Lake Edge United Church of Christ

Does this ever happen to you? You go to bed, tired as can be, yet somehow sleep eludes you as you find yourself worrying about first one thing and then another, your mind flitting from one thing to another like a robin in the grass trying to catch the worm before it retreats into its hole. Or worse: you get to sleep only to discover in the wee hours that without remembering waking up, your dreams have become your very real worries and you are unable to get back into slumber because you’re sliding down the slippery slope of one concern after another, and, unable to get a grip on anything, you race faster and faster without ever getting anywhere near the bottom?

Wandering in a maze of worry is perhaps worse in the dead of night, but it happens to us in broad daylight, too. We open the mail and watch the bills pile up faster than our bank balance and we fear that there won’t be enough income to cover the outgo. Or we come face to face with an ugly injustice: racism perhaps, or homophobia, or the abuse of the weak by the strong, and that one encounter, painful enough in and of itself, reminds us of others, and without any real warning we begin to drown in awareness of just how much pain and suffering there is in our world and how small we feel in relationship to it, and how powerless we have become and we begin to drown in a flood of hatred and neglect and abuse of power. Or we are witnesses as a loved one struggles: with an illness of body or mind, with a relationship gone bad, with the demons of doubt or hopelessness or despair, and, try as we might, we can find no way to help, no way to convey to them the full depth and power of our love, no way even to assure them that they are not suffering alone, and we feel helpless and hopeless and lost ourselves.

The great 20th century theologian Paul Tillich once wrote that “fear is what we have when we know what we are afraid of; anxiety is what we have when we don’t know what we’re afraid of,” and of the two, anxiety is much, much worse. When we know what we are afraid of we can at least take action that makes sense. Even if the situation is desperate we can at least act in a meaningful way. But if we do not know what we are afraid of, we are simply paralyzed: we do not know whether to move or not, which direction in which to flee, or whether to stand where we are and fight and resist. Anxiety is awful.
Anxiety, fear of that which is uncertain, is a self-perpetuating condition. Worry begets worry. Worry about one thing leads inevitably to worry about all things. Worry has more offspring than can be measured. Worry multiplies exponentially. Eventually we worry about whether we’re worrying enough. Small wonder it ruins our sleep, limits our options, and often reigns in our lives.

Tillich believed that anxiety is inevitable. Anxiety is made inevitable by the most basic, the most simple, the most true thing that can be said about us as human beings: we are finite. We are limited. We live, yes, but only for a short time. We can think, yes, but never in large enough ways to fix every problem. We can act, yes, but there are limits to our energy, and even our actions sometimes turn to dust, insufficient to any task. We are limited in our abilities and in our resources, and too often we face worries that seem limitless by contrast. And even the occasional small victories that we win are dwarfed by the work that remains undone. We are limited, we know it, and it provokes us to worry about that which appears unlimited in power and scope: confusion, evil, death itself. Anxiety is part and parcel of being human.

If this is right, then there isn’t any way really to avoid being anxious at one point or another. If anxiety is the product of being human with all its inherent limitations, then the truth is that we’re going to be anxious from time to time, at least until we figure out how to not be human. Anxiety cannot be eliminated from life, but we can hope to learn how to live with it. And the first step in that process is a gift to us, contained in these teachings of Jesus.

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.” With these words Jesus reminds us that even if we are human, and therefore fragile and limited, and so prone to anxious worrying, even if we are human, God is not, and we are valuable, and ultimately secure, because we are not separated from God. Sparrows, he says, are sold two for a penny. Yet God cares for each of them and nothing can befall them that will move them outside of God. And if God cares for the sparrows, how much more will God care for us, who are, Jesus assures us, more precious than the sparrows.

This is the first lesson in living with the anxieties that accompany being human: remembering that limited as we are, we are precious to God. There is nothing that can befall us that will move us beyond God’s caring love. This is powerful: if God is with us, what can be against us? Compared with the power of the One who loves us unconditionally, what power can our anxieties have? In the wee small hours, in moments when evil is confronted, in times when our loved ones hurt and we cannot help, we do well to remember that we belong to God, who is not limited, and to whom all things are possible.

And here is the second bit of wisdom to help us live with our anxieties: we do not have to have the answers to everything. We do not have to be able to solve every problem. We are not called to be perfect and to make the world complete and without error. We are not responsible for the outcome of our lives: this has already been decided by the gracious love of God. But what we are responsible for is living in harmony with the best that we know. Having been loved by God ourselves we are called to love others as we have been loved. Having been accepted by the gracious and forgiving love of God we are called to be gracious and forgiving also. Having been set free from judgment, we are called to resist judging others, and to accept them, rather than rejecting them. We are called, in short, to be faithful to what we have received, and the way we do this is called courage.

Ultimately, we cannot avoid anxiety. We cannot eliminate the uncertainties of life. We cannot fix every problem. We cannot cease worrying about those we love. But though we cannot guarantee the outcome, we are called to live courageously in harmony with God’s call to us. We courageously face our unnameable fears with the confidence that we are loved by God. We courageously face injustice with actions that bear witness to God’s desire to see justice done. We courageously face human pain and suffering offering the solidarity of knowing that God is near, and that no illness, no hurt, no action can move us beyond the love of God.

We are human; but God is not. We are often anxious; but God is present. We are often sinful; but God is good. We are often fearful; but God is near. When anxieties come, and we are troubled, we remember not ourselves and our worries, but our God and God’s goodness, and when we remember our God, we are given the gift of courage to live in harmony with God’s love, peace and justice, even in the face of deep and enduring worry. God is present and good, and we are therefore supplied with the courage we need to endure. Thanks be to God. Amen.