Babysitting the World
Pastor Mathew Magera – 2/24/16 – Sermon 146
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Psalmist David writes in our Psalm this evening, “In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.”
When I was young, I had a baby-sitter. I remember her very clearly. Her name was Holly. She lived just down the street from us. She was an amazing babysitter. I would look forward to my parents leaving so that Holly could come over. Thinking of babysitters, I'd say many have nightmare stories of children they have watched. I can't say I gave Holly any nightmare stories. Rather, I probably saved those for my sisters. I remember one day when my oldest sister was watching me, we took a bike ride. I was going down the sidewalk and was trying to dodge a toy that was left out in front of someone’s house and I was trying to get as close as I could without hitting it. I didn't hit it but I lost balance and toppled off my bike and split open the side of my right leg. My sister freaked out. When we managed to get home, I made her promise not to tell mom and dad because I didn't want to get stitches. Well, that didn't work out. My parents eventually found out and I had to go to the doctor but I did talk them out of stitches.
Another time my other sister was watching me and a group of friends I had over for a sleepover. My parents must've been out or something but my sister and her boyfriend were down in the basement watching a movie. We weren't supposed to go outside after dark because my parents weren't home. But, what do you think we did? And did we do it the easy way? No. I didn't want there to be too much commotion going out the front door, so I ran out by myself and put a ladder up to my window on the second floor and we climbed out the window. I don't remember if my sister ever figured out that we had left the house briefly or not but if she reads this sermon on the Internet, she’ll know now.
There is something about babysitting that causes you to worry about the person you are watching. You might even watch every step they make so they don't end up getting into something they shouldn't, getting hurt, hurting someone else, breaking something, etc. A babysitter worries about all of these things and probably for good reason. When the parents come home, they want to be able to give a good report. “Yes, Mrs. Johnson, everything went find. Little Jimmy is in bed. He ate his dinner and he did his homework.”
The reason I mention this is because at one point or another we are in the same position, worrying about something. We might end up babysitting in a place that is too big for us. We may end up babysitting the world. We're up at night babysitting the world. We're worrying about our children, grandchildren, siblings, even our parents wherever they happen to be or the situations they may be in. We're worrying about the bills, our income taxes, how we might be able to pay them, why they are so high when they should be lower. We're worrying about our health. We have questions about certain symptoms wondering if they mean something terrible. We're worrying about our safety at night because even in the smaller places there are risks of danger. We are worrying about the weather and how it will impact our drive the next day. We're worrying about the violence and unrest in the world. We are babysitting the entire world right in the confines of our own mind and it causes us to lose very valuable sleep and rest.
I will have these nights every once in awhile. After a council meeting it is so difficult for me to fall asleep sometimes because I'm still busy thinking about everything we talked about at the meeting. During Lent, it's difficult for me to sleep because there is so much to get done in a week and Lent causes that workload to go way up. Sometimes I just have to get out of bed in the middle of the night and do something just to put my mind at ease. I don't want my sermon to get out of control or get away from me. I'm worrying about things. I'm babysitting the world, or at least a part of it. I'm babysitting the world and so are the rest of us.
David is under a lot of stress when he writes this Psalm. He's looking to God for relief. People are shaming his honor. He is dealing with people that love vain words and seek after lies. Yet, here's the kicker. We know what kind of a faith David had. He was a man after God's own heart, a very faithful man. Yet, he still found himself stressed and overwhelmed at times just as this Psalm tells us. So much so that it made me ask the question, is it possible for us to have great faith and great doubt at the same time? Considering David's situation, he appears to have faith that God will act, that God is hearing all of his prayers. Yet, it's as if he is still praying asking, God, what's taking you so long? What's the deal? Can we have great faith and great doubt at the same time? It might appear so.
David is feeling the weight of everything on his plate, crushing him on all sides and he's worried. “Answer me when I call to you, my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; have mercy on me and hear my prayer.” David has just taken on a new job. Not only is he ruling over the kingdom, he’s now babysitting his kingdom. He's worried about the shaming he's receiving from them. He's even worried about their lack of faith in God and finds time to try to talk them out of idol worship. David is taking all of this and putting more and more weight upon himself and he's calling out to God to relieve him of this load, having great faith that God will hear it yet seeming to doubt that God is taking any action. From where will his help come?
It's like this. I might ask someone to take this Bible from me and put it on the shelf in the back. Now, as I hand the Bible over, I still hold on. I'd thank the person for listening and for taking this Bible to the back. I'm still holding on and now I'm doing more work by holding onto it than by letting it go. Oh, I hope this Bible will make it to the back safely without falling on the ground. So, I grip it tighter. If I can't let go of the Bible and let this person do what I'm asking, all I'm doing is stressing myself out more and more by holding onto it tighter and tighter. The longer I hold on while the other person tries to take it to the back, the more my hand is going to start hurting. The sooner I can let it go, the sooner I can be at ease knowing that it is in the other person's hands.
You know how they tell couples never go to bed angry? Well, just as a babysitter should never fall asleep while on the job, if we are expecting to sleep at night, we need to give up all this worrying, we need to give up the babysitting job. We need to call it a day and say good night to all those worries and place them on God. We can easily lose sleep over many things when we choose to hold onto them within our minds and not let them go. We have faith in God's ability to answer our prayer, yet we don't have the courage to let our prayers go, to release our grip on them and let God handle them.
My Hebrew professor in Seminary would always quote Jesus' words from Matthew to us in class when we were asking questions about a concept in our readings that we haven't yet gotten to. We'd be doing a translation and get stuck on something we haven't learned yet and he would say, "let the day's troubles be sufficient for the day." He was telling us that we needed to stop worrying about that new concept because it was not yet time to handle it. We needed to let it go and focus on our current task.
David somehow manages to do so by the end of this Psalm because it says, “In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.” David, with all that is going on around him is able to find peace and rest through it all and we can too. We need to trust that God will handle it. We need to trust that God will keep us safe too. We can find rest because Jesus offers it to us. But, we have to be willing to let go of our worries. We have to stop babysitting the world every night because if we can't, good rest will not come. Jesus is here with us ready to take those burdens from us. He is taking the night watch from us so that we can lay down and sleep. Let him do that for you.
Jesus says, "come to me all who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest." Jesus is giving us rest. We need it. You might even know those words from the hymn "What A Friend We Have In Jesus." The words to that song are speaking right to us and almost begging us to respond even in the middle of the song. Are we weak and heavy laden? Oh yes, Lord. Cumbered with a load of care? Oh, it's a load of something I'll tell you that, Lord. Precious Savior, still our refuge. Oh, Lord, I need you more than anything. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Lord, Jesus, take this burden from me and give me rest. Do you friends despise, forsake you? Oh, Lord, do they ever. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Lord, Jesus, I give you the yoke on my shoulders. In his arms he'll take and shield you; Thank you Lord Jesus for taking my burdens and bearing me in the shelter of your arms. You will find a solace there. In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety. There's David's words. In the end, he knew he could find rest in God if he would ultimately give up his worries into God's hands. In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety. Stop babysitting the world and may each of us rest in God's peace tonight. To God be the glory, now and always. Amen.