“Are You Letting Worries Go? Or Are You Letting Them Grow?” ~ Sermon from 6/23/2013

“Are You Letting Worries Go? Or Are You Letting Them Grow?”

Texts: Luke 8:26-39; 1 Kings 19:9-12; Galatians 3:23-29

   At this time, I’d like to call the children up for the Children’s Message…How are you all doing this morning? Good! So, I have a question for you…Are you ever afraid? Do you ever worry about things? What kinds of things are you afraid of or worry about? You know, I’ve started a list of my worries…Actually, do you want to see my worries? Okay, hold on just a second…

(Run from the sanctuary to grab and drag in a parachute that has heavy books on it.)

   Ugh! Okay, maybe more than just a second…This…Is…Heavy! I…am…so…tired! Can you help me? It takes a lot of strength to preach and also a lot of energy to carry all of these worries! Do you want to preach the sermon? They are weighing me down, and I don’t have the strength to do ANYTHING! What should I do?

   In today’s first reading, we heard about Elijah, who ran away and hid from Jezebel, who was threatening his life! Elijah ran away, but guess what? God was with him every step of the way! So, being afraid, worrying, and running away didn’t solve Elijah’s problem, did it?

   What else helped Elijah? God meets him in the silence. We can do that when we pray, can’t we? At Vacation Bible School, we talked about Philippians 4:6, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.” Because “prayer helps us to…stand strong!”

   So, what should I do with all of these things? Should I continue to carry them around? Or should I give them to God? Pray and “let-it-go?”

   Will you pray with me? Because when we pray together, “family and friends help us to…stand strong!” Let us pray: “Dear God, please help us. We know you want all of our worries. Help us to let go of the things that weigh us down in fear and worry. Help us to give it all to you. And help us to help one another. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”

   Okay, can you help me give ALL of my worries to God? Ready? One…Two…Three! (Place the parachute and books on the altar.)

   Phew! I feel SOOO much lighter! And stronger! Thanks for coming up and for your prayers and help! I couldn’t do it by myself! We need God, and we all need each other! Remember: “Prayer helps us to…stand strong!”

   Dear friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who is and who was and who is to come, our living Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

   So, how big is your parachute? What’s on your mind today? Any worries? Fears? The question to ask today is, Are you letting worries go? Or are you letting them grow?

   We did a skit like this during Vacation Bible School. Interestingly, the skits not only spoke to the children but to us adults as well. In a way, it was rather appropriate that I was the one carrying all of my worries. It gave a visual for what was going on up here (point my to head).

   For example…(Unfurling a LONG scroll)…Here is a list of my worries. Now, “don’t worry” (ha ha), this is the abbreviated version. And, I’ll just give a sampling…Let’s see…I worry about the unknown…Being able to meet the expectations of my job and new boss…Having a job when I come back from internship…Getting things straightened out for internship…Finding a place to live…I worry about the health of my parents as they get older and I leave…I worry about my getting older…Turning 35 exactly one month from today…Staying in shape and aging gracefully…Being alone…Forgotten…Not making a difference for Christ…(Drop scroll)

   I worry about leaving…Being accepted and welcomed at the new church where I’m going as I have been here, working well with that pastor as I have with Pastor Dan…I want to take a moment to thank all of you for embracing me. It has been an immense joy to be a part of this community with you. Thank you, Pastor Dan, for encouraging and challenging me. It has been a joy to learn from and work with you. Being here has made a world of difference in my life.

   Because I have been in different places in my life where I have been left out, looked over, rejected, and pushed out…Have you ever felt like that? Not good feelings, that’s for sure. Have you ever felt like a nobody? Luke’s Gospel reading today is not only a story of physical healing but also the restoration of identity. It’s heartbreaking, because when Jesus asks the man what his name is in verse 30, he doesn’t have one; we never find out what his name is. He says his name is “Legion,” a multitude of demons. He got lost in the voices of this multitude. He was no longer the individual, special person God created him to be. Instead he was in the wilderness, cut off from community. Being separated from community is the exact opposite of what God wants for us.

   What voices are you hearing today? Are they attacking your sense of identity, driving you into lonely chaotic places, the wilderness, like this man and Elijah? Our Galatians text says, “for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith” (3:26). It’s very easy to get lost in this chaotic world, losing ourselves, listening to the world telling us who we are. But, Jesus died and rose again for each one of you. Through the Word and waters of baptism, you have been made clean. God claims you as a beloved child, a member of God’s family. We are a family.

   The love of family and friends help us in this world of chaos. Love is the opposite of fear. Marianne Williamson said, “Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth.”

   The other morning, at 3-something AM, as I was getting ready for work, Johnny Cash’s biography was on TV. This talented man lost himself a few times in addiction, imprisoned by it, almost dying. What helped him? June Carter and the Carter family, standing by him, taking care of him during some of those darkest days. Imagine the beauty, the music that life would be missing if he had died? But, love had overcome fear.

   Fear and worry distort the way we see things. It can make us do strange things. Elijah fled from Jezebel in fear, after God had done amazing things through him! Why would Elijah flee? How quickly we forget that God stands with us in the midst of life’s challenges.

   So, speaking of community, how do the people in our Gospel reading from Luke react to this man’s healing? I don’t know about you, and I know it’s hard to believe, but I would be celebrating, “WOO HOO! Party! Celebrate good times, come on!” But they were surprisingly not overjoyed. Instead, “they were afraid” (verse 35) and “seized with great fear” (verse 37). And they ask Jesus to leave! Why? Maybe Jesus’ presence disrupted their neatly ordered lives. Since they couldn’t heal him, maybe they had become accustomed to the demonic man, preferring to keep him at arm’s length, away from community. Away from relationship. Do we keep Jesus at arm’s length? One another?

   The man was imprisoned by demons, but it seems that the people were imprisoned by fear. Do we prefer the devil we know to the freedom we do not? Do we prefer the comfort and familiarity of those things that imprison us, like fears and worries, instead of embrace the freedom we have in Christ? Do we fear change? Do we know what to do with this freedom? Do we know that we have it?

   Are you letting worries go? Or are you letting them grow?

   One of my favorite movies is “The Shawshank Redemption.” How many of you are familiar with it? The movie centers on a friendship between two prisoners, Red and Andy. Andy reminds Red that “hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things.” Some of the prisoners have a hard time seeing hope. The prison librarian, having served time at Shawshank for numerous decades, now an elderly man, is actually released from prison. But, once released, he doesn’t know how to live into that freedom. Some in society look down on him for having been a prisoner. He misses his friends from Shawshank. One might even think of ways to break parole, to get sent back to the comfortable familiarity of prison. He feels so overwhelmed with everything that he kills himself. He lost sight of the hope that keeps someone like Andy going.

 

   One could say that Elijah also lost that sense of hope. He had just seen the awesome power of God at work, defeating Jezebel’s prophets, and then he flees to hide. Earlier in this passage, in verse 4, he asks the Lord to take away his life. But, the Lord never leaves him. In fact, God shows up in ways that we wouldn’t expect.

   Elijah may have been expecting to see God in the “Earth, Wind, and Fire,” or wind, earthquake, and fire. But, after all the noise, God appears in the unexpected: the “sound of sheer silence.” I guess Simon and Garfunkel got it right after all: “The sounds of silence.”

   Do we often equate “the sound of silence” as a “bad” thing? Well, sometimes it is…For example, my Bachelor’s degree is in Broadcasting. In my freshman year of college, second quarter to be exact, I had the chance to have my own radio show. I had NO idea what I was doing. During one of my first shows, I was reading the news. Things were going great…Or so I had thought. Two minutes into the news, I looked down…And noticed that the microphone hadn’t been on the entire time! Oops. To listeners, silence can feel like an eternity.

   But, silence is so often forsaken in a world that is constantly trying to pull our attention in a gazillion different directions. We miss so much when we don’t stay still. Listen. What does silence sound like anyway? It’s kind of a paradox, isn’t it?

   A challenge to you today is, if you haven’t already done so, take some time to meet God in the silence. We can get so wrapped up in our thoughts or do all the talking, but we need to listen. Prayerful silence is good. Silence is okay. I know this is a challenge. On days when I have to be at work at 4:30am, I don’t want to get up any earlier than I have to. Trust me.

   In the silence, we may also hear the cries of the oppressed…The hurting…The homeless…The abandoned. God reminds Elijah later in verse 15 to “Go.” That’s what we need to do today, too. Lay down our worries and be present with others in the world who may worry.

   When we carry our worries, like with the parachute, they get heavier and heavier, to the point where they exhaust us, weighing us down. And when worries weigh us down, we can’t do anything else. Think of anyone else. We feel so heavy.

   So, we need to give these things to God…Pray…And, in one word from the character of Van from the “Reba” show, “Let-it-go!” (Put scroll on the parachute pile.) A little levity can help our worries, too. Laughter is good medicine to release stress…As you see on the cover of this week’s bulletin: the alternate, happy, “warm fuzzy” ending of our Gospel lesson. :)

 

   Are you letting worries go? Or are you letting them grow?

   Do we have our worries? Or does God have them? We have the freedom to give them to God. Philippians 4:6 says, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.” Today, as you entered worship, you were given a rock. And, thankfully, none of you have thrown them in my direction! :) The rock represents your worries. Today you have a chance to let your worries go. As you leave worship, you have the opportunity to place the rock, your worries, in a basket. You can let them go as you go out into the world being a light, lighter, being able to be as Christ to each person you meet who may be worrying.

   Are you letting worries go? Or are you letting them grow?

   I would like to close with a prayer that my professor prayed on my last night of class, which is hopefully the last class needed for my degree! :) It is a prayer of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on “Patient Trust.” Let us pray: “Above all, trust in the slow work of God. / We are quite naturally impatient in everything / to reach the end without delay. / We should like to skip the intermediate stages. / We are impatient of being on the way to something / unknown, something new. / And yet it is the law of all progress / that it is made by passing through / some stages of instability—
/ and that it may take a very long time. / And so I think it is with you; / your ideas mature gradually—let them grow, / let them shape themselves, without undue haste. / Don’t try to force them on, / as though you could be today what time…will make of you tomorrow. / Only God could say what this new spirit / gradually forming within you will be. / Give Our Lord the benefit of believing / that his hand is leading you, / and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself / in suspense and incomplete.”

   And now may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Caroline Harthun

House of Prayer Lutheran Church

9:30am

Sunday, June 23, 2013