Anxiety has the startling capacity to kill obedience... and other things we learn the hard way.

We all worry. Some of us worry more than others, for sure; but it seems to be universally true that anxiety plagues each one of us to some degree. I spoke about this briefly in a previous post, citing an excellent Taoist parable about the pointlessness of anxiety. This time I want to deal specifically with Jesus' thoughts on anxiety, as they are presented in Matthew's account of the Gospel. To do so, we should really take the time to read Matthew 6:19-7:12 in its entirety. So here it is:


6:19 Do not save treasure for yourself on earth, where moths and rust destroy and where thieves break-in and steal; 20 but save treasure for yourself in heaven, where moths and rust don't destroy and where thieves do not break-in or steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there also will be your heart.
22 The eye is the lamp of the body. Therefore, if your eye is good, your whole body will be shining; 23 but if your eye is evil, your whole body will be dark. Therefore, if your light is actually darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 No one is able to serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will cling fast to the one and despise the other. You are not able to serve both God and money.
25 Therefore I say to you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear. Is not life greater than food and the body greater than clothing? 26 Consider the birds in the sky, how they do not sow seed or harvest or gather into the storehouse, yet your heavenly Father feeds them; are you not far superior to them? 27 And who among you by being anxious is able to add a single moment to your life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Look at the lilies in the fields, how they grow. They do not labor or spin; 29 but I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these. 30 But if that is how God clothes the grass in the fields which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven...aren't you much more valuable, you who have little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious saying, What will we eat? or, What will we drink? or, What will we wear? 32 For all these things the Gentiles seek to acquire; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all of these things. 33 But seek first the Kingdom and its righteousness, and these things will be given to you. 34 Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious about itself; each day has enough trouble of its own.
7:1 Do not judge, so that you will not be judged. 2 For by whatever judgment you use to judge, you will be judged yourself, and by whatever measure you measure out, it will be measured out to you. 3 How is it that you see the speck in your brother's eye, but you do not notice the whole beam of wood in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, Allow me to remove the speck from your eye, while the whole beam of wood is in your eye? 5 You fake play-actors! First remove the whole beam of wood from your own eye, and then you can see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye. 6 Do not give what is sacred to dogs, and do not cast your pearls in front of pigs; lest they trample them with their feet and, having turned around, tear you to pieces.
7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened for you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Who among you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 Therefore, if you who are evil know to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him! 12 Therefore, whatever it is you would desire that other people do to you, in that manner you should treat them; for this is the Law and the Prophets.


I'm willing to bet that at some point while you were reading the above passage, you thought to yourself, I think he included too much of the text from Matthew--didn't he just mean to quote 6:25-34? You see, unfortunately, many people believe (consciously or unconsciously) that Matthew 5-7 is just a conglomeration of random sayings by Jesus pulled together by Matthew and placed here in one big block of teaching because he simply didn't know what else to do with them. Nothing could be further from the truth. The so-called Sermon on the Mount of Matthew 5-7 is a cohesive whole, meant to be taken together from beginning to end. I have selected the smallest portion possible to make our discussion of Jesus' view of anxiety easier to handle in-depth.

A few things need clarifying about this text before we can follow Jesus' line of reasoning from beginning to end. First, verses 22-23 seem strange and out of place to many of us. Not only does the analogy of "good eye" versus "bad eye" make no sense to us, but the verses prior discuss material wealth as do the verses immediately following--so why throw this random saying in here? It helps a great deal to know that a "good eye" was a common idiom in Jewish circles for generosity, while a bad or evil eye was a way of euphemistically calling someone stingy or miserly. Hence, Jesus is still talking about money. He essentially argues that how generous one is with their money is a pretty good indicator of how generous they are in life in general. Conversely, if one is stingy with their money chances are they will be stingy in just about every aspect of their relationships with others.

Second, when the Bible juxtaposes "love" and "hate" it can be a little misleading for us English speakers. "Love" and "hate," in the English language, largely refer to emotive responses. In the Bible, the words commonly translated as "love" and "hate" do not usually refer to emotions, but rather to actions. "Love" often means to treat someone or something as having great value, while "hate" (when juxtaposed with "love") means to treat someone or something as having little or less value. Don't believe me? Read Genesis 29 and Deuteronomy 21-22, the context of those passages makes little sense if one understands "love" and "hate" as being emotionally driven responses rather than conscious actions. The same is true for Malachi 1:2-3, which is notoriously quoted by Paul in Romans 9:13 (one of the most grotesquely misinterpreted statements of Paul, to say the least). Jesus is not saying that if you "love" God you will hate money and wish that it never existed, nor is he saying that if you "love" money you will have some kind of emotional hatred for God. He is simply pointing out that, in life, the priorities of God often run completely counter to the accumulation of material wealth, and in those moments you will have to choose which is more important, God or money. Which will win out in those situations? There can be only one! Winner, that is, and highlander.

Third, and finally, 7:6 is somewhat confusing. Pearls and pigs and dogs and us being torn to pieces? Weird. In the context, however, it should not surprise us. Jesus has just said that we must refrain from judging others (especially because we have faults of our own that are far greater than the minor things about which we tend to criticize our neighbors). In the same vein, Jesus then states that we should refrain from forcing ourselves upon people. If they don't accept what we think is true and right, that is their choice; any efforts to force or coerce them to our side will end only in pain and suffering for both parties. This is 100% in line with biblical wisdom on this topic (cf. Proverbs 9:7-9).

Jesus concludes this section with the famous statement that we should treat other people as we ourselves would like to be treated. This, he says, is the technically correct way to obey Yahweh's Law (at this point, please note that Jesus began his sermon by telling his audience that he wasn't repealing or nullifying Yahweh's Law, but was rather teaching them the right way to obey it; cf. 5:17-20). Now, hopefully due to my woefully inadequate and truncated explanation of the more difficult portions of this passage, we can try to track exactly what Jesus was telling his audience.

Jesus begins by talking about material wealth (verses 19-24). He tells his audience that the pursuit of material wealth will (at times) be completely opposed to the purposes of God, and in those times they should choose God over money. If they do this, money will not master them--rather, God will. This is important, because if his audience can depose money as the master of their lives then they might finally be able to live without persistent, lingering anxiety (verses 25-34). Jesus argues that anxiety is pointless for several reasons: 1) worrying never actually secures you what you need--you can't get the money you think you need by worrying about; and, 2) God is well aware of all of your needs before you even voice them to him. Therefore, he says, concern yourselves with the more important things, the value and goals of God's kingdom, and let God take care of your material needs. If his audience would put this into practice, they would also be free to stop judging other people and stop forcing themselves on others who are different from them (7:1-6). Why do we gossip about others and talk about them behind their backs? Isn't it primarily to take the spotlight off of our blatant flaws and inadequacies? Talking badly about others is always an effort to improve things for ourselves, because we have this sneaking suspicion that we are lacking somehow. Why do we argue with people over meaningless things? Each of us has experience in this, either with a spouse, friend, or family member--pretty much anyone with whom you spend a good amount of time. After about three minutes we realize that neither of us actually cares who won the NCAA Basketball Championship in 1998 (it was Kentucky, by the way... in your face, Jerry!). Rather, the reason we are arguing is because we have this need to be affirmed that we are right. Somehow, that affirmation will make us feel more adequate. So we force ourselves on those who disagree with us in a poorly disguised effort to make ourselves feel better about our own faults and weaknesses. None of this, Jesus says, is necessary, because God is like the best possible parent you could ever imagine who provides good gifts to his children (verses 7-11). Even we, though we make many terrible decisions and mistakes on occasion, know how to give good gifts to our kids. How much more so, Jesus asks rhetorically, does God--who is perfect, without fault--know how to give good gifts to us? All we need to do is ask and rely on him, and he will provide for us everything we need. We won't be lacking in any respect. And if we could somehow ultimately get that fact into our tiny little brains, we might--for the first time ever--be able to treat other people in the way we ourselves would like to be treated.

Do you see the brilliance of Jesus' argument? The climax rests completely upon the foundation he has built for it throughout. True obedience to God is not possible unless we are transformed from the inside-out in each of these vital aspects of our lives. If we don't trust Jesus, if we don't believe him, if we don't think that what he says about money, anxiety, lust, honesty, judgment, prayer, or any other aspect of life is true, then we simply will not be able to truly obey Yahweh's stipulations. But if we truly do accept Jesus, believing and trusting him on every topic, then we will be free to obey God.

Imagine your life without any anxiety about money. Imagine your life without any feeling of insecurity or inadequacy. Imagine your life with God providing every single one of your needs perfectly like the best possible parent would. Imagine your life without any backbiting or gossip or talking badly about friends, family, or neighbors. Imagine your life without needing to be right all the time, because you knew that "being right" or "being wrong" says nothing of your actual worth as a person. If you can even conjure up a glimpse of what your life would look like, rest assured that that fleeting image is an incredibly small piece of what life in the Kingdom of God looks like. It is a piece of what obedience looks like. Obedience to God looks like that! That is eternal life. Jesus offers each one of us the opportunity to enter into that life this very minute. It is not something that is given to us after we die in some ethereal existence in the clouds. It is something that is open to each one of us right now, and something that lasts forever. It is a journey, of course; we don't get everything worked out all at once and nor does Jesus suggest that we will. But it is a journey that we can begin today and will continue for eternity. It is, as far as I can tell, the Good Life.