4/23/17 “Living Non-Anxiously In An Anxious World” by Nancy Petty

Text: Luke 12:22-31

Debbie was one of my college suitemates. We were both religion majors but neither of us fully fit the religion major stereotype. I was an athlete and most of my friends were Physical Education majors. No surprise there. At first introduction, you might have guessed Debbie to be a psychology major. She was a bit more earthy than most of her college mates. She was possibly the first person I ever saw wearing Birkenstocks. Debbie had long silky black hair and the singing voice of a nightingale. While we didn’t spend a lot of time together, we made great suitemates. We had most of our classes together, so we saw enough of one another in class.

The biggest difference, however, between Debbie and I was our handling of stress and anxiety. The night before a major exam or a research paper was due I would go into overdrive. And being an extrovert, I would get everyone else in overdrive. I would go from room to room on my hall to other classmates asking, “Have you studied the three principles of situation ethics? What about the JEPD theory?” I would try and surmise every possible essay question that could be asked. I would recite volumes of material that the test might cover. I would come up with songs and acronyms to remember the content. I would take a single piece of paper and, writing as small as I could, I would write out my study notes on that one piece of paper and then take a mental photograph of the page to help me remember the material. It was a technique that I continued in seminary and I still have some of those study pages in my office. My point is that in times of high stress and anxiety, I amped up my stress and anxiety levels because in some odd way back then it served me well.

Debbie on the other hand, at about 7:00 p.m. on the night before a big exam, would start getting ready for a night out. By 8:00 p.m. she was leaving with friends headed to the South Carolina line where her fake ID would get her into more places than it would in Shelby, North Carolina. She would walk out of our dorm room with an air about her that indicated that she didn’t have a care in the world. I would ask, “Have you studied? Is your paper finished?” To which she would respond, “I will. It will be.” Not a minute trace of anxiety was in her voice or body.

About 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, the time I would be going to bed, Debbie would arrive back to our suite. She would kick off her cowboy boots or Birkenstocks and within two minutes she would be fast asleep. I would lay awake for another couple of hours before I would fall asleep around 5:00 a.m. knowing that I needed to be in class at 8:00 a.m. for the exam. Around 7:30 I would hear Debbie in the bathroom and she would be singing:

Consider the lilies, they don’t toil nor spin

And there’s not a king with more splendor than them.

Consider the sparrows, they don’t plant nor sow,

But they’re fed by the master who watches them grow.

We have a heavenly Father above,

With eyes full of mercy and a heart full of love.

He really cares when your head is bowed low,

Consider the lilies and then you will know.

Debbie’s strategy seemed to work for her. We never shared our grades with one another but she graduated in four years just like I did. It’s a funny thing how different we as individuals handle anxiety and stress.

Years later, as I would begin my ministry working with Mahan Siler, he would often say to me in times of anxiety, “Nancy, we have to lead with a non-anxious presence. It’s all about staying non-anxious.” I will confess this morning, every time he would say those words, “non-anxious presence,” I would have this rebellious reaction internally. Non-anxious presence—who can practice being non-anxious when you feel like your life is falling apart, or when you feel like the world is against you, or you feel depressed, or you can’t pay the rent, or save for the kids college, or when the doctor says the x-ray doesn’t look quite right, or you live constantly with a low-grade anxiety that pervades and colors your thinking? Hearing the words, be non-anxious, in the best of times can feel like judgment and in the worst of times can feel like another heavy weight being placed on your chest.

And truthfully, hearing someone tell you to be a non-anxious when you are feeling anxious is not much different from Jesus saying, “Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing…Consider the lilies, how they grow; they neither toil or spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.” When you are anxious and worried, hearing “be non-anxious” and “don’t worry” doesn’t feel that helpful. Or does it?

I am convinced that anxiety is crippling us as a society, especially our young people. Over the past several months I have met with a number of young adults and youth who have shared with me the overwhelming sense of anxiety they feel in their daily lives. The anxiety of failing at something or, for that matter, succeeding at something. The anxiety of trying to find a work/life balance in our culture tells us that our value is in what we produce and in how busy we stay. The anxiety of family members who are struggling and depending on us. The anxiety of finding real purpose in life. The anxiety of making enough money to support one’s self. The anxiety of national and global politics. Numerous recent studies have named millennials the “anxious generation.” There are all kinds of theories as to why this generation is one of the most anxious in recent history—and at the top of the list is technology and a close second is politics.

But it’s not just millennials who are anxious. It seems that all of us are carrying around an unusual amount of stress and anxiety these days. As I have engaged in conversations with people of all ages and listened to the anxieties that are burdening us, I have been thinking about what, if anything, our faith offers in times of anxiety and stress. Does our faith have any wisdom for facing our anxieties?

As a doorway into the wisdom of our faith I first want to name some common causes of anxiety. I have heard in your stories these anxieties and I have experienced them in my own life.

One of the most prevalent, if not the most prevalent, anxiety-producing exercises we as humans engage in is the trap of living in the future. Whether it is looking forward to something that might happen in the future; or not wanting to be in our present circumstance; or thinking things will be better somewhere down the road; or hoping for our lives to be different, living in the future can cause us tremendous stress. It diminishes the present moment and our ability to grow through our struggles and challenges. Sound familiar?

But there are other common anxiety-creating thoughts and feelings: trying to control things that are beyond our control; worrying about what people think of us; afraid of failure and sometimes even the fear of success; the anxiety of not having enough of whatever it is that you feel you need, and the anxiety that comes with feeling that you are disappointing someone you love. Recognize any of these anxieties?

I name these anxieties not as judgment, but for the simple purpose of naming them—of hearing them spoken out loud. All of us have anxiety, it is a human response when we are afraid and struggling and feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes the most important thing we can do is to just name whatever it is that is causing us to feel anxious. Only then can we begin to diminish the power that our anxious thoughts and feelings have over us.

But I want to come back now to the wisdom of our faith and how it invites us to live non-anxiously, or at least less-anxiously, in this anxious world. Most clearly, our faith calls us to live in the present moment and to be present to each moment. We are reminded of this wisdom throughout scripture. “Give us this day, our daily bread.” “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.” (Matthew 6:34)  Jesus teaches about the kingdom, which has been mis-used by religion for centuries as one more way that we live into a future heaven. But scholars tell us that kingdom is not about a future place and a future time; it is about the very moment in which we live. Heaven is available to us now, and only now. Jesus is full of exhortations to wake us up to this truth, and to “follow him” daily—to live in the present moment, here and now.

The wisdom of our faith also invites us to live non-anxiously in an anxious world as it reminds us that there is a big picture to our life and world. The narrative of the biblical texts starts at the beginning for a reason! We open its pages to the songs of our creation, the songs of our belonging, the songs of eternal relationship with one another and the divine. We are woven into the fabric of everything that is. And science just keeps affirming this truth – as one of you likes to say, we are quite literally made of the stuff of stars. When we can expand our view, beyond the immediate crisis, beyond the urgent situation, we are taught throughout faith that we are much bigger than the “I” caught in the tensions and anxieties of the immediate moment. There is a bigger picture.

The wisdom of our faith invites non-anxious living in an anxious world by valuing community. In the Hebrew texts, community is defined by tribal belonging – to be born the people of Israel is to belong to the people of God. In the New Testament, Jesus and then Paul shift that narrative. Community is stretched beyond every definition. We are commanded above all to love God and to love one another. Our neighbor becomes as important as our self. We cannot be alone under such a definition! We are all responsible for and responsible to one another. We belong! Belonging in a community is an antidote to anxiety.

And finally the wisdom of our faith reminds us that God is with us in all of life—in our anxiety and worry, in our fears and failures, in our future longings and our impossible “what ifs.” With God there is no judgment of the things that make us anxious, only grace and mercy and the promise of presence. God invites us to lay our burdens down, to trust in the promise that we are not alone, and yes, even maybe to consider the lilies and how much greater God’s care is for us.

As Debbie and I would walk to class on those morning when the anxiety of exam day hung over our heads, she would keep singing:

May I introduce you to this friend of mine,

Who hangs out the stars and tells the sun when to shine.

Who kisses the flowers each morning with dew,

He’s not too busy to care about you.

We have a heavenly Mother above

With eyes full of mercy and a heart full of love.

She really cares when your head is bowed low

Consider the lilies and then you will know.

Consider the lilies and then you will know.