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Carefree Discipleshié ro
March 8, 1970 Cy

Matthew 6:19-34
John M. Buchanan

\ Snoopy iseimetroubke, The long suffering dog in Charles Schultz's cartoon
— J wes pot leony
strip "Peanuts" t= currentiy in a whole lot of trouble, primarily because he is a
"worrier". For several weeks Snoopy was on a single minded pursuit of the job of
Head Beagle , the very pinnacle of success, prestige and power. It was a burning
desire and there was no doubt at all where Snoopy's heart was. But having achieved
his goal, having been appointed Head Bongle Snoopy has discovered that it isn't all
pecam’ a?
it was cracked up to be. Life has-been torturous reeemtiy: Snoopy a di scoversng!
ie
that "Life is more than success, prestige and power". | Charles Schultz would not
appreciate my writing his cartoon for him, but I know that something will happen
ag Wher pose ¥ jrwer’s [pas
soon. (Ane anxiety is-aimest-at the breaking point, Snoopy witt—te relieved of

his duties and re turne“to the glorious freedom of his carefree Sciiaenset In the
Therebye testi ym

next week or so Snoopy will/testrfywto the truth of that ancient wisdom in the

sixth chapter of Matthew: ",..do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will

be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for itself. Let

the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day."

[man is a “worrier". One of the ways to define the determining difforcnce
between men and animals is that men worry. tae: on worry a lot because they,
unlike animals, are aware of tomorrow.) Anthropologists have yet to discover a
consciousness of time, a sense of time moving, in any life except human. lina while
our consciousnoss of time motivates us to plan and prepare, it is, at the samo
time, the root of cur basic worry. We are always balancing the present moment with
the future, and therefore not fully living or enjoying the present moment. In
life style we aro very much like the child who worries about having too much fun
today because there may be none left for tomorrow.

There are many avenues of approach to the problem of human anxioty-| There
are literally hundreds of scholarly tomes devoted to the topic. Any scholar worth
his intellectual salt has identified this as “the age of anxiety", and anxiety

as the major problem political, economic or social to be confronted. And so we

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must choose our spproach and I would suggest to you the whole matter of time. Our
anxiety is the result of our awareness of time.

In the middle of a particularly rewarding experience you and I are inclined
to feel anxious -— because we are aware that it will be over a This has happened
to me for as long as I can remember. During a week at the sea shore, I begin to
have negative feclings along about Wednesday or Thursday, because I realize that
for this great experience, time is running out. In my reading recently I encount—
ered a charming illustration by Srasat Campbell, pastor of Riverside Church in New
York, Dector Campbell recalls saving up for weeks to be able to afford the luxury
of a grand stand scat at a major league double header. But once the first game
got under way he bogan to measure the rate at which his happiness was ebbing. At
the end of the first inning 1/18th of the pleasure was gone. [Plain Words for
Troubled Times ~— The Protestant Hour p. 55] That struck me because I've done
exactly that: a long awaited train ride to Pittsburg with my father, reserved
seats for the Pirates and the Brooklyn Dodgers, the terrors of the National League.
And at the ripe old age of eight I fretted during the experience about the fact
that it was slipping away. How I wished time would stand still! But of course
it didn't.

We all have had that experience. And in a very real sense we live like that.
We are painfully aware of time — and that becomes a terribly destructive anxiety.
Now let's push deeper.

[ nine awareness, even in its most embryonic form, is really death Sn |
An animal does not realize its mortality. Everyday is forever. But you and I do.
\ We are aware of death, of our own death, because we understand the relentless
Y svenent of time. \ Poul Tillich, perhaps the greatest philosophic theologian of
our generation, wrote a lot about anxiety and suggested that the source of all
human anxiety was a dread of non—being. (two are able to contemplate the fact that
one day we will be no more, and that knowledge remains with us intellectually, and
emotionally like a strong, deep-sea current, We don't articulate ‘often: | most of

us aren't able to put it together as Professor Tillich did: all of us would

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rather not articulate ite| But it is there and it plays a major role in the way
we behave, and it pops up suddenly, ocassionally, usually without warning, whon
we discover a now wrinkle or gray hair. Time is moving; we are aging: ocassionally
that truth confronts us and immediately we push it back down into that current
beneath the surface. But it is still there.|

Madison Avenue knows it's there. | Madison Avenue knows the power it has to

motivate us and therefore exploits it every way imaginable. | Advertising, ateng

, scems bent on persuading us that we are not aging;
that time, for us, can be pushed to a stand still, | How many older people make it
in the television commercials? Even the woman with slipping dentifrices is well
under thirty and exuding a robust youth. | Madison Avenue knows an important
secret about us — we will buy anything so long as we can use the product to deny
the fact that we are aging. And so youth sets our styles: tion the drink for
those "who think young" to the whole medicine cabinet full of creams and greases
and sprays the sole intent of which is to deny the fact that we aren't what we
used +0 be, and tomorrow we won't be what we are today. We can be, and are,
exploited at this most vulnerable point. We can be persuaded to participate in
the big lie. We can be moved to spend immense amounts of money in order to stop
the clock. \

Our anxiety comes from our awareness of time, and that in turn, is merely
an awareness of our own death. Now let us add a little more Tillich. Professor
Tillich taught that anxiety is the dread of non-being. But he also taught that
a man can die in 2 lot of ways other than physically: that non—being has many
forms and that we arc conscious of them while we are quite alive. Death is the
ultimate blow to our ego: it says "we really aren't worth very mich". And there-
fore a lot of things in life which ‘iss the same phrase are related to this
elemental dread. We dread being a non=person, dead or alive. And again Madison
Avenue knows a secret about us and offers a therapoutic prescription. "Buy and
save. Accumulate! I+ doesn't matter what. Just accumulate." Erich Fromm has

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written: “Throughout the whole process of education, in the family and from

Kindergarten through college, the individual is made to foel that the meaning of
his life is bound up with something that can be destroyed by a change of fashion or
a bit of bad luck." And so we are set on a frantic course of buying in order to

be secure and safc; of saving money, things, experiences in order to shout to the
world that we count for something, we matter, we have meaning, we are! But it
really doesn't work. Snoopy discovered that when he became Head Beagle and was

as worried as ever. And we discover that too, when in the middle of our pile of

gadgets and cosmetics, bank accounts and retirement plans, a monent of truth breaks

an anonymous poem:

Carl Sandburg writes that Abraham Lincoln was very fond of these lines from

"For we are the same that our fathers have been ;

We see the same sights that our fathers have seen;

we drink the same stream, we feel the same sun,

and run the same course that our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think:

From the death we are shirking:, our fathers would shirk

To the life we are clinging, they would also cling -

But it speeds from us all like w bird on the wing."
[Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, The Prairie Years 1,

Seribner, 1926, p. 309]

"To the life we are clinging, thoy would also cling — But it speeds from us all
like a bird on the wing." The fact that those lines were loved by a great American,
a great thinker, more than one hundred yeurs ago ought to teach us that while our
anxieties may be intonsified by the bamb and envirenmental pollution and social
change, they are not particularly new. In fact, man hasn't changed much Mt all.

[ 2,000 years ago Jesus addressed the problem of anxiety in a very blunt, straight
forward manner. There is a lengthy dessertation in the Sermon on the Mount which

includes hese werds ~ -

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth ...- do not be anxious about

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about your life ..... Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Which of you by being anxious can aid one cubit to his span of life...? Seek, first
God's Kingdom." |
What do we make of that? It's either terribly true or terribly foolish, and

it doesn't secm to leave any room for compromise. |

[one thing it doesn't say is that the Christian ought to we frivolous and
irresponsible. Jesus own experience rules that out shunted: | As a carpenter,
supporting a family, he knew the necessity of work and planning and saving. It
doesn't say that things are bad, or that mmney is evil, or that the true Christian
ought to depend on the benevolence of others for subsistance. Jesus never taught
that the providence of God is like a daily basket from heaven. Look at the birds -
a lot starve and freeze everyday. Look at the lilies - they dry up if they don't
get moisture.

(wnat it docs say is that life is far more than an exercise in accumulation;
that the-rew-quelityof life Tae Saree as Om by a glorious freedom from
the nagging, pulling of that subteranean current; that today may be lived and
enjoyed for its owm sake, that today's goods and money and things are to be used,
not accumilated because our future is secure.) It says that this obessive fear of
non-being - this most basic anxiety that stalks us every day of our lives - no
longer has power. we are free from it - we are safe.

“That is a very important word for us. Our anxiety may not differ fundament-
ally from anyone else's in history. But we do know that it comcs in a new wrapper
today: it is more intense. Wo do live on the brink of destruction: we are asking
seriously whether our grandchildren will have the privilege of dying in old ago: Z
we do live in a hurried, commercialized, high powered social system that strips |
us of individuality and therefore meaning: we do live in the midst of cataclysmic
social upheaval when nothing stays the same very long. And so our anxiety is

intensified and magnified. And more and more we are tempted to oxpress that anxicty

in one of two ways - cither by "coping out" and giving up because it's too latc; Ay

or by buying and accumulating and obessively worrying about tomorrow and tomorrew
and tomorrow. ‘In See J ¥ |

To us - now + in this time and place — the Gospel of Jesus Christ speaks a
firm, and comforting but demanding word. We are free and safe - free from the
anxicty about time - safe from the threat of non—being or death. Free to live our
lives, this moment, this glorious day - for its own sake and none other. We are
free in Jesus Christ to enjoy being human and alive in 1970; free to enjoy the
fruits of our affluence; free to live creatively and joyfully because we are safe.

Wouldn't you give anything to be that free? Is't there something deep within
each one of us that longs to be that kind of men and women? Well, it's right there
in front of us — for the taking. But we can't have it both ways. We can't compromise
at this point. We can't serve two masters. We can't keep responding to our anxicty
and then once a week turn to God and expect a miracle. We can't devote all our
energy to making time stand still, or to accumulating symbols of our own invulner—
ability and expect a one hour worship experience to transform us into carefree
disciples.

That happens only where we put things in perspective. When we accept the
Lordship of Jesus Christ - when ue Becomes truly master -— of our lives, of our
motives, of our possessions. That happens in the moment of commitment, when we

seek first his Kingdom.
Amen.

These are trying days, our father, and we are very much inclined to be
anxious about 2 lot of things. Give us the faith to throw ourselves open to you;
+o walk confidently into our future because we are safe. Through Jesus Christ

our Lord.
Amen,