why worry?

Today's Gospel has to be the most practical and yet the most ignored bit in the Bible. Jesus tell us not to worry;how we are so much more than sparrows and grass in the fields, yet God looks after them; how we are to seek first the Kingdomof God etc. For a world riven with anxiety and doubt, where a third of school children are reported to be experiencing mental health problems and where adults survive on alcohol, drugs and other dubious support systems, then you would think these words would be as welcome as rain in a drought. Yet how many Christians live by this advice? No, more than advice. Jesus doesn't suggest that we don't worry or obliquely direct us towards non-worrying, like one of those ubiquitous counsellors; he commands us not to worry: "do not be anxious about your life."(RSV); "that is why I am telling you not to worry about your life"(Jerusalem Bible); "this is why I tell you not to be anxious"(Revised English Bible). These are commands or instructions to be obeyed, coming from the Son of God.

In any case they are very good advice, since worrying is utterly pointless and is probably the most destructive cancer of the human spirit. We achieve nothing by it and lose our peace of mind instead.

Our old, Irish priest put it clearly in his sermon today: we have only the moment we are living; we do not know when we are to die and we should live the moment we have. What is gone cannot be re-lived and what is to come will one day not arrive. Worry does not change that one jot.

Christians could be a real witness to a troubled world if they obeyed this command.