Sermon, December 14, 2003
3 Advent, Year C
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Sermon, December 14, 2003
3 Advent, Year C
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Concern, Not Worry
They are some of the most beautiful words in the Christian scriptures:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:4-7)
That's one of those passages that begs for needlepoint. It wouldn't be bad over the bathroom mirror --a reminder the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning. Rejoice. Be gentle. The Lord is near. Don't worry. Don't worry? Oh, wait. That's the hard one. Do not worry about anything. That seems like the lynchpin to me. Maybe if I didn't worry about anything, I could actually live in the peace of God, rejoicing and being gentle and all the rest of it. But worry is like a treadmill. Worry lets the feeling of compassion getting a sweaty workout without getting anywhere. Just spending energy stuck in place.
Robert Wicks, who is a counselor for caregivers, makes a distinction between worry and concern. Both worry and concern "wake us up to the needs around us," but concern leads us to identify the appropriate actions we can take, then lets us relax and be at peace.
"Worry is debilitating because it glues us to the problem. Concern, on the other hand, is freeing because it lets us sit alongside the issues, fears, sadness, losses, and uncontrollable and undesirable events that come our way." (Riding the Dragon, p. 70) I can be concerned about somebody or something, without being emotionally stuck.
So, we are advised, try not to worry. I don't know about you, but that's not particularly helpful advice for me. That's like being told not to think about a hippopotamus. When someone tells me not to worry, I start thinking, "What is it I'm not supposed to be worrying about?" and I'm off to the races again.
Wicks says, "Concern is a very different process. While it may look like worrying, it is not paralyzing. It frees even when the desired results are not achieved. Concern doesn't deny there is a problem. It faces the issues directly. However, it then musters the thought, 'How can I sit with this trouble in a good way?' Worry encourages us to spend all our energy wringing our hands over something. Concern looks at how we can show mercy toward the issue or person involved and thus respond with compassion." (Ibid, p. 71)
One of Dr. Wick's students, an Irish woman, tells a story of a troubled time in her life, when she was about seven or eight. She visited her aunt on her small farm. The aunt sensed her niece's anguish. But instead of worrying, and acting out of that compulsive emotion, her aunt was concerned. Her concern gave her the distance and maturity to act out of wisdom. She tells it this way:
We walked together and came to a particular field. It was winter and frost covered the land. The ground beneath our feet was winter dark and hard.
She looked over at me, smiled, and asked me to kneel down, close my eyes, and place my hands on the earth. I did so and she said almost in a deep whisper, "Feel the life." I couldn't feel anything and told her so. She then told me to put my head close to the earth and whispered hoarsely again, "Listen to the life." In response I put my head close to the earth and listened intently. But I heard nothing.
When I got up and told her that I could neither feel nor hear "the life," she took my face between her hands and said, "alanna mo chroi" (child of my heart), it is often when the land seems most barren, cold, and dark that life is quietly growing!" When she said that, I knew she was also speaking to my inner pain and the need for hope during the winter I was experiencing at such a young age. Then, almost as an afterthought, she added as we turned to leave, "We will return again in the spring."
And when spring came, we did return. And as we came over the hill and I ran down the hill ahead of her, I could see that new tender life was shooting up. When she caught up to me, I turned to her and said, "You were right. You told me the truth!" In reply, she said nothing, just smiled, looked into my eyes, and drew out a smile from within my soul.
We also came again when the fruits of the soil were gathered. In this visit she spoke of the fact that this was the season of gathering in the nourishment needed for the next "winter" and she said, "Remember alanna, to read the seasons. New possibilities, God, are in them all!" (Ibid, p. 63)
Simple concern is so powerful. It allows us to relax the choking grasp of worry, and be free to care. I think that some of the power of John the Baptist was his ability to be concerned but not worried. He saw a whole people in trouble, in desperate need. Without worrying what people might think about him, he cries out to them with passion, "You brood of vipers!" And he gets away with it! People don't feel insulted and close their ears, or worse, write him off as a lunatic. There's something in the quality of his message that draws them to him with confidence. When John the Baptist says, "You brood of vipers!", his listeners actually sense he cares for them. He communicates concern. Love, even. And so they ask him for advice. "What then should we do?"
And his advice to them is not so extreme. Share your stuff with the needy. Be honest. Don't abuse your power. They listen to this wild, untamed voice, I think, because they sense his concern for them is genuine, and he is grounded in something that is self-authenticating, something that gives depth to his being and his words. You get the feeling that John the Baptist is not worried. He's concerned, all right. Passionately concerned. But he's too grounded in the energy of what God is up to, to be worried. "God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham," he asserts. God is up to some stuff. Wake up people! There are some problems here. And then you can feel a wry grin hiding underneath that dark beard. And he says something like, "Every problem has two handles. You can grab it by the handle of fear or the handle of hope; (a quote from Margaret Mitchell; source unknown. From Wicks, p. 10) the handle of worry or the handle of concern."
There is something freeing about caring without worry. It makes space. Space to rejoice and be gentle. Space to sense that the Lord is near. Space for prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Space for the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, which will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
And I'll bet, if we faced our world with unanxious concern, we could make more space within ourselves to "listen to the life, to "feel the life," to "read the seasons" for "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise." We would "think about these things." And Paul's words to the Philippians could come true in us. Maybe then we would be like walking needlepoints. And it would be a lot easier to look into the mirror first thing in the morning and last thing at night.