Sermon:

[ previous | index | next ]

Managing Anxiety

By Charles Rush

October 5, 2008

[ Audio (mp3, 5.1Mb) ]

love the even, almost droll, demeanor that economists have. Our own Chris Rupkey is no exception. I shot him a note this week asking for the last time it was this bad. He responded that it was much worse in 1066, the Norman invasion.

And Dennis Bushe, when asked about the immediate future a couple months ago, said “I think we are in for a time of unwinding from all this debt.” After this week, I called him to ask, ‘Dennis exactly how big is this ball of yarn?'

Every couple days now, we are getting a fresh report of another bank or insurance company whose investment divisions have brought them right up to the brink of the waterfall. And for so many of our neighbors, we are having to live through the tension of institutional re-organization from mergers that are almost always ugly and inexact. And there are so many of us that are in businesses that are dependent on the financial sector who are our customers, and it doesn't take genius to see that this infection is spreading and we could get it.

It is a very antsy time. And it is going to become antsy even in the church. We have an organ that needs to be fixed. We were supposed to be starting a fund-raiser for it today. I was supposed to be playing golf on Friday on my day off. Instead, we canceled the fund-raiser and I went to the office. And, I must report, in what I hope is not a portent of the future, that I rode my bike to the office…

I had a vision of Mrs. Helen Sims on that trip. Helen came to church here for many years before she died a few weeks ago at the age of 95. Mrs. Sims was one of those women that God uses in the church to remind us Ministers of what we are actually supposed to be doing and why we are actually doing it. She treated me like one of her sons, stopping to straighten my tie regularly. But she also had to straighten my purpose occasionally.

I remember that week after September 11th, Helen ran into me. She had a way of making me turn and look down into her face. She said, “I'm praying for you this week”.

I said, “Yes Ma'am”

She said, “People are going to come to church on Sunday looking for a word to lift them up.”

I said, “Yes Ma'am”

She said, “And you are going to deliver it”

I said, “Yes Ma'am”. And in one short moment, I was reminded of the gravitas of putting this stole on week in and week out. And I was oddly freed and empowered, remembering that this is not about me only- and it is not about you only either. We are all surrounded by these saints that lift us up in prayer, filling us with God's spirit, strength, resolve. There are times when I'm not sure that I'm worthy, but I'm positive that God is listening to Mrs. Sims… So, “yes Ma'am”.

I lift my eyes to the Hills from whence cometh my strength,

My strength cometh from God, who maketh the heavens and the earth.

Why would you look up to the Hills? That is where Jerusalem is located. It is up on the highest peak of the range of mountains that run about 10 miles from the Mediterranean Sea. You go up, and up, and up, and up… that is the place that Abraham went with Isaac to a rock outcropping and God blessed Abraham, quite in spite of himself. And nearly 1,000 years later David built a small temple over that rock outcropping. And the Old City today covers that place.

I hope you get the chance one time in your life to walk up to Jerusalem. The road is several miles long, winding. It used to cut through vineyards and olive trees, now dotted by developments. You can walk up to the city, like so many millions of pilgrims that have gone before you. You get to the top tired, thirsty, almost elated and giddy. You can feel the wind. You keep going up through the stone gates, up with your hopes, your fears, your burdens…

It was 1976 and it happened to be Shabbat… the Israelis were at war with Egypt. I'd come from the Sinai that was occupied by the Israeli army. So all these soldiers were on leave and they came to Jerusalem with their units.

You came through a narrow entrance at that time. There was an American from Baltimore that was running what little security there was at the time. He had a big table out in front of him as people started filing in for the beginning of prayers at dusk. He was yelling at us in Hebrew and English. “No weapons on the Temple Mount…. Leave your firearms here.” You would see officers stop and remember that they had a pistol they needed to check.

The evening air is cool there, sometimes almost chilly. I was a little light headed too. It is a deeply Holy place but not in the way that you think it should be. It is very earthy, all of these contradictions that the “City of Peace” (literally what Jerusalem means) is so full of violence. I was 19 so I went with all the other teenage soldiers and they started dancing together in a circle, just above the Western Wall of the Temple. Most of the guys were just dancing and happy to be there but after the dancing went on for a while, you noticed that some of those teenage soldiers were crying. There were a lot of reasons for those tears I am sure, but most of them were just releasing their fears from being on edge after weeks of patrols and tension. Probably they didn't even really know much fear and worry they had, until the dancing and crying were over. They were literally in the sanctuary- sanctuary literally means ‘place of refuge', ‘house of safety' and they were letting out a lot of pent up stuff…

After a while, all of the young men joined hundreds of others worshippers and wandered down to the Wall, these huge stones that rise 70 ft. above you. And you lay your hands on these stones, set in this place 2000 years ago… so many people have come here in so many different ways, bringing so many different pleas to God from the bottom of their hearts…

And they write these things down and jam them in the cracks. ‘Bring my son home'. ‘Heal my wife.' ‘Help me find my brother'. ‘I've killed a man and I can't find peace. Forgive me.' ‘Save me from myself'. They are so full of pathos. They are so poignant, so human.

The Wailing Wall, as they call this area, is not a place with answers but it is a place of assurance. There is something moving about being surrounded by thousands of people bringing all of their contradictions, all of their personal compromises- and in a moment of humble honesty, pouring out the concerns of their hearts, nutty as some of them are… It is wonderfully humane and poignant.

Somehow I think it is as it should be… People coming with concerns, with worries, with questions, looking for hope…

God promised the Land to Abraham and to Moses, but you know, the Jews have never possessed it. And that is probably the point of the bible. They looked forward to living in a world of peace, in a land flowing with ‘milk and honey'. But it has been constantly subject to violence, rape, and pillage for 3000 years. And it is true that today, the Jezreel valley yields unbelievable crops that feed the whole region but that is only because we figured out how to irrigate it. And the most vexing problem in the region is going to be- not oil, not land, but water…

No, Jews are promised peace and place in the scriptures but they have actually lived almost entirely harassed and in exile. First, they were conquered and enslaved by the Egyptians. Then, they were decimated by the Babylonians (Iraq). Then the Persian laid waste to the land and exiled all of them to Teheran. Then the Greeks overran the country. Then the Romans…eventually razed the city entirely and sent the entire population into exile in Spain and Turkey in the Diaspora. Then the Dark ages... And then the Christians and the Muslims ripped the area apart in the name of the same God, worshipped in different ways. Then the Holocaust… And the truth is that the modern movement back to Israel got a jump start in 1948 when Yemen and most of the countries in the Middle East kicked the Jews out of their countries.

The story of the bible is mostly a story of hope and promise for a home told to refugees that are in exile. They just want to go home… And don't you too?

I'm glad that you are here today, not because I have all the answers, I don't. But, I've learned that there is something fundamentally assuring about being together, sharing our concerns with each other, holding one another up in prayer. Coming together in solidarity is the antidote to the isolation that you feel in seasons of anxiety and fear.

We have all learned that it is not helpful to drink enough that you give vent to your bitterness and your cynicism that arises in loneliness when what you really need is to hug and be hugged.

We have learned that it is not helpful to sit too long working in front of your little screen, getting more and more tense, when what you really need is enough chores or a work out to make you good and tired, maybe just dog tired.

We've learned that it is not helpful to lay awake in solitude, pacing the floor, getting more focused on “me and my failures” when what you really need is to be shoulder to shoulder with your spiritual family that are all going through this with you. As Bill Coffin used to say, there is no smaller package than a man all wrapped up in himself.

So I'm glad you are here today. And I want you to know that we are all here for you. We want to share your concern. We want to carry a little bit of that burden with you. We want God to bless you. I want to remind you that people are praying for you, not just this cloud of witnesses that you can see, but there are other people praying for you that you can't even see, people from the other side of the world that got the word and are beaming you strength and solidarity…

I'm standing in the crypt in Bethlehem in the Church of the Nativity which is probably 1500 years old, waiting to say a prayer in the place near where Jesus was born. The stone steps that lead down to the vault are worn, so worn that you could easily fall. In that moment, I had chills run up and down my spine. I was just filled with presence of groups of friends, coming a few at a time together, thousands and thousands of pilgrims every day, coming from literally all over the world, coming every day for two thousand years, all to light a candle, to pray to God with each other, for each other. There is such a moving humanity to that vision, the reality that we really are compassed about by a great cloud of witnesses.

And it was because of that power that St. Paul could write to his Church in Corinth these words when they were going through out right persecution and violence. “We are given this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of God's spirit might shine through us. We are troubled on every side, but not distressed; we are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed…. For death is at work around us, and life within us.”

I want to invite you to come today to the table as we stand together, some friends, some people you know a little, some you have never met. We come as one or two, joining together in this spiritual family. And our spiritual family joins with others gathered at this hour across our state, across our country, across our world, down the span of time. We come to lift you up, to shoulder your burden, to radiate assurance to you personally. Won't you come?