Matthew 6: 25-34

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? 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 clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

A couple weeks ago I was in the car with Andrew, my husband. We were driving a rental car out of Atlanta, Georgia towards a tiny podunk town about an hour north of the city. Our hearts were pounding, and we were running on very little sleep because we had taken a red eye flight from Seattle the night before. This was our second trip to Atlanta in as many weeks, and for the same reason. We were hoping that our family of two would finally become a family of three.

On our first trip to Atlanta everything had seemed perfect. We were hoping to adopt a baby and we had been chosen by an expectant mother to parent her child. Many of you know this part of the story - how when we heard that baby had been born we flew out and spent time with the baby, only to have the mother change her mind about her adoption plan. We couldn't blame her - it is a very serious thing to give up a child. But we were disappointed and heartbroken. I remember then, thinking about how I was scheduled to preach today, on Thanksgiving, and thinking to myself "This is going to be interesting." It turned out I had no idea how interesting!

Then, two weeks to the day after we returned home the adoption agency called again. There was a baby girl, born just two days after the first baby, whose mother had needed to leave her at the hospital without choosing adoptive parents. In Georgia mothers who choose adoption have ten days after the birth of the baby to change their minds, and the agency had kept quiet about this baby until those ten days were past. They didn't want to break our hearts again. But now this little one was legally free, and totally ours. We were back on a plane to Georgia less than 24 hours after we first heard about her.

So there we were, mere miles away from the moment we had been waiting for years to experience. A moment that would irrevocably change our lives and our marriage and our family. I turned to my husband, brimming with emotion, and said "you know what this is? This is our last fifteen minutes, the last time ever, when it's going to just be you and me. " I waited for his response, which I knew would be profound.

"Darling, " Andrew said, with an uncharacteristic note of panic in his voice "Alissa - I don't know how to change a diaper."

I am now learning that this exchange is typical of what new parenthood is like. Moments of deep and blissful emotion interrupted by sudden frantic worry. She is so sweet when she is asleep, but are babies supposed to grunt like that? I love her so much, more than I ever even dreamed I possibly could - AND, she just threw up on me. Is that normal? Is she sick? Did I mess something up? Is my child going to end up in therapy because of this?!? Andrew was, really, just one step ahead of me, already thinking about the road ahead and wondering if we were really and truly ready for this. We spent so much time and so many tears to find Jubilee. It would be easy to let the reward to all that hard work to simply be anxiety - after all there is so much to be concerned about. I didn't realize how scary this world could be until I saw her - a tiny two week old person seemingly all alone in the world, totally helpless and dependant upon others for all that she needs. It is the most natural thing in the world to be worried.

Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things

I hear the words, but it can be a real challenge for me to make any sense of them. It's nice that birds and flowers are not afflicted by worry - but it is more difficult to understand how that could possibly apply to me. After all, I am a parent now. Isn't worry part of territory? Part of the job?

It is important to notice what Jesus doesn't say here. While he mentions not worrying six times in almost as many sentences, he doesn't say "do not work" or "do not prepare" or "do not take responsibility." Quite the contrary, this passage is part of a larger compilation of Jesus' teachings, called The Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus has many instructions on how to be a person who lives in this mysterious "Kingdom of God" that, according to this Gospel reading, eclipses the need to worry about tomorrow. And those instructions are full of work, responsibility, and preparation.

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

So I wonder what it can mean, not to worry? Jesus talks about flowers and birds - two often beautiful and also quite fragile bits of nature who are apparently free from worry about tomorrow. I think what they are actually free from is something we might call anxiety. Birds don't just sit around and wait for manna to fall from heaven - they look for food, they build nests, they have little baby birds. And, when their time is up or conditions aren't right they die. Even flowers turn their petals toward sunlight, and they wither without the right combination of soil, water, and good weather.

So I think about my daughter. While she is quite vocal and adamant about getting her needs met, especially if we are slower than she would prefer to prepare a bottle, she doesn't really worry. And she shouldn't. She is our beloved child. We will always do everything in our power to take care of her needs, so that she can do the good work of childhood - the learning and growing and exploring and forming of her most precious and beloved self.

It is a metaphor, of course, and in my opinion not a perfect one. But what Jesus is describing for his listeners and for us is a God whose care for us, for the basic needs of our lives, is like that of a parent for her child.

Indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

So, perhaps what this scripture is telling us, when it says not to worry, is not that these basic needs we have are not important or vital. (That is often what I hear, when someone tells me not to worry) Perhaps what Jesus is saying is that these basic needs are so important and so vital that our God is fully aware of them. Our God is, even, actively working to provide us with our basic needs, to free us for something else. Something else - perhaps the learning and growing and exploring and forming of our most precious and beloved selves?

I would hazard a guess that not many of us here are truly concerned about how we will find food, or how we will afford clothing. But I do wonder what other basic needs you experience anxiety about. Perhaps instead of "what will we eat" or "what will we drink" our questions are "how will we retire?" or "what about health insurance?" or "who will love me?" For me it used to be "Will I ever be a mother?" Now it's more like "What kind of mother will I be?"

I wonder what my life, what your life, what our life together as a community would look like if we trusted God with those questions? If, instead of worrying about how our needs will be met we concerned ourselves with seeking first this kingdom of God? With listening to what I believe is a call to be even more ourselves, to focus even more on the work God has given us to do - the growing, exploring, forming and sharing of our most precious and beloved selves.

Today is Thanksgiving. It is an opportunity to let our worries go, to reflect upon the many blessings that God has given us. Today is also the kick-off to what may be the most anxiety-ridden season of the year.

And, today I believe we have an invitation, today and every time we gather here, not to stop working, preparing, or being who we are but to embrace our own selves without anxiety, with the innocence of a flower, or a bird, or even a baby.

Before we leave we will pray together to thank God for "feeding us with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ" for meeting our basic spiritual needs, and then we will ask that God "send us out to do the work you have given us to do."

For me, in the past six weeks, that work has included the work of waiting, the work of grieving, the work of joyfully celebrating and now, finally, the work of parenting. All of it comes part and parcel with the hard work of letting go of anxiety, and seeking to be myself.

I wonder, if you were able to give up anxiety at our table today, what your work might be?

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