“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life - whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith? Don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but God already knows all your needs. Seek the Realm of God above all else, and live righteously, and God will give you everything you need.”
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Here's a little song I wrote, you might want to sing it note for note,
Don't worry, be happy.
In every life we have some trouble, but when you worry you make it double,
Don't worry, be happy. Don't worry, be happy now.
*Don't worry, be happy.
Ain't got no place to lay your head, somebody came and took your bed,
Don't worry, be happy.
The landlord say your rent is late, he may have to litigate
Don't worry, be happy.
*(Look at me -- I'm happy.
Don't worry, be happy.
Here I give you my phone number. When you worry, call me, I make you happy.
Don't worry, be happy.)
Ain't got no cash, ain't got no style, ain't got no gal to make you smile
Don't worry, be happy.
'Cause when you worry your face will frown, and that will bring everybody down
Don't worry, be happy.
*Don't worry, don't worry, don't do it. Be happy.
Put a smile on your face. Don't bring everybody down.
Don't worry. It will soon pass, whatever it is.
Don't worry, be happy. I'm not worried, I'm happy...
In 1988, Bobby McFerrin recorded this hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy," which brought him widespread recognition across the world. The success of the song was so great that his whole life was changed. McFerrin is now recognised as one of the most accomplished “a cappella” singers in the world. The song was used in the 1988 U.S. presidential election as George H. W. Bush's official presidential campaign song, without McFerrin's permission or endorsement. Bobby McFerrin publicly protested that particular use of his song, and stated that he was going to vote against Bush; he completely dropped the song from his own performance repertoire.
Unfortunately this song has been taken as a kind of “let everything go” mantra, which was never its intent. Bobby McFerrin is a highly trained and skilled musician, who wrote a piece intended to get people to think realistically about life. Look at the very first verse - “in every life we have some trouble, but if you worry you make it double.” or the last verse "When you worry your face will frown, then you bring everybody down."
When Norio and I were living in Viet Nam, we had pretty well decided that after the contract was up, he would find a teaching position overseas and do a Master’s degree at the same time. He was incredibly worried about how he would provide for the future - and I have to say that the Japanese are born worst-case-scenario people - as a culture - anyway. He sent out almost two hundred letters of application for teaching positions - and not one was a positive response. We went back to Japan with a reasonable savings, but nowhere to live. I was pregnant with our third child. We went to stay with his parents, and by the time we returned to Japan, his previous advisor had found him a job teaching South East Asian students to speak Japanese. Over our lifetime, we have begun to realise the truth of both the Scripture and McFerrin’s song: it doesn’t mean don’t plan and don’t think about things - it means there is only so much over which you have control, so learn when to let go. If you spend time agonising over things you can’t do anything about, you make everyone unhappy - or as the song says, you bring everyone down.
To put it another way - there’s a Zen Buddhist saying “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is a choice.” Jesus says “Don’t worry about things saying, What will we eat, what will we drink, what will we wear.”
United Methodist minister, Rev. Frank Schaefer, comments “... despite the tremendous achievements of modern civilization we are more worried about our lives than ever before.” Yet think about advances in medical science, or all the security devices we have, and, he says “my personal favorite: checking account overdraft-protection.” Here in Canada, we have our universal health care. Compared to many places in the world, we are wealthy beyond imagining. Yet the late 20th century was called the "age of anxiety" because people in the Western hemisphere tend to worry about our lives and future more than ever before.
Perhaps that's why the song was such a hit. Perhaps Bobby McFerrin echoes Jesus - that the cure for our worries needs to come at a deeper level. Allow me to ask you a personal question. Did you at any time during the last year worry? Did you at some point feel that you may not make it? We all know that life can be a living hell on earth. There are marital problems, problems at the workplace, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, an illness, situations which seem impossible, tremendous struggles.
Jesus looks about and sees a couple of birds in a nearby tree. He says: Don’t worry. Nothing has ever been gained by worrying. Instead, he says "Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet God feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Look at the beauty of the lilies - they don’t do a thing except grow and bloom, yet even Solomon, in his great temple and with all his riches, had nothing so beautiful."
This is a familiar argument of Jesus - if God provides for even the lesser things like flowers and birds, does God also have our needs in mind? Jesus adds to this three things: don’t worry about material things all the time; attend to the realm of God, working to bring it about in the here and now, God knows what is needed; finally, control of the future is an illusion - regardless of the most careful planning, each day brings something new.
In this Scripture, Jesus taps into human nature, specifically our desire for control and comfort - our desire to be able to have every duck right in its place in the row, to be able to know how the future will turn out, and make it turn out our way. We believe that we make choices out of rational thought, and then when things don’t work our way, we feel overwhelmed and frustrated. This leads to behaviours which are unhealthy and destructive - manipulation, greed, self-medication, and depression - to name a few.
Behind Jesus’ words of “don’t worry” is the question “When is enough, enough?” This is a critical question, because the TV, airwaves and churches are full of people - including clergy - who believe that God wants us all to be incredibly wealthy in terms of money. I think Jesus is saying God wants good for us - God knows what we need - but God also knows when enough is enough. Jesus is not saying there is a greater virtue in being poor , he is saying that there are other things more important than being rich.
On a day when we are settling in for another annual meeting, these are important words. And I put to you that McFerrin’s song reinforces that. The church as we know it today has only been around for a little more than 60 years or so. Up until the 1950's - just after WW II - churches did not have lots of money for large sanctuaries, or Christian Education facilities, or gymnasiums, or whatever. That was a one-time-only phenomenon, a flash in the pan in terms of the history of the Christian church. Yet we have come to think that we have to have everything, including huge numbers of people. And so we worry. How do we put more bums in pews, and more money in the plate? After awhile we forget that maybe - just maybe - God has something in mind for us.
That doesn’t mean don’t worry about building upkeep, or people in church. The big question is - are we more interested in the well-being of people around us, or do we just want them here to pay the bills? It means that as important as our building is, we have to ask what is the mission of this church, in this community? Why are we here, and what is it God wants us to do? We might not get answers - but we still have to ask the questions.
So - don’t worry, be happy - doesn’t mean sit back and wait. It means worry won't make anything better. It means do what you can, and trust that God knows what is needed. I cannot tell you how hard that is for congregations to do - to trust God, to accept that God’s ways are not our ways, and that sometimes the way isn’t clear to our human minds. Jesus tells us to trust, to take each day as it comes and do what we can to serve God. May it be so.
Sources:
1. “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”, song by Bobby McFerrin, 1988.
2. “Don't Worry--Be Happy!”, a sermon by Rev. Frank Schaefer
3. Essay by Rev Greg Carey, Professor of New Testament, Lancaster Theological Seminary, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In “Feasting on the Word”, Year A Volume 4. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Louisville, John Knox Press. 2010.
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_McFerrin
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