Friends, I think it’s
about time we talked about worry.
I have a daughter who is
pretty good about it – she calls me into her room when she needs “Worry Time”. We save up whatever has got her worried throughout the day, and then we sit
down and she pours it all out. Sometimes she has to correct me, because I am
not very good at platitudes, so she tells me what is most helpful for her to
hear, “Mom, just say, ‘That will never happen, honey.’” And so I do.
But most of the time, just
sharing whatever it is that has got her worried, seems to take away the power
of the worrying, at least for the moment.
And then she always asks me, “What are you worried about, Mommy?” And it
always stops me in a rush of gratitude. Because it reminds me that we belong to
each other.
For me, the most comforting thing for me
to hear is not, “That will never happen.” But “Even if…” Even if the very worst
thing that could happen does happen, it will still be ok.
Even if, like the psalmist says, the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
that is STILL not the biggest thing. God is still God. Love is still the most
true and first and final word. God is our
refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore I will not fear. (Psalm 46) Because we belong to God and we belong to each other. No matter what.
That is
what I most often need to hear.
But oh, is worry a potent
thing!
Here is how worry works for me.
That terrible thing that
happened over there happening to someone else?
What if it happens to me,
or to someone I love?
That loss – of home or family, of safety or order –
flood, earthquake, war, famine, violence, I want to keep it far from my
doorstep.
That unexpected tragedy
that came out of the blue - that car accident or diagnosis - what if that
happens to me or someone I love?
This terrifying and
dangerous threat – ideology of dehumanization and division, isolation or
provocation – it’s one thing in the hypothetical or in words, but what if it is
given power, and action, and threatens me
and my well-being?
I don’t worry about people
suffering elsewhere.
I might feel terrible about it,
I might grieve it, feel
angry or upset or compassionate or be filled with pity.
But the worry comes in
when I think that something bad could happen to me.
Worry always says “What if…” and then it shifts to the
threat: What if…I wont not be safe. I wont have enough. I wont belong. I wont
be seen. I lose someone I love, my security, my comfort, my place.
Worry rehearses the lie,
over and over again; it whispers that we are unsafe, abandoned, futureless,
hopeless and ultimately alone.
In other words, we don’t belong to God, and we don’t belong to each other.
This is why worry is
linked here with money.
Money means security. If we are in it on our own, money
is reassurance. It means I have buffered
myself from risk. I will have what I need – food, a bed, a home, a future. Because
ultimately, this whole text is really about trust, and let’s be honest, Money
is what we put our trust in. We trust in money so that we don’t have to worry.
So most of the time what we worry about is having enough money.
So here is how I worry. I
obsess. I read every dumb article I can get my hands on. And I can feel my
blood pressure going up, and my heart racing, and my mind churning and my
stomach clenching. I can feel the world around me fading out when I concentrate
on whatever it is I am worried about.
I think to myself, What if my worst fears come true? And then I google them.
The news,
the stock market, politics, webMD, CaringBridge – I feed the worry and it grows.
And while this is
happening, the world is turning around me, like it does moment by moment, year
after year. The leaves are gently
shifting into brilliance and color, the squirrels are finding their hiding
spots for the winter. Kids around me are
discovering new, amazing skills, like standing upright and walking to their daddy,
or cracking the code and suddenly discovering those shapes on the signs outside
the car windows are words, and
knowing what they say, or realizing in some other new way that their bodies, or
minds, or voices, can do things in the world that have an impact and make a
difference. And the ones in my own house are even sometimes inviting me to see
that and celebrate or mourn whatever is real in their life along
with them, but I am missing that.
While we are obsessing and
worrying, new little people are being born, and rich full lives are ending, and
every day in between is filled with all these moments where God is trying to
show us, over and over again, Hey! You
belong to me you wonderful, beloved person! And look, you belong to each other,
all around you, all these other wonderful, beloved people! All of you, scared and longing and
hopeful and brave, walking around on this earth like it matters, because it matters.
And here’s the truth about
all the things we worry about: when the worst things do happen, the hardest and
scariest and ickiest things have happened to us in the past, we made it
through. And what in advance had seemed unendurable,
is endured after all, and worry’s “What if…” did not help us at all.
I heard a wonderful On Being podcast in which Krista Tippett interviewed Benedictine Monk David Steindl-Rast, who talks about the power of
gratitude to reconnect us to God and each other, to ground us again in what is
real. But what stuck out to me most in
this interview is how he answered her when she asked him about his perspective
of living in a time where things seem so precarious and terrible.
We must acknowledge our anxiety about it. He said. We
must acknowledge our anxiety, but we must not fear. There is a great difference.
…Anxiety, or being anxious, this word comes from a root
that means “narrowness,” and choking, and the original anxiety is our birth
anxiety.
We all come into this world through this very
uncomfortable process of being born…. It’s really a life-and-death struggle for
both the mother and the child. And that is the original, the prototype, of
anxiety.
At that time, we do it fearlessly, because fear is
the resistance against this anxiety. See? If you go with it, it brings you into
birth. If you resist it, you die in the womb. Or your mother dies.
So, anxiety is a reasonable response to a lot of
human experience.
and we are to acknowledge it and affirm it, because
to deny our anxiety is another form of resistance. But the fear is life
destroying.
Anxiety is not optional in life, he says. It’s
part of life. But we can look back at our lives, at times we were in really
tight spots, times of anxiety, and say to
ourselves, we made it! We got through it! … In fact, the worst anxieties and
the worst tight spots in our life, often, years later, when you look back at
them, reveal themselves as the beginning of something completely new, a
completely new life.
And that can teach us, and that can give us courage,
also, now, that we think about it, in looking forward and saying, yes, this is
a tight spot. …But, if we go with it,…it will be a new birth. And that is trust
in life.
So
here is what I have to say to 2016: 2016, you suck.
And
here is what I have to say to us: Right now is an anxious time.
And
most of us feel the anxiety acutely. All
these ugly and toxic things inside of our culture, our systems, our very selves,
they are leeching out, coming to the surface, and they are right here in the
open, like gaping wounds. We can see the
horror we’ve practiced avoiding, ignore or suppressing, and it is really hard
to look at. And it feels big and sad and
awful. It feels like we’re broken, a little bit. And that makes us feel helpless.
We hate anxiety so we resist it, and we give in to fear. And worry is fear’s
fuel, it’s momentum. So in fear we might
lash out at each other, or turn in on ourselves, obsessing about how our safety
or security or happiness or precarious balance of equilibrium could vanish,
seeing the threat all around us, feeding the fear, working the worry.
Right
now we are in a narrow, constricted time.
And it hurts, and feels rotten and uncomfortable. And we are resisting it. Oh, are we resisting it. We are letting fear
get us stuck, and the worry keep us distracted and preoccupied.
But
there is invitation in this time. There
is an opportunity opened up in these times, to move from “What if…” to “Even if…”
By
considering the lilies and the birds, by noticing and gratitude, we are shifted
from worry to trust. Trust in the one
who holds us. Trust looks up; it sees
much farther and wider than worry, which can only look in one frozen spot with fear.
Trust can look back at God’s
faithfulness in the past, and trust can look forward with courage and hope, and
trust can look around with eyes wide open, acknowledging the anxiety, seeing
things as they are, but also holding onto a vision of things as they should be.
Trust seeks first the Kingdom of God, the belonging of God that claims us and
connects us. The rest will fade and
wither and die and change, but we will always belong to God and we will always
belong to each other, no matter what it looks like on the surface at the moment.
We are in a series on Sabbath. So as I
say each week, when we say we are a congregation that practices Sabbath, we are
not just saying that we worship sometimes on Saturdays instead of Sundays.
By practicing Sabbath, we
are saying that as a community of people, we refuse to live fueled by worry and
driven by fear. We will face anxiety and call it what it is – uncomfortable,
terrible, painful, and we will trust anyway.
Sabbath is an active form
of resistance to the way of fear, a powerful practice of defiance to
worry. In a 24/7 system where fear is cultivated and encouraged, and our connection to God and others is buried under noise and lies.Sabbath refuses to numb out, or
rush past the pain, or submit to the relentless cycle of obsession and worry.
So when Sabbath invites us
to say, I am going to step off the spinning
carousel of chaos, and take a breath, and get my bearings, and sit down and be
here, right here in my life, right now in honesty and gratitude, with no other
agenda, it is a direct affront to the system of fear, and a powerful
antidote to the cycle worry. Sabbath is such a potent and subversive move
because it reminds us that we are, in fact, free, free to opt out of that game at any
moment.
Because when we rest, we
trust. It’s not a feeling; it’s an action.
We actively give up the frantic resistance
of fear, and the flailing of worry. Instead we welcome the
anxiety, and let ourselves face it and feel it, as uncomfortable as it is. We recognize
that it’s true, in lots of ways we are completely helpless.
But then, something comes
after that: the “what if” dissipates and the “even if” finds us and reminds us
what is real. That despite what we see on the news and on the CT scan and on
the bank statement, that is not the most true thing. “Even if” the very worst
thing that could happen does happen, God is still God. Love is still the most
true and first and final word. And we
usually find ourselves surprised by gratitude, a sense of peace, a momentary
remembering of the belonging that claims and connects us all.
This is what it means to
be people who practice Sabbath.
We are people who practice trusting God with
all our hearts, and leaning not on our own understanding, acknowledging God in
all our ways, and letting God direct our paths, and in so doing, we will find
healing for our bodies and refreshment for our souls. (Prov. 3:5-8)
And something else happens
as well.
Stopping, resting, trusting, makes
space for the Spirit to lead us to responses that are productive, and faithful. Responses like grieving – which connects us
with the heart of God that longs for things to be as the are meant to be. Or helping each other, listening to each
other, or tending the earth, tending our souls- all these things plug us back
into the real reality – belonging to God and belonging to each other.
Because when we remember the
real, instead of seeing a crisis a half a world away and fearing it might land
on our doorstep, we might reach out in generosity, or listen for the stories of
hope and connection.
Instead of dreading
danger in our communities or vilifying those we don’t understand, we might let
curiosity lead us to learn about our neighbors, or seek a way to connect more
deeply with someone and their story.
Instead of walling ourselves off in shame
and supposed self-protection, we might find courage to reach out in our need
and let others come near to us and tend to us.
In other words, when we
remember that we belong to God and we belong to others, we will live that way,
and that can change the world.
Someone
said to me this week, Why do we think worrying is fruitful, but breathing and
meditation is not? Why are we so willing and quick to worry? But not to be
silent or pray or stop, things that actually are fruitful?
So
today, we are going to be a Sabbath people.
We are going to actively practice
silence, and praying, and stopping.
We
are going to spend the next couple of minutes countering worry with trust, reconnecting
with the source of our being and our belonging, preparing us to reconnect with
ourselves and each other as well. (And if you are reading this at home, you are invited to breathe along as you read).
Breathing Prayer by ab simpson
Breathe in the breath of God
Breathe out your cares and concerns
Breathe in the love of God
Breathe out your doubts and despairs
Breathe in the life of God
Breathe out your fears and frustrations
We sit quietly before the One who gives life and love
to all creation,
We sit in awe of the One who formed us in our
mother’s wombs
We sit at peace surrounded by the One who fills every
fibre of our being
Breathe in the breath of God
Breathe out your tensions and turmoil
Breathe in the love of God
Breathe out your haste and hurry
Breathe in the life of God
Breathe out your work and worry
We sit quietly before the One who gives life and love
to all creation,
We sit in awe of the One who formed us in our
mother’s wombs
We sit at peace surrounded by the One who fills every
fibre of our being
You belong to God.
You are loved.
You are part of God’s plan to love the world.
Be at peace.
Amen.
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