“Seek first the kingdom of God, and these things will be yours as well.” Lk 12:31 

It’s that busy time of year again, and I am feeling a bit anxious. All this year’s finances and contracts and campaigns need completing; and next year is filling up fast with events, meetings and deadlines.  My google calendar looks like Nora playing with a box of crayons!  I used to think that better time management could ease my anxiety; I’ll start my day earlier, block out distractions, etc. These tactics, it turns out, are more about treating symptoms than the disease.  Jesus, however, gives a deeper diagnosis of our anxiety and its cure in today’s reading, so appropriate for this high season of anxiety.  First, Jesus exposes the lie of time management with a story of a very busy man.  This wealthy man tries to manage his time and wealth; to store it up to use later.  Just then God says, ‘You fool! Tonight your life will be taken from you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ Trying to manage time causes anxiety because time is beyond our control.  It passes at the same rate no matter what we do, and when it ends, only God knows.  The second cause of our anxiety is misplaced priorities, which Jesus reveals with a story of two brothers. These brothers are so preoccupied with splitting their inheritance, that they end up splitting their relationship.  Misplaced priorities cause anxiety, because we were created for higher ends, but keep getting caught up in lesser things. “Seek first the Kingdom of God’ Jesus admonishes us, ‘and these (lesser) things will be yours as well.’  So now that Jesus, the doctor of our souls has diagnosed the cause of our anxiety-trying to control time which we can’t control, and not prioritizing what is important-we can spend the rest of our time looking together for cures.