Love Your Worries

Laid up in a hospital bed from his wounds, a young man named Ignatius began to imagine more than the brokenness he had known. More than just fighting and pain, he wondered what else he could do. With aggression, conflict, mercenary challenges, he felt desperation. At the age of seventeen, he was more eager to pick a good fight, than any concern of who he was fighting for or with. In a great battle, he saw injury. His leg was shattered and required multiple surgeries. Laid up in the hospital, he could do little more than rest and recover. During this time, he experienced boredom and rest. In the 16th century, without social media, he read and prayed. This was the recipe for transformation. How would an 18-year young man see life again? How would he live life? What would he do?
Seek you first the kingdom of God and God’s righteous will be added on you. Ignatius of Loyola offers a model how to love his worries and hand them over to God, especially when it is not our first choice. HIs classic story of struggling with our worries can be lived out through prayer. Will I walk? Will I be loved? Who will take care of me? Which of us through worrying can add another day to our lives?
This Lent, Jesus’ words have rung in our ears and in our hearts. The call to take on love has been living within us. Jesus calls us to love our neighbors and our enemies. Jesus calls us to love the hypocrite and today, we love our worries. We love our worries enough to offer them to God for transformation. Earlier in the service, I invited you to notice the prayer slips in your bulletin today. Please offer a prayer you have. We will collect them at the offering. If you note a desire to have them shared at prayer, I will share. Also, feel free to write about a request you do not want shared or one of the other options. This is for you. I invite you to love your worries, enough to offer it God for transformation. Offer it to God, so that you can receive back God’s gift of change of an easy burden and gentle yoke.
I know how hard this may seem like it is it is. We love out worries. Telling a mother not to worry about her daughter out driving is like telling a man with a cold not to sneeze or a boy with cast not to itch. Theologian and pastor Frederick Buechner said this: “Is anxiety a disease or an addiction? Perhaps it is something of both. Partly, perhaps, because you can’t help it, and partly because for some dark reason you choose not to help it, you torment yourself with detailed visions of the worst that can possibly happen. The nagging headache turns out to be a malignant brain tumor.” (1)
We have all lived there. The modern contemplative and mystic, Thomas Keating talks of our three core desires. All of our major worries can be boiled down to these three things: a core desire to know stability and survival, affirmation and esteem, or status and control. Our core worries and concerns can be divided into those of us who are primarily carrying core desires over the stability and security of our lives – How will we feed our children? Will I be able to depend on my family? Do I have what I need to survive?
Affirmation and esteem – Do my friends still like me? When I make hard and necessary choices for myself, will I be left by self? Do I feel good at the end of the day about the choices I made?
Power and status – If I make leadership choices, how will I be received? As friends and family around me die, how does that change my role? When my brain fails me, am I still me?
Each of us is invited to lean on God. Each of us invited to love our worries into ceasing, transform our anxieties into inspirations, settle our strivings into peace, let to know calm, and grant settled stomachs in order to have clarity to make good decisions. Jesus knew this kind of worries as he preached. He asked the crowd, “Why do you worry?” as a rhetorical question. Of course, we all have concerns that need our attention and plenty to balance, but do we need to carry anxiety about those concerns?
To take on love for our worries, we must be willing to transform from paralyzing worries to allow God to work through them. (spoiler alert: God will often use us to work through them). One way for to take on love for our worries is through centering prayer. “Centering Prayer is a method of prayer that comes out of the Christian tradition, principally The Cloud of Unknowing, by an anonymous fourteenth-century author, and St. John of the Cross. It brings us into the presence of God and thus fosters the contemplative attitudes of listening and receptivity…. [It] is a preparation for contemplation by reducing the obstacles caused by the hyperactivity of our minds and our lives.” (2)
In centering prayer,

  1. You chose a word like peace, love, grace, enough to focus on.
  2. You sit comfortably in the presence of God for approximately 3 minutes with eyes closed silently introducing the word.
  3. When you become aware of other thoughts, gently redirect to word you chose.
    This practice is transformative. It changes us. Centering prayer seeks to focus on the name and presence of Jesus. So, that we might depend on God. Depending on God means working with God. Opening yourself to how God might be seeking to answer your worries and address your fears.
    Ignatius developed spiritual exercises to help focus on Jesus while praying. I am inviting you bring you prayers to the gathered body for prayer and Thomas Keating reinvigorated Centering prayer so that we might focus loosely on loving that which we worry about while seeing how God will move through us.
    As Harper comes for baptism this morning, we give thanks to God for her family and friends who have joined us on this day as well as the opportunities for all of us to celebrate and remember our baptisms. In Baptism, we are offered new life through Jesus. Our new life through Jesus Christ transforms us and conform into the image who you have made us to be. The worries and anxieties of daily life need not shackle us and paralyze us with fear and shame.
    Don’t worry about tomorrow; it has enough worries of its own. God gives enough for each day. Whether we sweat children up at night, our own aches and pains, the polarization of our country, hungry children, or broken relationships, we continue to center ourselves on God and love our worries into prayers.
    Casting all of your cares on God is an active process. In prayer, keep giving back worries and concerns to God. When you give those concerns to God, you release the anxiety and begin to see the actionable steps that God might be inviting you to participate in. Your worries might be small, and they might be large enough to fill this whole room, but in the end, anything that keeps us from the full experience of Jesus, is enough to need transformation. God who cares for lilies and the sparrows, is more than able to care for you!
    Let us close together in the prayer of our hands:
    Gracious and Loving God, your love holds us and encourages us not to be anxious, but to trust in you. We strive and reason. Let us love our worries, by trusting them into your care for transformation and possibility. Urge us to seek your kingdom and righteous. Grant us your peace, we pray, Amen.

(1) Buechner, Frederick. Whistling in the Dark., 1988.
(2) Keating, Thomas. Intimacy with God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer, 2009.

New Testament Lesson: Philippians 2:19-30
I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be cheered by news of you. I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. All of them are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But Timothy’s worth you know, how like a son with a father he has served with me in the work of the gospel.  I hope therefore to send him as soon as I see how things go with me;  and I trust in the Lord that I will also come soon.

Still, I think it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus—my brother and
co-worker and fellow soldier, your messenger and minister to my need;  for he has been longing for all of you, and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.  He was indeed so ill that he nearly died. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, so that I would not have one sorrow after another.  I am the more eager to send him, therefore, in order that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious.  Welcome him then in the Lord with all joy, and honor such people, because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for those services that you could not give me.

Gospel Lesson: 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.”

Meditations For Your Week
Sunday, March 31 ~ Saturday, April 7
PRAYER OF OUR HANDS TO PRAY DAILY

Gracious and Loving God, your love holds us and encourages us not to be anxious, but to trust in you.  We strive and reason.  Let us love our worries, by trusting them into your care for transformation and possibility. Urge us to seek your kingdom and righteous.  Grant us your peace, we pray, Amen.

Sunday: “I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be cheered by news of you. I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. “Philippians 2:19-20. Take time today to pray for the welfare of all those on your prayer lists.
Monday: “I am the more eager to send him, therefore, in order that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious.” Philippians 2:28. Paul’s letter reminds us that we can reduce the angst of those around us. Where is God calling you to be a calming presence in the life of someone today?
Tuesday: “Welcome him then in the Lord with all joy, and honor such people, because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for those services that you could not give me.” Philippians 2:29-30. Consider the body of Christ is made up of many members. Not all members can perform every function. As you welcome and greet each person today, consider how their gifts are vital to body of Christ.
Wednesday: “‘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?” Matthew 6:25-27. Add to your day, calm trust in God.
Thursday: “Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” Matthew 6:31. Pray for those in systemic poverty, specifically those who are hungry, thirsty, and concerned about clothing. Prayerfully discern if the movement of your heart is calling you to action.
Friday: “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33. Consider the places you see the in-breaking of kingdom today. Write them down and tell others. Talk more about them than your worries.
Saturday: “‘So, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” Matthew 6:34. As you lay your head down tonight, close your eyes and remember each person your spoke with. Pray for them and their troubles.
ACTION FOR OUR FEET

Come to the next Community Meeting: These quarterly Community Meetings are open to everyone and are the best way to find out what’s going on with Southern Chester County Opportunity Network.  You’ll hear report-outs from each of the Discovery Groups and get a chance to connect with other members of the Network. Community Meetings are held the third Tuesday of the month, every three months (January-April-July-October). The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 16th from 6:00-7:30pm at WGUMC.