SUNDAY SERMON: The Weight of Worry

By Rev. Stephen Baldwin

NT: Matthew 13.1-9

How much does worry weigh?  I don’t need to answer that question out loud because you’ve already answered it in your head.  You know; we all do. 

This past week, I lay in bed as Harrison spent his first night at basketball camp in a freshman dorm at the University of North Carolina. And the weight of worry was like an elephant on my chest. Is he eating? Does he know how to work the shower? What if one of those older boys with a mustache is mean to him?  

You know how it feels. Worry weighs you down. Did that report you filed, which the boss said needed to be perfect, have the right numbers? Will the kids make it safely back to school? Is it time to take grandma’s keys? Is this medicine making me better, or worse? 

How much does worry weigh? A lot, and even more the longer you carry it. 

I’ve preached in the past about worry using the metaphor of a water bottle. It doesn’t weigh much. Maybe a pound. You can hold up for a while and barely even notice it. But the longer you hold it, the heavier it becomes. Worry, stress, and anxiety are like that bottle of water. The longer we hold onto them, the heavier they become. 

Jesus taught, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Which raises the million pound question: How do we lay our burdens down? 

Setting down a bottle is one thing; trying to go to sleep when you’re thinking of every possible thing that can go wrong with your kid, your parent, your job, or your health, is another thing. 

How do we do it? In a word, perspective.  How we view our lives.  Abraham Lincoln once said, “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”  Perspective. 

Here’s a great example. A few years ago, a man ran a stop sign and pulled out right in front of me.  I saw who it was as clear as day—my driver’s education teacher from high school! Now, I could respond with the perspective that he was a lousy driver’s ed teacher who doesn’t know how to drive and never did. Or, I could respond with the perspective that I sure am glad he taught me to be vigilant in watching for distracted drivers.  It’s a matter of perspective. 

In today’s reading from Matthew 13, Jesus tells the parable of the four soils.  His audience of peasant farmers would have understood it clearly.  If you plant seeds on a hard-packed dirt path, they would be eaten by the birds.  If you planted them among rocks, they would have nowhere to grow roots.  If you planted them in the weeds, they would be choked.  Only seeds planted in fertile soil yield new life.

Let’s be real. We all have hard-packed places, rocky ledges, and weeds in our gardens. Lots of them. We are fragile and imperfect and weary and worn.  How will we ever become fertile soil again so that the seed of faith has room to grow in our life? 

In a word, perspective.  Winston Churchill famously said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” 

What I’m trying to say, my friends, is that you can only lay your burdens down when you lift your perspective up.  In order to lay your burdens down, lift your perspective up!

Let’s get concrete about this—up close and personal—because I know that laying your burdens down is easier said than done.  I know. When the weed eater quit working AGAIN a few weeks ago, I very nearly smashed into oblivion on the garage floor. That’s when I realized I had a problem.

Blame is a way to discharge pain and discomfort.  I was blaming the weed eater for the other stresses in my life which I hadn’t properly dealt with. Understandable? If you’ve ever fooled with a weed eater, yes. Healthy? No. 

We do this all the time. We find someone to blame for the things that are not going right in our lives, not because it will make things different next time, but because it will make us feel better. 

If blame is a way to discharge pain and discomfort, then carrying burdens is a way to keep pain and discomfort inside.  Let me say that one more time.  Carrying burdens is a way to keep pain and discomfort inside…so you don’t have to deal with them, so you don’t have to expose your burdens to others, and it gets awfully heavy. 

Putting the bottle down means coming to the realization, at one point or another, that you can’t bear the weight of it any longer. You must set it down so you can carry on.  It means finding ways to let your pain and discomfort out. Vacuuming. Trimming the shrubs. Pickleball. Target practice. Puzzles. Coloring books. Whatever it takes to put the bottle down. It means telling yourself the truth. That the things you carry are getting in the way of the calling God has placed on your life.

The last thing I want to share with you is just this. Today’s story isn’t called the parable of the soil or the parable of the seed. It’s called the parable of the sower. It’s a story about God’s persistent love for each one of us. God will continually sow seed in ground any farmer knows he shouldn’t, because God holds out hope that we will one day tend our garden and grow seed.

If for no other reason than that—honoring God’s belief in you—please set the bottle down. God has good plans in store for you. If you lay down your burdens, you can make those plans real. Amen.