St. Paul says in the second reading today: “Dismiss all anxiety from your minds.” That’s easy for you to say, Paul, we think. You dOn’t live in Chicago: a world where the streets aren’t safe to walk, where I fear the environment that the children of today are growing up in, where the air I breath, the water I drink and the food I eat can ruin my health, where nobody cares much about poverty, unemployment, racism, hunger exist. We’ve got good reason to be anxious nowadays. But for Paul, to dismiss all anxiety from our minds is a statement of faith that we live in God’s, not one of our own making, and God’s world has a way of surprising us. In God’s world earth is exactly the right distance from the sun to be in the “goldilocks” position, not to hot, not to cold, just right. In God’s world there are 37.2 trillion — that’s twelve zeros — cells in the human body that work pretty well most of the time. In God’s world there is a tree in Sweden that is 9,550 years old. We dismiss all anxiety from our minds when we recognize that God is able. What a contrast that is to the story in St. Matthew’s gospel. The tenants in the parable Jesus told erred because they thought they could manipulate how things would come out. Jesus and Paul want us to enter fully into the divine truth of our present reality. What looks like the rejected stone can be the cornerstone. Trying to get my way instead of surrendering to God’s way is the surest road to anxiety. So we pray after the Our Father every Sunday: “free us from all anxiety.” Let’s put our anxieties on the altar – and leave them there, not snatch them back again!
Imagine that you are in a concert hall listening to the sweetest music you’ve ever heard in your life. Maybe Aretha is singing. Suddenly you remember that you’ve left your keys in the car. You are anxious about the car and so you don’t enjoy the music. That describes the condition in which we ordinarily operate. Sure you’ve got to look both ways before crossing, eat your vegetables and brush regularly with Gleam. But if we are anxious about the details of living we miss the music. Paul tells us what to do when these legitimate worries come to us: “in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your needs to God.” When we dismiss all anxiety we are taking the troubles out of our hands and placing them in God’s. We make our petitions “with thanksgiving” because we understand that God’s plan is the best one. Not anxiety but the God of peace will be with us when we can see the turtles, listen to the birds, watch the stars and know they are good. Not anxiety but the God of peace will be with us when every child becomes for us the image and likeness of God. Not anxiety but the God of peace will be with us when we can enjoy today as a unrepeatable gift. Have no anxiety at all – for “by the Lord has this been done and it is wonderful in our eyes.”.
