Flickr User Andreas Olsson
“Worry is Against my Religion” by Rachael Flanagan, Fiat Ventures
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Around this time of year, seniors in high school start worrying about everything. If they haven’t picked a college yet, they worry about whether or not they will be receiving acceptance or rejection letters in the mail from their top picks. I remember being completely consumed with worry and uncertainty about my future on top of all the other uncertainty I faced in my life as a teen. These are the kinds of things I scribbled into my journal: If I don’t get into my top pick, I am going to fail in life. I won’t get a respectable degree, I won’t get a good job, I won’t make money, I won’t be able to support myself. I will live in a cardboard box and beg on the streets – or WORSE – live with my parents for the rest of my life.
When I did make my decision, somehow I became more worried because it suddenly became clear that college was real (not just some far-off idea like marriage or retirement) and I was actually going to go. A different sort of worry crept in. How am I going to pay for college? Will I take out loans? Where can I find scholarships? What will I major in? If I major in Theatre will I still end up in the cardboard box scenario? How often will I get to see my high school friends? What if I hate my roommate? What if I get fat from the dining hall food? Will I meet my future husband in college? How should I dress in college for when I theoretically meet my future husband? What if my future husband doesn’t like me and marries someone else?
Worry hit me like a tidal wave and I was drowning in it. If this is you – I have good news. It’s something I eventually learned myself. Worry is against our religion. Seriously. The Gospel this Sunday makes that incredibly clear. Jesus tells us, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear….Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?….Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.” The Gospel tells us that we don’t have to worry about the future because our Father in Heaven will take care of us.
For all those times I changed my clothes a million times in the morning because I worried about looking perfectly that day, Jesus asks, “Why are you anxious about clothes?” He explains that the flowers do not worry about what they look like, and God makes them beautiful. Since we are more important than flowers, wouldn’t we expect that God would care for us even more? If we really, truly put our trust in God our Father – trusting that he loves us, is looking out for us, has a plan for us, will provide for our needs and give us the desires of our heart – we would be able to relax a little bit more. When we worry, we buy into the false notion that we have the power to control everything. When we acknowledge that God is actually the all-powerful one, whose plan for our lives is even better than our own – it not only saves us from early forehead wrinkles and high blood pressure – it allows us to worship God in a deeper way in acknowledging who he is, and finding deeper ways to trust him.
In the Gospel, Jesus says “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.” Which master will you choose to serve? God or worry?
