues to give you Himself in His body and blood.  He continues to promise to take care of you, and He keeps this promise to do so, even unto eternity.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.