Life’s Worries
One of the most-read articles in this past week’s online edition of the Church Times read: “Study finds: ‘Young People are troubled by mansplaining Jesus’.” If you are not familiar with the concept of mansplaining, the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “to explain (something) needlessly, overbearingly, or condescendingly, esp. by a man to a woman in a manner thought to reveal a patronising attitude.” Frequently, this phenomenon and behaviour draws the strongest reaction when the person suffering the barrage of over-explanation is clearly more knowledgeable in the subject matter than the one doing the explaining. They do not realise how little they know, and have underestimated the hearers’ experience.
While our reading today does not necessarily touch on the gendered dynamics of mansplaining, it has made me wonder, as the Church Times’ article suggests, how our gospel reading could be heard by our youngest readers, or maybe even our generation as a whole. “Do not worry about your life”. “Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will bring worries of its own”. Could this soundbite come across as overly-simple “Godsplaining” or “Biblesplaining”, Christ underestimating the complexity of life in 2026.
Is it easy for 1st century wisdom to urge us not to worry, when they have never experienced what it is like to carry with them, wherever they go, a device in their pocket designed to grab our attention, possibly even addict us for the purpose of driving engagement, with controversial content which specifically feeds on our worries? In no particular order, we are inevitably confronted daily with global, national, and personal worries. Inequality. Dissolution of community cohesion and trust. Political corruption and coverup. The destruction of the familiar world order. Political unrest and divided societies. Excessive screentime and doomscrolling. Crumbling health services. Body-image. The manosphere and toxic online spaces. Cost of living crisis. Climate change.
It is likely possible to fill a sermon with a long list of worries, and yet still miss out on something which is personally important to you, but I think I’ve made my point. We are confronted with a critical amount of anxiety-laden information that it spills over into a form of suffering. How do Christ’s words have anything of value to say to us today, when all of our evidence and messages feel like this world is getting worse, rather than better? How do we hold all this in mind, and can take the words of Christ to heart? For those of us in this state of mind, like myself, the writing of St Paul may be of use. “The sufferings of the present time” are named and acknowledged. Vividly, St Paul recognises suffering in maybe the most depictive language of his writing. The groaning of all creation names the link between humans, believers and the suffering and of the non-human created world. He also however drags us back to the hope of future salvation. As Christians today, we can draw on the same stories and narratives which may have given Paul hope at the time. We believe that God created out of a formlessness, an empty void and chaos by speaking the world into existence with order and beauty.
The influential Old Testament Scholar Walther Brueggeman suggests that the text of the Genesis creation narrative may have been used as a form of liturgy by God’s people, repeatedly proclaiming that the world was created by a good God, who wishes to be at rest with his people. This makes sense if we think of it would have likely been developed at a time of despair, in Babylonian exile, rather than one of comfort or with realistic prospects of salvation. One of the defining features of God’s people is therefore repeatedly proclaiming God’s work and goal through Salvation History. Paul himself was not granted a luxurious existence in Christian ministry, experiencing suffering in the forms of physical punishment, imprisonment, and surely a great dose of worry or anxiety which ties itself to this physical experience. Nonetheless Paul wants to drag believers right back to Christian hope in the midst of this chaos towards a hope which by definition cannot be seen.
Is “Hope” conceived in this way possibly a simple naivety and optimistic desire? The late Pope Francis captured something of the difference of Christian Hope, saying it was neither of these things but based on the fact that one day the people of God will be reunited with God”. If we can bear to overcome the temptation of despair, we can teach and remind ourselves to read the world theologically, both in how we understand God’s presence in creation, and how we understand what we as God’s people mean when we say Hope.
Does Paul do more for us today than Christ in addressing the suffering and anxieties of our day? To return to the beginning, part of the problem with mansplaining – or as possibly coined in this sermon Godsplaining – is that the person doing the talking does not know what they are talking about, or haven’t walked the walk. There is a gap between what is said and their experience. In that light, Christ’s words can escape the accusation and close the gap in two ways which can fuel our hope. First is the incarnation. Christ sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane and seeking the solidarity of his friends gibes us perhaps the most vivid picture of his battle with anxiety in moments of hardship. Worry itself is therefore not forbidden, but not the final word. Second, is through the eucharist. As God’s people repeatedly proclaim hope in God’s providence in creation, God is made known through the repeated invitation to receive him. This is not through the distant means of just words, but the gifting of Christ’s body through the fruits of creation in wine and wheat.
As we come to God’s table today, we may bring our worry, our own groaning. But we are equally invited to carry away not only Christ’s words to not despair of worry, but God’s gifts, and presence and promise to be with us, which sustains our hope.