Anxiety and Church.

Scripture: Psalm 84

Article: "An Appointment With Dread," by Alissa Nutting. 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/an-appointment-with-dread/

A few days ago, Alissa Nutting (Assisant Professor of Creative Writing at John Carroll University) wrote a brilliant and bitingly sarcastic piece that describes her own battle with chronic anxiety; It is a “Day in the Life of…” story, taking readers through ordinary motions and scenarios that, thankfully, don’t cause most of us to break out in a sweat and set in motion a series of morbid, spiraling thoughts. To give a quick example (if you don’t have time to read the article yourself), the writer describes waking up in the morning to her dog licking her face: “My first thought of the day: I love my dog. My second: His death is inevitable.”  

Almost as interesting as the article itself were the comments readers posted at the end. They ranged from praise of her wit and creativity, to accusations that she was a self-absorbed spoil brat, to serious concern about her mental health, often coupled with free advice about which psychological method (behavior, cognitive, psychoanalysis, etc.) she should try. Most of the comments (at least the last time I checked) fell into this last category. Apparently we like “funny” and self-deprecating humor, but only to a certain extent. Although I found her humor mostly delightful (if a little sad), I think the genuine concern of the readers’ reveals that anxiety (if not chronic anxiety) is something that touches many of us. As someone who struggles with Generalized Anxiety, I can attest to the wildly unwelcome storm that it is, and I understand the sentiment that it’s nothing to joke about.

Last week I attended the first of four Adult Forums at a local Presbyterian Church, where we are discussing (of all books) Gary Dorrien’s “Economy. Difference. Empire: Social Ethics for Social Justice.” The conversation easily moved around the table, focusing mostly on the subject matter of the day: The Social Gospel. Church members lifted up mostly affirmations and a few critiques, offered personal stories to further illustrate some of the theory or theological claims described, and devoted considerable time to figuring out how Social Gospel ideas could better influence how the Church lives out its mission today. Hanging over this rich discussion, however, was the (slightly dreaded) anticipation of the Annual Congregational Meeting, which was to take place later that morning. Apparently the folks in this room were already bracing themselves for an onslaught of anti-social justice sentiment from a handful of long-time church members who, even after years of belonging to a self-described “Inclusive, Justice and Peace seeking” congregation, were still planning on making their dissatisfaction with all this peace and justice stuff known. The impression of those at the Forum was that these folks simply wanted church to be a place they came to be fed, comforted, and affirmed. Being challenged or called to question socio-economic structures and engage in prophetic witness was definitely not something they wanted. Life was hard enough to handle already, thank you very much.

Of course, there is nothing new about this particular dynamic within churches, and I don’t foresee the “just feed me” attitude going away anytime soon. On the one hand, this attitude admittedly reflects poor Christian leadership and/or shallow understanding of what discipleship entails, but on the other, it points to the reality that we are people under a great deal of stress. Our days are packed full of going to appointments, meeting deadlines, running errands, nurturing relationships, cooking meals, cleaning up after meals, scheduling play dates, updating facebook statuses, and making lists for the next day. We may not experience the chronic anxiety described in Nutting’s article, but based on the comments following her article, I would venture to say that most of us do at least partially understand the prison that it can be; Most of us have experienced anxiety that seems to take on a life and a will of its own, and most of us can recall moments of desperately wanting to break free from its grasp and rejoicing when that happens. Given the reality that anxiety has and will continue to be a nemesis in our day-to-day lives, it’s no wonder we long for just one hour on Saturday or Sunday where we can simply “be” and where we can bask in the goodness that is God’s mercy and grace without feeling coerced into adding one more item to our “To-Do Lists.” (Yeah, OK, preacher lady, let me just find my pen and I’ll add that to the calendar this week: Challenge American Oligarchy; Seek new socio-economic system ASAP.)

In Psalm 84, we are immersed in the inner-world of a man who is tickled-pink to be worshipping in the Temple. He probably had to journey there from far away, so his anticipation and excitement are especially heightened. He speaks of longing for the courts of the Lord, where even the sparrow finds a home and the swallow a nest for herself. These are images of comfort and security in a world that can be exceedingly harsh.

It’s not surprising that the biblical Psalms have been at the center of devotional worship for centuries. They speak to all of the existential questions and crises that inevitably arise during the course of a lifetime. We draw nourishment from the ancient words, letting them remind us that imperfect people, like ourselves, have walked this road of faith before us. Their words remind us that God seeks an intimate relationship with us, allowing and even encouraging not only our expressions of praise and gratitude (as in Psalm 84), but also our lament and doubt.

However, this comforting parallel between the Hebrew poet’s words and our own often gets stuck in the realm of personal piety. Although I’ve recently been encouraged by the growing and intentional presence of the Psalms in corporate worship (often through congregational song), I still think it’s fair to say that the Psalms can and often do contribute to a sense of “It’s all about God and me” among those who find themselves frequently drawn to them. I know that when I’ve had a hard day (or week) and am looking for scriptural sustenance, my first instinct is not to flip the pages to Numbers (I’m in that freakin’ wilderness, thank you, and I am going to complain about it…) or to the Gospels (where I’ll feel guilty about not leaving my boat and fish to follow Jesus), but to the Psalms, where I can read and pray the words that almost perfectly gather and name all of the toxic, spiraling thoughts in my head, for a moment blocking out the hostility of the world and allowing God’s grace to wash over even the rawest and most unattractive parts of me. And this is good, no doubt. The problem arises when we lean too heavily on the personal piety inspired by the Psalms, forgetting that they, like the rest of scripture, are the product of a community; They were created by poets who never saw their relationship with God as a simple, vertical, two-way street. Instead, they were created by people who understood their faith in God as inseparable from the idea of covenant. They were a covenant people, called out by God not primarily as individuals but as a people, accountable to God, to one another, and to the world. (When the Poet in Psalm 84 sings out to the God of Jacob, he is naming this reality: This is not a solo but rather the poet is singing in chorus of witnesses. His God is the God of Jacob and Rachel, Rebecca and Isaac, Abraham and Sarah, a people with a history and a calling to bless all of the families on earth.)

The “benefits” of being called out like this are obvious enough: The knowledge of God’s abiding presence and guidance in the midst of day-to-day stresses (much more so for those living in Exile than for most of us living today in North America!), the experience of The Holy in regular worship, and the support of a real community in times of both joy and grief.  The “just feed me” folks who sit in the pews these days, burdened by their own anxiety and life’s comparably mild beatings “get” this aspect of faith, and they are thankful for it. But we do a disservice to them (and ourselves) and dishonor God when, out of fear of reproach, we let this misunderstanding slide. God deeply cares about our pain and anxiety, and God seeks to comfort us by meeting us in worship, the sacraments, and in the privacy of our bedrooms where we read the Psalms in silence, but this is the just the beginning of our faith. And yes, we get many beginnings. 

Every week, we are invited to take our shoes off and stand on holy ground, drawing support from those gathered around us and absorbing God’s Word; We are indeed fed by sharing the Lord’s Supper and remembering God’s claim on our lives when we witness a baptism, but these acts of worship are not ends in themselves. Rather, they are the means by which we are transformed, able to open unto a world and a greater purpose that slowly but surely casts our attention away from the obsessions that imprison us in our own bodies and toward our calling to be servants of God and witnesses to God’s justice and peace. This doesn’t contain the answer to anxiety in its entirety, but it’s the most effective treatment I’ve come across…