Sixth Sunday of Easter ~ Youth Sunday
April 27, 2008
Phoebe Dixon
Luke 12:22-31

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!

(The Lord is Risen Indeed)

Worrying may shorten one’s life, but not as quickly as it once did.  Our modern word, “worry,” derives from the Old English word wyrgan (were-gen), which meant “to strangle.”  In Middle English, the word evolved to mean “to grasp by the throat with the teeth and lacerate.”  This is the way wolves attack sheep--imagine the blood dripping from the sheep’s neck.   The word has since evolved to have a gentler meaning:  “to feel troubled or uneasy.”  The word in Modern English can be just as menacing as its Old English ancestor.

Jesus tells us not to worry about life, but to have faith in the Lord.  The word “worry” is thrown around a lot today.  Not only does the Bible mention it, but so do the newscasters on the evening TV news and the hosts on the morning radio shows.  WE, too, use “worry” in our everyday speech.  But our worries are much more focused on material things.  We worry about our SAT scores and our GPA’s, our prom dresses, and the food we’ll have to eat next year in the college cafeteria.  We also worry about our appearance and how others see us.  Go into any supermarket or bookstore and you’ll see magazine articles promising a “slimmer body,” “how to make a great first impression,” and “how to redecorate your room in 10 easy steps.”  Later on, we’ll worry about buying a house and making car payments.  (If we’re lucky, we won’t have to worry about having our home foreclosed on, or being unemployed, or not having enough food to eat.)   The question is:  does this worry really make our lives better, or has all this worry really grabbed us by the throat?  Does this worry make us live longer or make us grow any taller?   No.  And worry won’t help us keep our jobs, make house payments, or even put food on the table.

This materialistic worry fills us up the same way Rice Krispies cereal fills us up in the morning.  Imagine the last time you ate a bowl of Rice Krispies.  You felt full for awhile, maybe an hour or two, but soon enough you became hungry again.  The reason:  Rice Krispies are full of air.  The materialism we fill ourselves with is the same.  Air is essentially emptiness.  It makes us feel full, but truly we are not full.  It fills everything except our souls.  As Luke writes, “For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.”  Jesus is telling us to let go of the material worries of the world and focus on serving the kingdom of God.  What will remain is faith.  It is God’s abiding presence that really fills us up.  His presence is the perfect counterbalance to the worry-filled world we inhabit today.

God never leaves us, though at times it may appear so.  But in those times, He is closer than ever.  I’m going to take you back in time--not too far--just back to August 2005.  In that fateful month, a category 5 hurricane swept over New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina was the most terrifying and damaging kind of hurricane.  Terror swept through the streets as the storm grew closer. Then the levees broke. 

Director Spike Lee interviewed survivors of  Katrina and included the interviews in his film called “When the Levees Broke.”  One of the people he interviewed, Phyllis Montana LeBlanc, said, “I started praying a lot… I got myself all prayed up…I got my husband all prayed up…you know what I never thought about:  God’s will.  What if this is actually God’s will for us to die right now.  For this to be the time.  For us to die like this.”  Phyllis worried, but also had faith.  She had faith that God’s decision would be the right one.  She kept her faith and God was present with her.

Two years after Katrina, the youth group traveled to New Orleans to help restore the city.  While Phyllis Montana LeBlanc had faith looking ahead into the hurricane, I had my faith reaffirmed when I looked back at how people had kept their faith in the midst of destruction.  I learned how so many people had displayed courage, dignity, and strength, and how they had not given up faith.  They had faith that they would survive the storm, and that they could rebuild their lives.  When I met them, they always had smiles on their faces and reflected God’s presence within themselves.  It was God’s presence that filled their empty stomachs while they were waiting on the bridge to cross the river.  It was God’s presence that kept them hopeful as they waited on their rooftops for a boat to rescue them.  It was God’s presence that allowed Miss Clara DeWitt and Miss Augustine, two ladies we were fortunate to meet, to open their doors to strangers, invite us in, and share their experience of the flood with us.

We can have all the stuff in the world but feel all alone.  The people in New Orleans lost everything they had, but they were not alone.  They still have each other.  And, it’s in each other that we find God.  This “don’t worry, keep the faith” liberates us to serve God by serving others, just as Catherine of Sienna did.  Catherine was the daughter of a wealthy merchant in Sienna.  She left home, became a nurse in the Dominican order, and cared for patients with leprosy and cancer—the kind of patients that other nurses avoided.  At the time, people couldn’t tell whether she was a saint or a fanatic, but she continued to care for others during the plague and to visit prisoners condemned to death, jobs we would find difficult even today.  I have no doubt that her life was filled by Faith.  The scriptures say that no one who has faith will be disappointed.  God is committed to our care.  If God feeds the ravens (the lowliest of birds), clothes the lilies, and is the shepherd who protects the sheep from the wolves, wouldn’t he do the same for us?  The answer is “YES.”  Don’t worry, keep the faith. 

Amen.