Watching out for nonsense

some thoughts on hope and anxiety in wobbly times

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I don’t know about you, but things feel real wobbly to me right now. I have days in which despair is licking at my feet like a flame. And I defiantly refuse to be burned, but at the same time, I have yet to find a vision statement, or a life coach, or a 5-year plan, or a lifestyle change, or a meditation app that is an effective remedy for fear, anxiety, worry and regret.

But I HAVE found parts of my Christian faith that actually bring the goods and I really need to remind myself of those things right now.

This shit is showing some cracks

There’s a weird little scene in the Gospels that always comes to mind when I am anxious about how nothing seems to be working anymore, and the robots are coming for us and institutions that I never thought to doubt before – I don’t know, like, DEMOCRACY are starting to crumble. I mean, God bless America, but this shit is showing some cracks.

But there’s this story where Jesus and his disciples are hanging out outside the temple:

As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!"

"Do you see all these great buildings?" replied Jesus. "Not one stone here will be left on another; everything will be thrown down….

And then he says,

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.   For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

Um, his poor disciples did nothing but comment on how beautiful their temple was - the gold and especially the large stones -  and then boom, Jesus is all destruction and dreadful portents about it like he for sure didn’t take his meds that morning.

So I recently started to wonder: What temples am I so reliant upon still standing in my own life? What must remain unchanged in order for me to still feel hopeful… maybe my own able-bodiedness…or the health and safety of my children or the longevity of my relationships. What are my temples that while they stand I am good and God is good, but if they fall I have nothing left but despair?

Watch out for the nonsense

It’s always tempting to say that our lives are good because God is good, but then when the bottom falls out – what are we left with? I mean, when we think that good things happen to people who God cares about and bad things happen to people who God is being a total bastard to, that’s maybe a little problematic.  Try preaching that kind of nonsense to the congregation I serve inside the Denver women’s prison. It doesn’t hold water.

Anyhow, Jesus was right of course…the temple his disciples were so impressed with actually was destroyed in 70 ad but it wasn’t God who destroyed it.  It was Rome.

Because – it ends up – Jesus was right.  Wars will happen.  There will be destruction, and famine . . . there will be pandemics and fake news and the Left Behind series of books.  There will be family trouble, there will be illness, there will be natural disaster, and you will hit 50 and your metabolism will slow waaay down like it took an early retirement.  All of this will happen. All of it is real. And none of it is a sign of God’s absence. And almost none of it is in your control.

Which is a real affront to popular notions of wellness and so called spirituality these days…where there is a billion dollar industry convincing us that we can “manifest” everything we might want or need, that we can pray or power of positive thinking our way into never getting a cancer diagnosis or needing financial help – these ideas are just smeared all over us and I get it. I get the appeal. Powerlessness is terrifying. But what about when the thing happens in our life, in our churches, in our society that no amount of Purpose Driven drivel could ever have prevented? Maybe when the large stones of the temples we built to health, wealth and happiness crumble, that is the very moment to listen to sweet Jesus of Nazareth even more closely. If we do we might hear him say: do not be afraid. Because these things may rock your world, but they cannot harm your soul.  These things may bring suffering but they need not bring hopelessness.

Which brings me to why I think scripture can be helpful in times of anxiety.

Because being a people with a sacred text is about knowing that we are a very small part of a very big story.  And having that big and that old of a story gives us an important perspective.

Because when all we can see and feel and think about is the personal and political crap that is happening right now, it’s good to remember that we are a people of an old, old story; one that starts at the beginning of time, brushes the skin of the present and reaches into a promised future. And the promise that God is not done and we will not be left alone still holds. This hope is not a naive hope.  Nor is it an escapist hope.  But quite the opposite.  It’s the hope of people who have heard the dangerous rumor that there is life beyond death and there is a hope beyond suffering.

Daring

I was asked during the pandemic, to give a zoom talk on “unprecedented hope”  and I really struggled with what to say – it took me days to realize that my struggle with knowing what to say about unprecedented hope was not about the hope part after all – it was about the unprecedented part. Because for it to be a hope on which I can truly rely, it has to be a hope for which there is indeed a precedent. It has to be a hope that has been worn smooth by the tears and prayers and struggle of our ancestors in faith, through Sarah’s laughter, and Hagar’s steps and Mary’s labor. For it to be a hope in which I can trust, it can’t be unprecedented.

Those who have come before us have already lived through pandemics and social upheaval and loss and grief and death and labor pains. Which means we are never alone in our struggles. Not really.

This is the bonkers thing we people of faith do. We say that our hope is not in the Dow Jones but in the God of Abraham and Sarah, our hope is not in the government but in the God of Isaiah and Mary Magdalen our hope is not in the non-profit industrial complex but in the God of and Teresa of Avila and Theresa of Calcutta. And, just to be clear, our hope is not ever in our ability to be hopeful. It is not in our ability to get anything right whatsoever. Our hope is in the God of Jonah and Hagar.  Because foundationally we are a people of a story.  And it is through this story (and not through cable news and doom-scrolling) that we get to view ourselves and others and even history itself. 

And as an anxious people, here’s what I want you to hear today - When we stand in this big of story - with one hand reaching back to the hope of the prophets and one hand reaching forward to the promises of God, we can stand firmly in the reality of the present and not have that reality consume us. This is what is great about being people of faith. Because even in the midst of political turmoil and fear and hate and uncertainty we can stand here in the reality of the present and confess that the story is still being written.  The story of God and God’s people is written in the lives of our ancestors and it is written in the future of our children and our children’s children. It is being written on the tablets of our broken and healed hearts.

No one gets to scare us into believing something else.

In other words, despite our anxieties, as people of faith, we still dare to get our hopes up.  

In it with you,

Nadia

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