Five Practices for Becoming a Non Anxious Presence

a French town church good morning or good evening depending on what day it is that you are gathering as a house Church you're on a living room right now or a community room apartment complex or somebody's garage I have no idea where you are but welcome again thank you so much for following along please turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 14 Matthew chapter 14 what a fascinating week with the worldwide coronavirus pandemic and the stock market crash and Kate Brown and many other governors putting a ban on all gatherings over 250 people there is just so much anxiety in the air I don't know about you but I even feel it in my own mind and body the best definition of anxiety I know is imagining the future without Jesus in it on that note let's read from Matthew's Gospel a story that we covered actually last summer but I just want to come back to and reread because it's all about how to deal with fear take a look at Matthew chapter 14 read from verse 22 immediately Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd after he had dismissed them he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray now later that night he was there alone and the boat was already considerable distance from the land buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them walking on the lake when the disciples saw him walking on the lake they were terrified it's a ghost they said and they cried out in fear 27 but Jesus immediately said to them take courage it is I do not be afraid Lord if it is you Peter replied tell me to come to you on the water come Jesus said then Peter got down out of the boat walked on the water and came towards Jesus when he saw the wind he was afraid and beginning to sink he cried out lord save me immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him you of little faith or more literally it's a tune a and greed you little faith he said why did you doubt why did why were you so scared and when they climbed into the boat the wind died down then those who were in the boat worshiped him saying truly you are the son of God when they had crossed over they landed at kanessa ray and when the men of that place recognised Jesus they sent word all the surrounding country people brought all who were sick to him and begged him to let those who were ill just touched the edge of his cloak and all who touched it were healed what a great line right in the centre of that story from Jesus take courage it is I do not be afraid scholars argue that Jesus command to not fear is the most common command in all of scripture from Genesis all the way to Revelation no command is repeated more often then do not be afraid the thing is easier said than done am i right we've done work in the past on the thinker Edwin Friedman's idea of a non anxious presence if you're not familiar with Friedman he was a Jewish rabbi and a therapist who became an early expert in family Systems Theory later in life he kind of applied all of the data on family Systems Theory to larger systems first off the synagogue and the church then to business and eventually to the nation itself his basic premise is that the West as sociologists have long documented is built around the myth of progress which is a faith and it really is a quasi-religious kind of faith that human history is moving toward a kind of utopian or at least a better future its evolutionary theory applied to human history but Freeman said that when you actually look just at the data the West is progressing economically and technologically more people have more money or at least a better standard of living than ever before science technology medicine life span all of that is at an all-time high but he would argue that the West is regressing emotionally and relationally in moments like the last week or two with the economic crisis in kovat 19 and all of the anxiety we see just how fragile the secular world is which really depends hedonism and my science and technology and well-being in order for it to function in times like this we remember that we are human and we're vulnerable and were frail and we get sick and we even die and our mortality is set before God and our own soul but prior to covet 19 the last few weeks we were already living through a generation wide kind of pandemic of anxiety itself and Friedman identified a five-step self-perpetuating cycle of anxiety by which the West is regressing in a kind of downward spiral not to be fair he did not really frame it as a self peper perpetuating cycle that's more my spin for him it was more five aspects of an anxious culture but I think there really is a forward inertia to it the first aspect is reactivity the vicious cycle is kicked off by a culture of reactivity where people constantly react to the external events of life with internal anxiety fear anger outrage and isolation the 24/7 digital news cycle thrives off of all of this reactivity because it generates hits which in turn drives up advertising revenue so the media make money off of our anxiety and our addiction to our phone often the outrage is even coached as a kind of social justice when in reality it's just a way to make money and to garner followers this in turn creates number two a herding instinct for all of the talk about how hyper individualistic we are in America in a particular in Portland we can't change the nature of what it means to be human human beings are in the language of secular psychologists social animals and while I don't think that's a fair categorization of human beings as animals still that herd mentality is literally wired into our brain so as our culture is sucked into reactivity a lot of us just can't help but follow the crowd and kind of devolve at least at an emotional level to a mob mentality third this creates a culture of blame displacement here's a quote from our friend mark sayers instead of examining and searching out the underlying causes 18 toxicity we focus on the symptoms viewing them in isolation instead of seeing them as a part of a system whole rather than taking a proactive approach that examines our ability to affect change in areas over which we have a responsibility we retreat into a perpetual victim status blaming others and external forces as blame is thrown around a cultural paralysis sets in a suffocating fear of offending creates a gridlock which prevents renewal we see this right now in Washington DC with partisan politics over how to handle the virus this in turn creates number for a quick fix mentality the hedonism and instigation and Amazon Prime of Western culture creates in us a low threshold for pain for pain for like a low level of resilience of what the writers of the New Testament called perseverance or endurance are just old-fashioned patience and hard work and it makes us look for the Silver Bullet quick simple easy solutions to long term complex hard problems in the soul and in society finally all of this conspires to create a quote lack of well differentiated leadership that's technical language from the world of psychology what that means a well differentiate leader well differentiated leader is somebody with the clear line of demarcation between that's you and this is me that's your emotion and this is my emotion your emotional state doesn't have to dictate my emotional state all of this kind of vicious cycle of anxiety works together to create an environment that works against leaders or at least at least against the kinds of leaders that could break the cycle of anxiety so as the saying goes we get the leaders we deserve often those who prey on the cycle of anxiety to get what they want now bad news rant over Friedman said the only way to stop the cycle is to inject right into the middle of it what he called a non anxious presence meaning a well differentiated leader that is calm at peace that is wise and compassionate and active and firm but has a clear sense of boundary a quarter of a century later his paradigm is more important than ever before our world in particular in the weeks ahead is in desperate need of followers of Jesus and others to prepare for whatever comes but not to panic and also to step in as a non anxious presence to our neighborhood to our school to our workplace to our family and to break the vicious cycle of fear but again easier said than done am i right how do we become the kind of people the kind of followers of Jesus who have his capacity to live in love and not in fear well there is no like short answer for that there's no quote kind of copy and paste chapter and verse or formula to follow but I've been thinking a lot about a kind of counter cycle to Friedman's five of reactivity hurting blame displacement all of that from the life and the teachings in the way of Jesus to clarify this next bit is not an attempt to exegete Matthew chapter 14 if you want that go back and listen to our podcast we already covered the text this is just five practices from the life and the teachings of Jesus himself as they come to us through Matthew in the New Testament that I kind of think our counter habits to the vicious cycle of anxiety in Western culture you ready here's number one slowing or what our dear friend Pisco zero calls a slowdown spirituality you hear me and you hear a leadership team talk a lot about the danger of hurry we quote on a regular basis the line from the philosopher Dallas Willard you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life but thinking a lot lately about how many stories in the Gospels of Jesus are interruptions to Jesus day-to-day life CS Lewis once said that how you respond to an interruption is who you actually are which particularly for me as a dad that's like a shot to the heart but this virus really is an interruption to our day-to-day life to our workplace to our church now to our economy and Jesus had enough space in his life enough margin to welcome interruptions not with anger or fear or agitation but with love and really a central premise for us is that hurry is incompatible with love I love that line from the Japanese theologian Kosuke ko Yama he writes God walks slowly because he is love he calls God the 3-mile and our God because three miles per hour is the speed of walking hurry is incompatible of love and this kind of cultural moment that we're in is actually a great opportunity for all of us to slow down many of us are not commuting to work right now we get gained back an hour - in our day and we're not traveling right now and a trip was canceled or a conference was cancelled and we have unexpected time what if instead of just filling that up with more news or Netflix or activity or frenetic busyness what if we really were to slow down and make space for the interruptions to practice hospitality to invite our neighbors over to invest in relationships to call and check in on people to create space to slow down for love that's number one number two is Sabbath or really just a way of saying rest one of the main things you see in Jesus lifestyle is this rhythm of retreat and return he would oscillate back and forth between kind of time alone or with close friends and community in the quiet and in prayer and in rest and in Sabbath and then he would return to kind of the public world to teach and preach and work miracles and pray and prophesy and all the stuff retreat and return that is all over the four Gospels I love the writer Luke summary quote Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed can that be said of you or of me that we often withdraw to lonely places and pray in fact I would argue that the more in demand Jesus was the more he snuck away to pray rest sleep eat get direction from God in his inner heart I recently read this book from a while back called ordering private world by Gordon McDonald who's a pastor in New York City my favorite line and the entire book was this quote Jesus knew his limits well strange as it may seem he knew what we conveniently forget time must be properly budgeted for the gathering of inner strength and resolve in order to compensate for one's weaknesses when spiritual warfare begins let me just read that again time must be properly budgeted for the gathering of inner strength and resolve in order to compensate for one's weaknesses when spiritual warfare begins what a great concept of the role of West of rest and Sabbath and prayer and quiet in spiritual warfare Sabbath rest is a form of spiritual warfare a way that we fight off the three enemies of if you remember the paradigm the world the flesh and the devil the more life and leadership is put on our shoulders the more stress we're under the more anxiety in our city or a nation the more we need to prioritize rest and renewal at every level of our being mental emotional physical relational and above all spiritual and we need to expect the enemy on a regular basis to tempt us to go beyond our limitations I think of the story in Genesis 3 one way of reading that story in the Garden of Eden is as a temptation to go past your boundaries to go past your limitations to slip over into a life of hurry and overload and stress and busyness and exhaustion often the temptation plain to our ego or to our fear at the root of so much either way the results are a disaster where is the enemy tempting you to go beyond your limitations to do too much too fast what would it look like for you to jump at the chance or maybe not jump at the chance to say yes to the chance with right now to really rest more to sleep more to Sabbath to spend time in the quiet to let Jesus bring peace to the surface of your heart number three is Koinonia now that is a very Jesus follower kind of word it's a Greek word not an English word as many of you know is the word that's used in the book of Acts and all from the New Testament for the kind of intense vulnerable beautiful committed relational bond that is between followers of Jesus Jesus had this not with all but with the three Peter James and John he said to them I have called you friends it comes as no surprise that this model of relationship what some have called spiritual friendship became the gold standard in the early church and Beyond and I think that especially for those of us in the hyper individualism and its shadow side of loneliness that is the post Christian Western world we have a deep need right now more than ever for Koinonia deep honest vulnerable joyful self giving relationships are the stuff of church and of a well lived life the people sitting to your right and to your left if you're watching this in a living room or with your community are your community your brothers and your sisters your family what would it look like for you to set aside time not to do less together but more together of course safety and all of that stuff but to really lean into Koinonia fourth is contemplative prayer you know we often read another thing that you see a lot in the life of Jesus is how he would just sneak off into the quiet to be alone but not just to be alone we almost always read in the Gospels to pray I would give anything to know the content of Jesus prayer I grew up in a church tradition where prayer at least the way that I interpret it meant one thing and one thing only it meant to ask God for things and while I think that that kind of prayer you feel free to call intercessory prayer where you intercede you ask God to do things in your life or your church or your world is vital I also think it's one of many types of prayer and I don't think it's what Jesus had in mind in his teaching on abide in the vine that word abide can be translated rest or come to home in or come rest in the home that is God I think that kind of prayer is closer to what our Catholic brothers and sisters have called contemplation that word means different things to different people but it always has something to do with coming to a kind of quiet attention on the Trinitarian community of love and joy and peace of resting or making our emotional home in God as God rests and makes his even emotional home in us I think that's what Jesus meant by abide in the vine I think he meant a kind of coming to rest in the Father's love and letting the Father's love come to rest in us I love Ronald Reuel Heiser his definition of prayer as relaxing into God's goodness is that how you think of prayer in the morning or at night before you go to bed as what are you doing I'm just relaxing into God's goodness we hear so much about how followers of Jesus need to become people of Prayer and I 100% agree but at times in particular in a culture of overwork and digital distraction addiction and burnout and all of that it sounds if we're honest a little bit exhausting and if I'm reading it right intercessory prayer is a form of work a form of life that really matters before God and there is a time and a place for it but there's also a time and a place for rest in prayer and not just so that we feel better but so that we live and love better the contemplative tradition has the same that the opposite of contemplative prayer isn't action its reaction I mean the opposite of a contemplative life isn't one that's active and you're out there and you start a non-profit and you do justice and you stand up and you work hard and you have a family not at all that actually is a beautiful outgrowth of a contemplative life the opposite is a reactive life where you just react in fear and anxiety and the tyranny of the urgent and the demand and the crunch of email or an alert on your phone or whatever it is we must live and love out of a place of abiding out of a place of prayer of coming to rest in God and his love and his joy and his pea a kind of contemplative life and leadership where we live from this inner place of yielding and release and trusting God on that note last but not least the fifth practice from the way of Jesus that we come to is indifference now all by itself that English word sounds a little strange and it sounds really close to our apathy or lethargy or something like that indifference is how most scholars translate the Spanish word used by Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuit Order from the kind of 17th century Spain many argue that indifference isn't the best translation that freedom is a better translation the French mystics called it detachment often Christian psychologists call it yielding whatever you want to call it it's the very simple idea that goes not just backed Ignatius it goes all the way back to Jesus himself that we don't need to control or manipulate the people and events and circumstances of our life to a desired and in order to live at peace and happy because we're living with Jesus in the kingdom of God we're not alone and therefore were okay not just okay we're in Jesus language were blessed I think that's what Jesus is saying in Matthew with his do not fear he's not saying don't worry nothing bad will happen to you he's not saying hey chill out the storm isn't really that big of a deal at all he's saying no matter what happens whether this storm is a really big deal or really small one whether the coronavirus is a few weeks or a few months whether it ends up being really dangerous or not at all either way whatever happens you can live a life that is set free from fear if you just release the need for control and rest in my love at the very beginning of his Spiritual Exercises for which he's famous Ignatius writes this about indifference quote we should not fix our desires on health or sickness wealth or poverty success or failure a long life or a short one for everything has the potential of calling forth in us a more loving response to our life forever with God I love that line health or sickness remember he wrote that hundreds of years ago pre-modern medicine where something as simple as a cold or a flu could end up as a life-threatening disease we should not fix our desires on health or sickness that's at the top of his list wealth or poverty I think of the economic crisis think of that line that I read just a few days ago don't put your hope and riches they will surely sprout wings and fly away success or failure with our new building with all of that stuff a long life or a short one everything has the potential of calling forth in us a more loving response to our life forever with God and then he goes on to say our only desire and our one choice should be this we have a choice I want and I choose what better leads to God's deepening life in me how can we open whether for you your fear or challenge right now is kovat 19 or the stock market or your income or your work or unemployment or whatever the very real challenge is that you're facing we can take this and accept it and I'm not roll over and play dead but we can say God what do you have for me in this how would this lead to your deepening life and love in me and notice how we ties this idea of indifference or freedom to love when we scramble for control and we think we need to have it all done we negate love as my therapist said to me recently when fears running the show love is repressed what a great line when we let fear dictate how we relate to other people love is repressed it is put on the background so becoming an on anxious presence isn't just about like feeling less stress or anxiety and like okay now we can have a really great night at home and order pizza actually it's about love it's about how does everything have quote the potential of calling forth in us a more loving response to our life forever with God now as we end I in all honesty I'm not by nature like a really calm person I think in my bioenergetic space in my body I am by nature pretty anxious and so I do not at all have this down but I am learning year-over-year as I follow Jesus to release the illusion of control and to come to peace in prayer through that cycle of slowing and Sabbath rests and deep relationships with family and friends and contemplator prayer where I just pay attention to the love and joy and peace of God and indifference where I just yield and and release my life and my future and my body and even my well-being and those that I love over to God becoming a non anxious presence does not mean that you never feel fear fear neurobiologists tell us is one of the five basic emotions of survival God created your body to feel fear when it is under a threat becoming a non anxious presence means that you come to fear God above all and all the other fears go below that and for the most part disappear and then fear becomes a signal from your body for you Nannette to navigate life by and negotiate with rather than a trauma or a tyrant to oppress you or repress you it said that all healing is the removal of fear and as we come into the presence of God and of our community of God day after week after month after year we become people who are less and less anxious and upset and afraid and more and more not only at peace and even happy but people of love in the coming week with every relationship that you n are in and that you face may you may I may we as Bridgetown church become more and more people of love [Music] you

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Length: 26min 11sec (1571 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 15 2020