Shoveling Anxiety

Perhaps you're reading this at work and your boss (or co-worker, or friend) has already chewed you out. Perhaps you're reading this at home, discouraged by the prospect of finding a job anytime soon. Perhaps your anxiety level is pretty high.

We all know the story: Boss chews out employee. Employee comes home and yells at spouse. Spouse yells at their child. Child kicks the dog. Dog pees on the carpet. Everyone keeps yelling.

Yes, I'm afraid we're all very good at shoveling around anxiety. None of us likes to sit with it, so we dump it on someone else's desk, on someone else's shoulders, on someone else's life.

A famous family therapist wrote in the early 1990s that most people's decisions were heavily (if not exclusively) driven by anxiety. He described the overall anxiety level in the US as very high. and that was before 9/11, before the recent economic turmoil...

So what to do? Obviously shoveling it around is not helping anyone.

I once had a teacher who had the gift of a non-anxious presence. When he would walk into a room, you just felt more calm. Even if there was a nuclear device about ready to explode in the room next door, you would feel calm because he was there. People like this are few and far between, but they are truly a gift to us.

In a similar way, Christ invites us to cast our anxiety, our burdens, on Him. In Matthew 11 our Lord Jesus invites us: "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (verse 28-30).

And as Jesus followers, as the Baptized, as the Church we are asked to gladly bear one another's burdens. This is not co-dependency, it is the willing acceptance of one another's pain and sorrow and worry (1 Corinthians 12:26). More radically, we are even asked to bless those who persecute us (Romans 12:14)--including awful bosses--to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors (Matthew 5:44). The witness of the church is that we are called to be a people who witness to Jesus' love for us by living out his love for us, by bearing with one another and forgiving one another (Colossians 3:13).

We are quickly approaching Holy Week. We will dwell for a whole week on the One who bears not just our anxiety, not just our burdens, but all of our suffering and sin in his Body on the Tree of the Cross (1 Peter 2:24; cf. Isaiah 53:5).

By the mercy of Christ Jesus our Lord, may we bear with one another this week and always.

The Summons

For a few weeks now in Sunday worship we have sung the song "Will You Come and Follow Me" (The Summons) by John Bell (Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymn #798). It is a wonderful song. Like "Here I Am, Lord," it is captivating because most of the lines are God singing to us. The line that has haunted me (in a good way) is this one: "Will you kiss the leper clean... and do such as this unseen?"

For me, this captures Lent: being enfolded into God's work, crossing all human-made boundaries and kissing the leper... and doing such things as these unseen (cf. Matthew 6). Christ has called us--yes, us!--the Gentiles, the lepers of this world, made unclean by our own sin and rebellion against God. Drawn near and kissed by this same Jesus in the waters of Baptism, we are sent as his body to do that same work. The trick is that we are told to do this humble work unseen.

May God place many lepers at your feet this week, in whatever guise modern-day "lepers" come, and may you kiss and tend to them... and do all of it unseen.

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If have pasted the lyrics of "The Summons" below. If you would like to see (hear?) more of John Bell's work, I highly recommend the site of the Wild Goose Resource Group and both of his books on congregational song: The Singing Thing and The Singing Thing Too. I also have a CD of a lecture he gave a few years ago... if I can find it.

Here is the song:

1. Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?

2. Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?

3. Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean and do such as this unseen,
and admit to what I mean in you and you in me?

4. Will you love the "you" you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you've found to reshape the world around,
through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?

5. Lord your summons echoes true when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.
In Your company I'll go where Your love and footsteps show.
Thus I'll move and live and grow in you and you in me.

Text: John L. Bell b.1949.
© 1987, Wild Goose Resource Group, Iona Community, GIA Publications, Inc.
Tune: Scottish traditional, Kelvingrove. Arranged by John L. Bell.

Daylight Saving Blah

I will make a prediction: Sometime this week I will yell at my children. I will get incredibly frustrated about something they are doing or not doing and I will yell. And yell again. And then only later will I realize that part of the reason for the overall grumpiness (mine and theirs) is the beast we know as Daylight Saving Time. (The yelling, of course, is my deal--and all mine.)

Experts say it takes something like three weeks for our bodies to adjust to the new time, because our bodies are tuned into things like the rising and setting of the sun, the rhythms of the earth and sun and moon. Even though it is only an hour difference, I think for many of us (children especially?) it feels like trans-Atlantic jet lag. And this makes us grumpy. [An aside: A great children's book for first Communion uses the term "crabby people" to describe the Scribes and Pharisees that challenged Jesus.]

At the same time, Daylight Saving Time and all the grumpiness it produces (or at least encourages) are a gift. DST is a gift because it helps us slow down, even stop, and gives us the opportunity to choose to practice grace. All this DST jet lag and the attendant harumphs give us occasion to choose the way of mercy rather than revenge, the way of love rather than destruction, the way of peace rather than strife. Daylight Saving Time is an invitation to me--even if a sideways one--to enter into God's grace and to allow it to flow through my life.

So whether you are up until 1 am (or later) or hitting the snooze button a dozen times for a week or so, take some time to drink deeply of the grace of God, that it may be poured out for others in good measure (Luke 6:38).

Preparing for Sunday
I do not have a magical formula for getting ready for Sunday. I do know that how Sunday morning turns out in our family is largely dependent upon Saturday night. On our best weeks Saturday night is when we get things together for morning worship, set out our Sunday clothes and get to bed on time. On our crazier weeks... well, you know how that goes.

For Christians, everything looks forward to Sunday and flows from Sunday, for it is the Day of Resurrection. In that spirit, I would like to offer a challenge. Would you be willing to take some time during the first part of the week to reflect on this past Sunday's Scripture readings and then sometime later in the week to "read ahead" for this coming Sunday? If you would like a folder for this coming Sunday, one is available here.

Online: Sermons, Bulletin, Newsletter
You can now find current sermons, the weekly bulletin and the monthly newsletter online. These are static links, so the new bulletin, newsletter, etc. will automatically replace the old one.

An hour off, I am...
Pastor Matt

Taboo

We don't talk about it very much. Perhaps it's too taboo to speak about out in the open. Perhaps we're all a little embarrassed by it. But we do need to talk about it because it affects each one of us and it is seriously hurting Christ's church.

"It" is biblical illiteracy in the United States.

I am interested in a constructive conversation around this concern and trend. What can we, as the whole church together, do to reverse this trend? I am, of course, open to suggestions as to how I as a pastor can be a part of this, but I am also interested in how the whole church working together can recommit itself to the ministry of teaching the Scriptures. Feel free to send suggestions to bethlehempemberville[at]gmail.com.

For some ideas, you may want to complete all or part of our denomination's Book of Faith assessment tool.