Jesus loves you. Amen.

Ok, my sermon is not going to be quite that simple, although maybe it’s a bit appropriate for me to start with a joke. After all, I originally sat down to write this sermon two weeks ago, about five days before the wedding. I open up my Bible to the Gospel of Matthew, looked down the page, and read “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…”

Five days from getting married? Nah, I had nothing to worry about. God truly has a sense of humor.

At that point, worry was about the only thing I could do. Would the guest make it up to York safely? Would the Bishop show up? (I didn’t stop worrying about that until I got the Road Show e-mail that said as much.) Would the cake taste good? Was there enough of this or that for the reception? Would my best man get the rings right? (You may have seen me fret over that mid-ceremony.)

Those were the semi-reasonable worries. To say nothing of the strange and bizarre stuff that my imagination would come up with when I would attempt to sleep at night. Of course, we all know now two weeks later that the Scriptures were right all along. Everything worked out. It was a wonderful wedding. The reception was an absolute blast, all followed by a great trip to NYC. Everything worked out fine. There was indeed, nothing to worry about.

It’s easy to say that in hind-sight. Not so easy before the fact. Worry is often a constant companion for many of us as we face the uncertainties of the future. I think a lot about my own family when dealing with this topic, when I encounter this text from the Sermon on the Mount. I come by my own worrying honestly. My grandmother, I love her, I miss her, but she had more phobias than a psychology textbook. My mother, ER nurse, had a head full of all the horrible things that could happen to me if I ever did X, Y, or Z, because she had treated someone who did X, Y, or Z and ended up in her hospital as a result.

To this day, I have never learned to ride a bicycle, because I grew up as many of you know in the South Hills region of Charleston. Hilly region, lots of steep inclines, and my mom was convinced that I would inevitably lose control, hit the pavement, split my head open, and have my brain fall out. Thus, now in the era of $4 gas, I’m stuck with either my own two feet or my car for transportation.

I joke a bit to show the ridiculous side of worry. But sometimes worry isn’t ridiculous, sometimes its fears and anxieties are very real. Many of you who attended my wedding got to see my friend James, of whom I’ve spoken frequently in these sermons. James serves in our armed forces, has been to Iraq and Afghanistan. I am immensely proud of his service, in part, because I can barely imagine the level of courage it takes to do one’s duty in the face of enemy fire. Talk about real worry. Waking up every morning wondering if today is the day the enemy’s bullet find you and you end up wounded or dead as a result. That worry is real; It is real to thousands of our brave men and women as we speak and it was real to all those who served before them that we honor and remember on this Memorial Day weekend.

But even for us in civilian life, there are real worries. Our nation has an uncertain economy. Homes foreclosing, jobs being lost, big businesses posting great losses. Most of us, in truth, are one maybe two paychecks away from a real crisis. That’s a real worry too. We love our families, worry about the decisions of children, worry about the health of parents and siblings. Those are real worries too.

In the face of all this, how then can we remotely take seriously Jesus’ words to us today? Well, for one, he’s right. Worry changes nothing. Our lives will not be any longer or shorter, more or less full or prosperous, for all our worry. But perhaps his second point is the greater one. Look to nature, look to the world around us, to the birds of the air and to the lilies of the field. Look to how God provides even for the baser life forms, how God loves them and gives to them what they need.

Jesus points to a God of love, one who cares even for the simplest parts of his creation, the birds, the plants. It’s the same God that created you, that can account for every hair on your head. The same God that crafted and made you into the unique individual that you are. His God has made promises to you. Promises that he will keep.

First, the promise of presence. We heard as recently as last week that famous verse from the end of Matthew’s Gospel: the Great Commission. We so often remember the commandment to “go and tell,” but there is promise in those words of Christ as well. “Lo, I am with you always…” When the uncertain strikes, when those things that we fear happen, we are not alone. Jesus is there, to grant strength, comfort, and peace as we need them.

And along with that is the promise of salvation. The God of love who so lavishly provides for the birds and the plants sent his son Jesus to us. Jesus was born, lived, died, and then rose again for a single reason, so that we might no longer fear that which worries us the most: death. This is how God provides for his children. This is how God provides for you.

There are many things that lurk in the future, things unknown, things fearful. Things we worry about. But God is also in that future. He is there with his promises, promises to be there for you no matter what happens. What then have we to fear? We may not know what the future holds, but we do know who holds that future. Amen.