“Why Do You Worry?”
Matthew 6:25-33

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Thanksgiving Day—November 28, 2013

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  The text for our Thanksgiving Day meditation is today’s Gospel Reading from the sixth chapter of St. Matthew, in which Jesus asks one of the burning questions of our age: “WHY do you worry?”

It is a great paradox.  More than any other people on earth, even more than any other people in all of human history, we in 21st-century America enjoy unparalleled material prosperity.  In our very own society, humanity has achieved the pinnacle of material wealth and comfort.  The generations of the past, even most of the world’s population still today, could not even dream of the benefits we take from granted.

And yet the irony is, we have not only reached the pinnacle of prosperity, we have also reached the heights of worry.  No other nation is so burdened with stress, burnout, anxiety, worry.  It is a great paradox: We are greatly blessed with bounty, and yet we are heavily burdened with worry.  THAT is one of the burning questions of our age: WHY?  “Why do you worry?”

Jesus knows the answer: “O you of little faith.”  “Why do you worry?”  Because you have LITTLE FAITH.

Worry is a subtle form of atheism.  A lack of faith, a lack of confidence, a lack of trust in God.  Worry is also a subtle form of idolatry.  Relying more on the material things of this world than the Creator and giver of all good things, God himself.  “O you of little faith, why do you worry?”

St. Paul writes in Romans, “If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

St. John writes: “This is how God showed his love for us: He sent his only-begotten Son into the world that we would have life through him. . .  he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

God has already given you the greatest and most valuable gift of all: Forgiveness through Jesus Christ.  His sacrifice pays for all your sins.  He suffered and died as your substitute.  For Christ’s sake, God forgives all your sins.  He rose from the dead, and promises at the Last Day to raise you up to eternal life.  Put your faith, confidence and trust in him.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Amen.