Weighed Down With Worry

Luke 12:22-31 (12:13-21)

11^th Sunday after Pentecost/ 4^th August 2013

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry….” About your life.  About food.  About clothes.  Do not worry, Jesus says. 

 You’re probably saying to yourself: Easier said than done.  You’re probably also reluctant to admit this, but my guess is you’re thinking it. And then comes the guilt, because you know you worry, worry too much, and now you’re feeling judged by Jesus. That never feels good.

But come on, Jesus. Really? Don’t worry? Are you really human?  Don’t you know what it’s like for us?  Don’t you know how complicated and scary the world can be?  How is this even possible?  Don’t you know that we worry all the time and there’s always one more person, one more news story, one more experience that tells us there’s still more to worry about, that we ought to be worried?  Don’t you know that we worry – we’re told we’re supposed to worry – about our safety, about security; we worry about our health, worry about losing our health, we worry about test results; we worry about money, not having enough, of never having enough; we worry about our family, our loved ones, our friends; we worry about our enemies and our foes; we worry about work, about finding a job, starting a new job, keeping a job; we worry about our problems, both small and big ones, the pressures that weigh us down and give us headaches and keep us awake at 3 a.m.; we worry about threats and potential threats; we worry about tomorrow, about the future; we worry about climate change; we worry about all the things we hear on the news, and we worry about when the next natural disaster will strike, the next shooting, the next outbreak of war and violence?  Don’t you know that we worry all the time, Jesus?  And we worry about the meaning of our lives, whether or not our lives have purpose and direction. We worry about our faith, whether we have any left or just enough to be in your good graces.  We worry about your church, what it will look like, will we recognize it years from now, will it survive, will our children have faith? Sometimes we wonder if you’re really there, if you really understand what it’s like to be human: fallen, broken, frightened human beings in an enormously vast cosmos?  Not to worry?  And speaking of the cosmos, one day the sun is going to burn itself out. What then? What then?

            Worry fills our lives these days. It’s all around us. There are even some who take a strange comfort in worrying.  It’s what they do.  It’s how they fill the time.  It’s a way to cover over the anxiety that is actually underneath the worry, things that are too painful to acknowledge.  We know, rationally, that most of the things we worry about will never happen.  You know that, right? They just won’t. They’re fictive imaginings of an anxious mind looking for control.  In this sense, the things we worry about are irrational, subrational, but that doesn’t meant they don’t get the best of us.  We might claim to be very rational creatures, but it’s the irrational things that are often driving our lives and our choices.  So what are we to do?

            Bobby McFerrin came up with one antidote to worry.  You probably remember his Billboard Hot 100 hit from 1988, the a cappella song, “Don’t worry,” he sang, “Be Happy,” sung to a kind of a carefree, Jamaican island rhythm.  It’s a fun tune. You can’t help but feel happy singing along.  But what happens when the song ends?  McFerrin is actually quoting the Indian mystic Meher Baba (1894-1969) who believed he was an avatar, God in human form. He often said, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” when he cabled his followers in the West.

            The imperative “be happy” isn’t an antidote for worry; in fact, it could make matters worse.  It doesn’t give us a reason for happiness.  It’s not grounded in anything.  It doesn’t take seriously what is being felt and experienced in the moment.

            You might say that Jesus, too, is offering an imperative, a command.  “Do not worry.”  And it is a command, a strong command. What’s the difference?  It has nothing to do with being happy.  Happiness is not the antidote.  Jesus suggests that something else has already been given to us; the antidote to worry is already here for us and it’s also coming, at the same time. But is Jesus right? Can we trust him? You have to answer that yourself.

            So what’s Jesus saying here?  Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.  First, this message is not directed at those who are struggling to survive, people without food, clothing, or shelter. This message is directed at people who already have food and clothing, but want more and are anxious about obtaining it.  Life is more than food and the body more than clothing.  When Jesus says do not worry about your life, life here, psyche, can be translated, “soul,” “one’s whole being,” the totality of your intrapsychic life. He’s talking about a disposition or attitude of soul and the soul has no reason to worry.

            How can he say that?  Just open your eyes, he says. Consider!  See!

            At this point Jesus uses a rhetorical strategy that was prevalent in Judaism at this time, it’s found all over the Bible actually.  It’s called qal wahoner, meaning from light to heavy or less to great.[1] It’s used to make an argument. It’s a debate strategy. If something is true at a lower level, then it has to be even truer at a greater level. 

            Consider the ravens, Jesus said, “they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse or born, and yet God feeds them.”  Yay, Ravens!  God is on the side of the ravens!  Now, you might think: okay, God cares for the birds. That’s nice.  But—and folks in Baltimore probably don’t want to hear this—what’s often overlooked here is that within Judaism ravens were considered unclean animals.  Leviticus is very clear: “These you shall regard as detestable among the birds.  They shall not be eaten; they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, the buzzard, …every raven of every kind…” (Lev. 11:13-15).  (Sorry, Ravens fans.  Just quoting scripture.) What does Jesus say here, though? This is the radical part.  If God provides for those detestable, abominable ravens, Jesus says, “Of how much more value are you than the birds!”  From lesser to greater.

            Jesus continues.  “And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”  Of course not.  Why worry about the things you have no control over?  Worry is an ineffective means of improving or changing our lives.  It’s just not productive.

            Consider the lilies.  The birds do not worry about food. The flowers don’t worry about being clothed with beauty because they are already beautiful.  They neither toil nor spin.  They are what they are without any striving.  In Jesus’ day and before there was no greater wealth or beauty or glory imaginable than King Solomon’s.  Yet, the flowers of the field exceed Solomon’s glory.  If God clothes the grass of the field with flowers, countless wildflowers, “how much more will he clothe you…”! From lesser to greater.

            So stop striving for these things, Jesus says.  Stop grasping for these things.   Stop the constant worrying.  “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry….”

            Now, you might be wondering why Jesus says, “Therefore.”  It points us to look at what comes before, because the larger context of this text begins at verse 13, in which Jesus offers the Parable of the Rich Fool.  Jesus is warning here against greed.  Greed is about grasping.  “Be on guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15).  And so Jesus tells the story of the rich fool who didn’t have a place large enough to store all of his stuff, so he tore down what he had to build larger barns to store more stuff and then trusted in his stuff to give him plenty of happiness in the future, assuming that all his stuff was safely hoarded and secure. “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you.  And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’  So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God” (Luke 12:20-21).

            This, then, is the context for Jesus’ teaching on worry.  The word for worry here means to be lifted up and raised in the air, flitting about, not grounded, it means to be anxious, it means to be in a constant state of anxiety.  It’s directly related to the anxiety around not having enough.

            It’s remarkable, if you think about it, we’re among the wealthiest people in the history of the world, living in one of the wealthiest nations the world has ever known.  And yet we are living in a culture driven by a sense of scarcity.  It’s everywhere, this “never enough” obsession:  never good enough, perfect enough, thin enough, rich enough, powerful enough, successful enough, smart enough, certain enough, safe enough, extraordinary enough.[2]  Scarcity.  The word comes from the Old Norman French scars, meaning “restricted in quantity.”  “Scarcity thrives in a culture where everyone is hyperaware of lack.  Everything from safety and love to money and resources feels restricted or lacking.  We spend inordinate amounts of time calculating how much we have, want, and don’t have, and how much everyone else has, needs, and wants.”[3] 

            Brené Brown is a sociologist at the University of Texas.  Her research is confirming what many theologians have said for years, it’s very destructive living with a sense of scarcity, especially when it’s not really true.  In fact, her data is showing that “worrying about scarcity is our culture’s version of post-traumatic stress.”  The world has never been an easy place, but what Brown is finding in her analysis of our society, including numerous interviews with people, is that the “past decade has been traumatic for so many people that it’s made changes in our culture.  From 9/11, multiple wars, and the recession, to catastrophic natural disasters and the increase in random violence and school shootings, we’ve survived and are surviving events that have torn at our sense of safety with such force that we’ve experienced them as trauma even”—and this is significant (!)—even “if we weren’t directly involved.”[4]  As psychologists know, you can still be traumatized even if you’re not directly impacted by a traumatic event.  The sense of anxiety is also fueled by 24-hour news channels that always giving us something more to worry about.  And so the sense of anxiety and scarcity builds and builds and reaches a critical mass and people start to make decisions and make choices based on the perception of scarcity.  People make choices and decisions from within their anxiety, caught up in worry. Anxiety drives our decisions, our reactions, our choices.

            Stop striving for more.  God knows what you need.  Don’t worry.  Robert Frost (1874-1963) once said, “The reason why worry kills more people than work is because more people worry than work.” 

            If you want to strive for something, if you want a job to do, if you want something to focus your anxiety on and allay your fears, then “strive for God’s kingdom,” Jesus says, “and these things”—meaning life, food, clothing, everything else—“will be given to you as well.” 

            According to Jesus, the antidote to worry is the kingdom.  The kingdom is the core message of Jesus’ preaching.  Now, it’s natural to be anxious and to worry.  But Jesus wants us to direct our attention away from what we think we don’t have (scarcity) to what we already do have, which is God’s kingdom that is and is still coming, and then he reminds us and calls us to rest and trust in God’s providential care for all of creation, from the detestable ravens, to the lilies of the field, to every human being created in God’s image. For we are, as the psalmist said, the apple of God’s eye (Psalm 17:8).  Jesus is drawing us out away from anxious obsessions toward God’s faithfulness and invites us to act from within that sense of trust.  To be caught up in a constant state of anxiety and worry is lack of faith; in other words it’s a sign that we’re not fully resting in God’s goodness.  I don’t think Jesus says this to judge us—nor do I say this in judgment—Jesus isn’t trying to make our lives more difficult, but wants to show us a still more excellent way.

            Seek God’s kingdom. Strive after the kingdom.  Try putting your energy and resources and time and even your anxieties into kingdom work.  Where is the kingdom?  Open your eyes!  Consider!  See, it’s all around you!  The kingdom is not “up there,”  “not in some heaven light-years away.”[5] It’s here.  It’s now. And it’s coming; its on the way.  And what is kingdom work?  

• Works of mercy.
• Works of peace.
• Works of restorative justice.  
• Suffering for the things that really matter. 
• Works of reconciliation.
• Works of redemption.
• Works of radical, irrational generosity, of sharing – not grasping and grabbing, but giving joyfully because there’s more than enough to go around. 
• Works of struggle and liberation on behalf of those who are poor, weak, and hungry, and naked, and alone, and scared, without voice, without power, without influence. 
• Works of wholeness and healing for all God’s children (of all ages),
• children who don’t know yet that they’re worth more than the birds, who don’t know yet they are beloved children of God.
• Works of joy.  Works of faith. Works of hope. Works of love. 

This—and more—is what we’re called to strive after.  When we confess to one another or to the wider world that we are followers of Jesus Christ, we are saying that this is our work too, at home, at work, at play, at church.  This is our work. This is who we are. Can we accept this?  Or is this all easier said than done?

            Well, if we still have the need to worry over something, if we can’t break the habit, then let the church worry over the things that matter, the kingdom and the coming of the kingdom. This, Jesus said, is the pearl of great price (Matthew 13:46). For where our treasure is, there will our hearts be also (Luke 12:34).

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[1] The first of rabbi Hillel’s (c.110 BC – 10 AD) rules of exegesis.

[2] Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to BeVulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (Gotham Books, 2012), 25.

[3] Brown, 26.  Emphasis added.

[4] Brown, 27.

[5] From Marty Haugen’s hymn “Gather Us In.” Sing the Faith (Louisville: Geneva Press, 2003).

A World of Distractions

Barry Ritholtz, "How To Focus in an Age of Distractions"

Luke 10: 38-42

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost/ July 21, 2013

When I sent out the worship preview on Friday I included a chaotic looking diagram that attempts to map all the ways we try and fail to maintain focus in our lives. At the center is an image of a man touching his temples, as if to soothe a headache, with a caption that reads, “How to focus in the age of distraction.”   Around him are all the various ways we try to organize and focus our lives, only to discover that all these schemes become further distractions.  We create rituals or habits around how we begin our day or how we end our day.  We manage how and when we respond to email.  We take the time to reflect and review the day and come up with ideas to make tomorrow even more efficient, even more productive.  We have lists—and lists for lists.   We schedule time for digital technology detox—no television, no Facebook, no email, smart phones.  We try to enjoy more time with our family and friends.  We organize all the paper in our home and office, get rid of clutter, make sure all the dishes are clean and empty the sink before we leave the house in the morning.  We’ll eat better.  Sleep better.  Make time for exercise.  Make time for prayer, for worship.  We set up strategies to help us focus, but it seems the more we do these the more difficult it is to be focused.

            Can you relate?  Is this how you feel? Do have a headache just thinking about all of this?  You’re not alone. 

            How do we focus in this age of distraction? It’s even more demanding for those who struggle with Attention Deficit Disorder. There’s always someone or something vying for our attention, pulling us away from the things and people that matter most in our lives.  We’re running in ten thousand directions all at the same time.  We’re being pulled in so many different directions that it’s difficult to focus. And when we ignore or neglect the things and people worthy of our time the guilt and the shame set in.  The guilt and shame are fueled by anxiety, which seems to be a steady hum underneath everything these days.

            Jesus’ visit to the home of Mary and Martha in Bethany could have happened yesterday.  It has a contemporary feel to it, doesn’t it?  It’s a remarkable visit, a remarkable conversation that occurs here in only four verses—four verses intentionally placed by Luke between the story of the lawyer who was anxious about inheriting eternal life, to which Jesus provided the radical Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), as we saw last week, followed by Jesus’ teaching on prayer, showing us how to pray in the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:1-13).

            Mary and Martha are a study in contrasts.  Martha welcomes Jesus into their home.  She extends hospitality.  She does what is expected of her.  Mary takes a break from her work, sits at Jesus’ feet, and listens to what he has to say.  It’s easy to pit them against each other. Martha represents the active life, the worker-bee, the go-getter.  Mary represents the contemplative life, passive, lackadaisical, maybe a mystic.  Jesus obviously favors Mary’s way of being. But it’s not simply either-or here.  Both of these personality types have value.  Although they are both women, these types have little to do with gender.  There’s a Martha and Mary in each of us. 

            That said, because of the way the text is constructed, it’s the Martha-type that Jesus is most concerned about—not because it’s wrong or sinful—but because Jesus knows the way Martha’s moving through her life is hindering her from being attentive to what is right before her very eyes.  She can’t see because she’s distracted.  She can’t focus her attention on God’s visitation where she lives because, in a sense, she’s not home, she’s not there. She’s some place else in her head.  She can’t be in the moment. She’s in the future, considering what has to be done. Therefore she can’t be attentive to what’s moving right in front of her.

            Why is Martha like this?  It’s clear that she resents Mary.  So where does resentment come from?  Resentment is often connected to jealously.  And jealously is often a vector of desire, that is, it indicates what we really want for ourselves.  Did Martha harbor a secret desire to be more like Mary?  Perhaps knowing how difficult that would be for her, to be like Mary, Martha feels unappreciated for what she does contribute to the running of the household.  When we feel unappreciated, it seems like no one really understands us, no one cares about us.  Her resentment toward Mary then spills over toward Jesus.  “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?”  Is she now lumping Mary and Jesus together here, implying that he, too, doesn’t care?  Is she suggesting that he, too, doesn’t appreciate “all the work” she’s doing?

            “All the work by myself,” Martha says.  Well, that’s what she says.  But is she telling the truth?  Is she really doing “all the work” by herself?   It sounds like she’s having a pity party.  It sounds like exaggeration.  If it is, then exaggeration is often a mask meant to cover over or hide something, that prevents others from seeing what’s really going on there underneath.  How much of “all the work” is really necessary work?  How much is unnecessary?  

            It’s clear that Martha likes to keep busy and she values being busy and expects others to be just like her—task oriented, driven, busy—and she’s quick to judge others who don’t measure up the same way.  She’s so bothered by this that she pulls Jesus into her frustration—“you tell her.”  This is a classic triangulation move, which is never healthy in interpersonal relations. Triangulation is when you ask someone to say or do something that you’re unwilling to say or do yourself directly.  Triangulation is never good.

            On the other hand, Mary could just be lazy and Martha knows it.  Maybe Mary has always been allergic to work.  Maybe Mary has always been a dreamer and never had much of a drive.  We don’t know.  Maybe she’s bored by housework and chores and hungers for something more that Jesus now represent?  We’re not sure.

            It’s clear, though:  Martha is the busy-bee in the house.  An admirable quality, to be sure!  But every quality, indeed every virtue, also has a shadow side. In our age we think the busy person is important. We might complain about being busy all the time, but some actually thrive on it. We want to be seen as busy, we don’t want to be seen by anyone, especially our boss, as being inactive, doing nothing.  The more we do, the busier we are, and the more important we think we are.

            A lot of pastors fall into this trap.  A friend calls this the Busy Pastor Syndrome. How are you, pastor?  How are things at the church?  “Oh, busy, very busy, crazy busy. So much is going on at the church. We’re just crazy busy.” (Meaning, I’m busy therefore I’m important.)  But what does it really mean to be busy?

            Sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes busyness is a compulsion, a compulsion that hides a mass of insecurities and fears. Writing last year in The New York Times, Tim Kreider suggests that “Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”

            A hedge against emptiness.  Is that what our busyness really is?  Is that why we’re so distracted? We might complain about distractions, having difficulty focusing, but I wonder if at an unconscious level the opposite is really closer to the truth: we want to be distracted, we don’t want to be focused or attentive to what’s before us.  There’s considerable anxiety under all of this, I know. For what if I don’t like what I find, what if I don’t like what I’m feeling when I stop, when I’m focused and aware?  What if it’s all empty, all hollow underneath?  What then?

            The Greek word used here for distraction means to be pulled or dragged away, drawn in different directions.  When this happens it feels as if we’re being determined by some power or force that is pulling us away from the center.  It’s like being in the sway or under the influence of an orbital force, a kind of gravitational pull, a force that overwhelms us and hinders our ability to pull away.  Even if want to pull away, we can’t.  We’re trapped.

            Psychologists have a word for this:  complex.  A complex is the concentration of energy around an emotionally-charge experience, memory, fear, or anxiety.  A complex is made up of “psychic elements—ideas, opinions, convictions—that are grouped around emotionally sensitive areas.”[1] All of this is going on in the unconscious.  When we are in the thrall of a complex—and we all have them, many of them—we feel like we’re in the grip of something.  Actually, you don’t have a complex; a complex has you.  For example, we’re going along in our day, something happens, someone says something, a changed mood sweeps over us.  That’s a complex. When a complex has us we might feel caught or trapped or hindered.  We might say something that we really don’t want to say, or do something out of character. You can hear it in the language we use, “Something came over me and I don’t know why I said that… or did that….” Most significantly, a complex often usurps our ability to choose or act in a way that we wish. As a result a complex can hinder us from seeing and living in reality.

            As I was reading the text again this week, it felt like Martha was caught in a complex.  We might call this the Martha Complex. It’s clear that she’s in a state, frustrated, resentful, feeling unappreciated, full of activity—but what’s going on under the surface?  What’s stirring there?  Why is Martha so anxious? What’s hindering her from choosing wisely?  This obviously wasn’t an issue for Mary.  Mary chose wisely.  And what she has cannot be taken away from her (Lk 10:42).  This means that Martha chose unwisely.  Martha’s caught up in her “stuff,” her “stuff” colors what she sees and informs her choices. As a result she misses what’s there before her, she misses the Holy in her midst.

            And what does Jesus do?  “Martha, Martha”—did he take her by the arms, I wonder, crossing her path, holding her shoulders, speaking directly into her eyes?  “Martha, Martha, stop. Look at me.  Let me look at you”—as if to break the spell of the complex, discharging its energy—“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.  This really isn’t about all the work and the chores, is it?  You are worried, concerned, anxious.”  The Greek here suggests that her mind was agitated.  “You’re freighted with care, Martha.”

            “There is only one thing needed.”  Jesus said. When we’re worried and distracted, we’re pulled in ten thousand directions and pulled away from the one thing needed:  to dwell lovingly in the presence of God, to sit at Jesus’ feet, to be attentive to him, to God, to the movement of the Spirit within our hearts.  Or to put it a different way, this is a life grounded and centered in God. This is what matters most.  This is what our souls hunger for.  When we are distracted and worried, we get pulled away from the One who holds us and sustains us. 

            We need more opportunities in our lives to just stop. Who are we when we remove the distractions? What’s left?  When we’re not working—work, too, can be a distraction—who are we, who is left?  Do you know who is left? Who is left is the real self, the true you; the authentic self that wants to dwell in the presence of God and it’s this deeper, authentic self—the true you—that God desires to be in a relationship with, less the busy, compulsive, anxious self.

            So what do we do with the distractions? We can try to come up with strategies to remove them.  Or, how about just taking the time to stop, to pray, simply be with God? To get to that place of being with God we need to embrace silence—we need much more silence in our lives.  That’s why contemplative practices and worship experiences such as Taizé, which incorporates fifteen minutes (or longer) of silence into the service, are so essential in our lives.   

            When we enter the silence we come to know what Hinduism correctly calls “the monkey brain,” it’s our brains, our minds running in nonstop activity with no direction or purpose.  When I was in India several weeks ago I had monkeys living all around my cottage.  They were out in the front yard, up in the trees, chasing each other over the roof of the cottage.  They were frenetic and always nervous, hyper vigilant.  In the silence we will meet our monkey brains, then we’ll see just how distracted we really are.

            It makes sense why the parable about loving one’s neighbor as oneself and loving God are followed by Jesus’ teaching on prayer.  That should tell us something.  Prayer, especially silent prayer, actually allows us to be more focused and less distracted.  Martin Luther (1483-1546) said (or at least attributed to him):  "Work, work, from morning until late at night.  In fact, I have so much to do that I shall have to spend the first three hours in prayer." And silent prayer, in particular, dwelling in God, can actually help release us from some of our complexes.  When we are silent before God, with silence focused, it’s remarkable how less distracted we become, how more focused we become.

            The bulletin reads:  sermon then a season of silence.  But I want to make the silence part of the sermon by providing an opportunity to practice what I’ve been preaching: to be still, to dwell in God’s presence.  So let us enter into a season of silence. As a guide through this time, you might wish to read slowly to yourself Edwina Gateley’s poem “Let Your God Love You.” So let us be silent and be still:

Be silent.
Be still.
Alone.
Empty
Before your God.
Say nothing.
Ask nothing.
Be silent.
Be still.
Let your God look upon you.
That is all.
God knows.
God understands.
God loves you
With an enormous love,
And only wants
To look upon you
With that love.
Quiet.
Still.
Be.

Let your God—
Love you.

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[1] June Singer, Boundaries of the Soul:  The Practice of Jung’s Psychology (New York:  Anchor Books, 1994), 43ff.  Jungian analytic theory was originally known as complex psychology.