Anxious Times
In our Sunday-morning Adult Forum, we recently completed a five-week series on anxiety. The idea for the class came from a friend of mine, who preached on that topic several weeks in a row. Although I do not think of St. Paul’s as a particularly anxious community, I sense that the world around us is dealing with higher-than-normal levels of stress, and I thought the series would be a helpful way of bringing some of the precepts of our faith into the rest of our lives.
Our parish may experience relatively low levels of anxiety, but we are a part of a wider community that is immersed in it, and that means that, no matter how self-differentiated we may be, anxiety is a part of our life. Given how many people showed up for the series, I’d say we are all experiencing plenty of anxiety in our lives.
In the five-week series, we talked about different sources of anxiety: material needs, societal conflict, physical suffering, illness and death, and eternal expectations. In each area of life, we encounter natural, reasonable worries. Will I have enough money to pay my bills? What happens if I get sick and cannot take care of my family? How will I manage the challenges associated with age-related decline? Have I lived a good enough life to go to heaven when I die? Asking those questions is one thing, but allowing them to dominate our lives is neither healthy nor faithful.
As part of the class, we read from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, when Jesus tells us not to worry about what we will eat, drink, or wear. “Do not worry about tomorrow,” Jesus says, “for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s troubles are enough for today.” Encouraging us to consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, Jesus invites us to let go of our anxieties about whether we will have enough.
Interestingly, however, birds spend most of their time and energy searching for food, and, while wildflowers do not have the capacity for anxiety, they efficiently use their natural resources to produce beautiful blossoms as a part of the biological drive for reproduction manifest in all species. In other words, birds and flowers may not worry about tomorrow, but they remain highly focused on meeting today’s physical needs. To Jesus’ point, however, it would be farcical to depict a sparrow obsessing over the existential threat of global warming.
How do we find the balance between properly attending to those concerns that are ours to carry and letting go of those that are beyond our influence? I may not be able to stop global warming, and it may not do me much good to panic about it, but I believe that changing my own behaviors as part of a wider effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions and using my voice and my influence to advocate for environmentally responsible behaviors is a moral imperative. Letting tomorrow’s worries take care of themselves is not the same thing as neglecting today’s responsibilities because their impact lies in the future. Some things need our attention now, but how do we prevent that from sending us into an unproductive and faith-robbing tizzy?
A few months ago, I asked the vestry if they felt like people at St. Paul’s were experiencing significant anxiety regarding the upcoming election. In an election year, things tend to get more stressful as November approaches and polarizing campaign advertisements increase. Back then, the vestry shared that they did not feel like our parish was carrying much anxiety about the election, but, at this week’s meeting, we acknowledged that things have shifted.
People are worried—worried about the results but also about the democratic process and the forces of division that are already at work among us. Some among us are more vulnerable to the outcome of the election than others. Others feel empathetic anxiety on behalf of those vulnerable neighbors. It can be tempting to check the latest polls multiple times every day, but, unless you work for a campaign, is that kind of vigilance helpful? How can we stay engaged without becoming obsessed?
I find it nearly impossible to stay informed about world affairs without subjecting myself to the fear-inducing, stress-producing media cycle, which is fueled by profit-motives that are in direct conflict with my desire for peace. While I try to limit my exposure to the news, I do not think it is faithful or responsible to cut myself off completely. I want to take an active part in community affairs, but staying connected is taxing on my mental and spiritual health.
For me, it helps to read the news through the lens of our faith—a faith that affirms the unequivocal, unassailable sovereignty of God no matter who is in power on the earth. I may be anxious about who will be elected, but there is no outcome that can undermine God’s saving love and power. As the apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans,
What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39)
Paul was not writing to a community for whom the possibility of suffering at the hands of political leaders was a mere hypothetical. The Christians in Rome knew what it meant to be threatened physically, economically, and socially by those in power. Yet Paul was convinced that, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God had defeated all the evil powers that threatened God’s people. Those forces might come against God’s chosen people through hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword, but, because of Jesus’ victory on the cross, they could do nothing that would interfere with God’s saving love.
We must approach this election with the same confidence in God no matter how anxious we are about the outcome. There is no result that can undermine God’s promise to love and rescue God’s people. There is no politician who can lead this city, state, nation, or world beyond the reaches of God’s plan of salvation. Similarly, there is no candidate who, if elected, will have the power to bring God’s reign to the earth. People may hope for a particular outcome, but our hope is never defined by that outcome. Our hope rests only in God.
Keeping that perspective helps keep anxiety at bay—not because we are immune to our worries about what will happen but because, in Jesus Christ, God has made us immune to the power those worries might have over us. Nothing can separate us from the love that God has for us, including our anxieties. That does not mean the results of next Tuesday’s election are inconsequential. There are very important issues at stake, and they deserve our full and faithful participation. But the results have no eternal consequences because those belong only to God, whose love and salvation are sure.
Yours faithfully,
Evan D. Garner
