Sermon: “Do Not Worry About Anything”

Text: Philippians 4:1-9

28^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

October 12, 2008

Scripture introduction.  Our second reading this morning is from Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, the first church that Paul established in Europe, and one with which he seems to have maintained an especially cordial relationship.  We can’t say for sure where Paul was when he wrote Philippians, but Paul does tells us in chapter one that he is writing the letter from prison.  So we know he was under stress and that his life may possibly have been in jeopardy.  The Philippian church members had their troubles, as well.  Philippi was an official Roman colony with direct governmental links to Rome.  Most of the residents worshipped the Roman emperor; and the local officials persecuted the Christians, who insisted that the emperor was not divine and that worship should be directed toward Jesus Christ and the God of the Jews.  Paul acknowledged in chapter one of the letter that the Philippian church had opponents and that the members were suffering and struggling as much as Paul himself.  Yet despite all of Paul’s personal reasons for anxiety and worry, the tone of his letter is joyful and thankful.  Moreover, he urged the Philippians, in the midst of their persecutions, to stop worrying and to rejoice.

Sermon.  Friends, we come to this passage from Philippians with plenty of our own reasons to worry and be anxious.  Over the last 12 months, the Standard & Poor’s index of 500 stocks has declined 40% in value.  The same period has seen the Dow Jones Industrial average drop in value by one-third.  Some of the largest financial institutions—Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, American International Group (AIG), Washington Mutual, Wachovia, and others—have been forced to seek government assistance, to merge with other firms, or to seek the protection of the bankruptcy laws.  Just last week, after considerable brinksmanship and political maneuvering, Congress approved an $800 billion emergency rescue bill and the President signed it.  This is a fantastic sum—approximately equal to the United States’ annual military budget.  Since then the Treasury has been establishing plans for how to use these new resources.  Just this weekend, it appears that the Treasury is scrapping some of its original ideas for this fund and is moving more to a model adopted by the British.

Even so the market has not been impressed.  Nor has the credit crunch among the truly large banks and multinational corporations eased.  The difference between the interest rate large banks charge one another and the interest rate on United States Treasury obligations is still extremely high, signaling that banks still do not to trust each other’s creditworthiness.[1]  In the United States a home is foreclosed every ten seconds.  And now the crisis is fully globalized, with banks failing and markets dropping in Great Britain, France, Japan, and Russia.  On Wednesday the central banks in the United States, Europe, and Asia all lowered their interest rate by a half point.  In normal times this would be a gigantic boost to the markets.  But still credit is frozen and the market falls.  On today’s New York Times website, it is reported that General Motors, having first sought some kind of merger with Ford and having been rebuffed, is now in discussions with Chrysler, as sales among all car manufacturers plummet.[2]  Even municipalities and state governments are becoming worried about their ability to obtain the short-term credit that allows them to pay benefits and issue paychecks to government employees.  About the only good economic news recently is that the price of oil is down to $80 a barrel, but that comes too late to ease this year’s home heating oil prices, which were locked in at earlier and much higher rates.

Here in Terre Haute, we haven’t yet suffered the full impact of this crisis.  I am told by bankers that our local banks have been more conservative and have refrained from extensive subprime lending.  And they have never been as active in the interbank borrowing and complex derivatives market as have the titans of Wall Street.  But if things do not improve soon, we will feel the effects.  Large corporations will reduce production as their markets and credit dry up, resulting in a layoff of employees.  Charitable organizations like my seminary or the Lilly Endowment or Rose-Hulman or the Wabash Valley Community Foundation keep their savings invested in the stock market and generally spend a set percentage each year of the value of those stocks.  If the value goes down 40%, as it has this year, then eventually the organizations will have less money coming to their budget from their endowments and will have to reduce expenses by being less generous or curtailing construction projects or laying off employees or all the above.  The point is, our economy these days is global, not local; and Terre Haute cannot hope to remain insulated from what is happening across the nation and the world. 

Some of you are old enough to remember the bread lines and soup kitchens of the 1930s.  My parents tell stories about hungry people regularly sifting the contents of their garbage cans.  Who knows what lies ahead for us?  Will the market continue to go down, as the cycle of fear and mistrust causes more and more persons to sell out?  Are we headed for a repeat of the Great Depression?  On the other hand, the bear market is still not as bad as the one in 1974.[3]  Are we now near the bottom, the point at which professional investors begin to buy back into the market at historically low prices?  At a more personal level, will our investments see us through retirement?  Will we be able to pay our mortgages and other bills?  Will our small business be able survive?  Will we have a job next month? 

Is it conceivable that the advice Paul gave centuries ago to the little church in Philippi relates to us contemporary Christians?  As we have seen already, both Paul and the Philippians were dealing with real causes for anxiety and worry.  This letter arises out of real life, not just some lofty theological discussion.  Paul’s simple advice was, “Quit worrying.”  “Just stop it,” he says.  Sounds a lot like Jesus, doesn’t it?  You remember that in his Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught us that worrying doesn’t do any good.  He said, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.”[4]  He told us to consider the little birds, which God feeds, and the common lilies, which God clothes, remembering that we are at least as important in God’s eyes as they are.  Faith, at its heart, is simple trust in God—trusting that God has our best interests in mind and will take care of us no matter what happens.  Maybe God’s care will be different from what we expected, but we are never outside God’s protection and providence. 

Helpfully, Paul gives us a mechanism for letting go of our worries.  Instetad of worrying, he writes, “with prayer and thanksgiving let God know about your concerns.”  Because Paul used the words “supplications” and “requests” in his description of the kind of prayer he intended, we know that he was talking not just about meditative prayer, but that he actually had in mind our praying about specific things.  So if you are worried about your job, ease the power of this worry by telling God that you are worried.  Perhaps there is no need even to pray for a specific result—that we will keep our job, for instance—although there’s probably nothing wrong with asking.  Simply telling God, acknowledging before God that we are worried about our job and want to give that worry to God—I believe this is the kind of prayer Paul had in mind. 

Thankfulness is another characteristic of the prayer Paul advises.  We are to pray, even about our worries, with thanksgiving.  As we pray we should think of the many ways God already has blessed us.  That always helps us put our problems in the right perspective.  And just as we are to pray thankfully about what has happened already, I believe Paul is suggesting that we be thankful up front for what God will do.  As I said before, it might not be what we expect God to do, or what we specifically asked God to do.  For that reason, I have always been a little suspicious of those preachers who understand prayer as the mechanical exercise of “naming and claiming” the blessing that we want.  The point is that we should pray in an attitude of thankfulness because we have faith that however our prayer is answered, it will be a part of God’s good plan for us.[5]

When we lift up our worries and give them over to God, what we receive in return is, as Paul writes, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,” a peace that “guards our hearts and minds.”  It may or may not involve our receiving the particular thing we prayed for, but somehow, as we pray, we begin to realize that our happiness does not depend on getting just that thing.  We realize that there are many ways that we can be happy and that God knows best what we need at any given moment.  When we stop trying to be in control of all the results, then we experience God’s peace. 

So what, if the stock market does not rise?  Our security is not in the market; it is in God’s providential care for us.  Times may get hard, but God will be there with us; and in the midst of coping with less, we may discover important truths about ourselves and about God.  Feeling need more personally may help us better understand the needs of others.  Isn’t it amazing how the poorest among us is often the most generous?  It may take a financial crisis to convince us of the basic fact that everyone depends on everyone else; a crisis may draw us closer together as a family of faith.

We won’t be having a pastoral prayer this morning, so why don’t we take this opportunity to bow our heads and silently tell God what we are worried about and then simply give those worries over to God.  I’ll conclude in about 30 seconds.

. . . .  Amen.

So be prudent.  Make good investment decisions.  Do your best in your work.  Take good care of your body.  Plan for tomorrow.  But do not worry.  No matter how smart you are, and no matter how much money you have, you cannot control the outcome.  Through prayer, place your hand in God’s hand, and let God lead you into peace.