By Reverend Laurie DeMott

What a gift it would be to be able to turn off our brains and think of nothing more important than whether a rabbit has invaded the back yard and needs to be barked at. Perhaps that is why our pets are so dear to us: when our fears begin to get the best of us, we can rest ourselves in the natural serenity of our dogs, our cats, or a cuddly guinea pig. Even the most hyper Labrador Retriever can pull us away from our worries about the future with a look that says, “I don’t know anything about the problems you are facing on the job or the state of the union but I do know that it’s a great time to play frisbee, don’t you think?” An animal’s ability to exist entirely in the present with no worry for tomorrow is a state of mind that has been pursued by the spiritual for eons, and so throughout human history countless numbers of people have stared into candles trying to master meditation or stretched their limbs to yoga exercises or chanted daily psalms all hoping to pull themselves out of their fixation on tomorrow into a total immersion in the present day. It’s not that our power to conceptualize the future is all bad – it is what enables us to plant gardens in the spring that will not yield food until the fall or build homes that will shelter us from the snow that will not come for another two months (or maybe two weeks if you live in Alfred) – but there is no denying that our power to visualize a future that hasn’t yet happened can also overwhelm us as we spin out hundreds of imaginary terrifying scenarios. Ask anyone who has had cancer what the most frightening time for them was and they will almost always say that it was the weeks between the discovery of their disease and the beginning of treatment because in those weeks their minds were left free to wander in the unknown. Reality can be frightening enough but when we add to the troubles of today the troubles of a thousand possible tomorrows, we become absolutely paralyzed. We are beset on all sides by the phantoms of our own imaginations.

In her book, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes — And Why, Amanda Ripley describes a horrific accident when a ferry overturned and scores of people drowned. Ripley interviewed the survivors who had managed to leap into the water before the ferry capsized and was surprised to find that many of them reported looking back at the sinking ferry to see passengers lined up on the deck staring into space as if frozen. If they had just leaped into the water, they too might have survived but instead they stood immobile until the ferry turtled and trapped them underneath. Brain research shows, Ripley reports, that often when confronted with a terrifying situation, our brains go into overdrive tossing out so many possible outcomes that they become overwhelmed and finally just shut down. It’s like a computer freezing up because you told it to open 20 programs at the same time. Our imaginations can be wonderful tools helping us to prepare for tomorrow but they can also become our own worst enemies as they suck us into the quicksand of a thousand terrifying futures until we simply cannot move.

Jesus told us to not be anxious about tomorrow and reminded us that God is caring for us every day. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?,” he said, “Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father... So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.” Or in the words of the gospel song, “God’s eye is on the sparrow and I know God’s watching me.”

Some people use this verse to suggest that God will protect the faithful from every harm but I have been in ministry long enough to know that good and faithful people still get sick, good and faithful people still lose their jobs, good and faithful people still have marriage problems and difficulties with their children, good and faithful people still suffer misfortunes of every kind. As people in this country and people right here in these pews struggle to feel confidence in their ability to weather the current economic crisis, it would be belittling and dishonest for me to stand up here and say to you, “Don’t worry. God will take care of everything. If you just pray hard enough, your stocks won’t go down and you won’t be laid off and the church’s finances will miraculously end up in the black and we believers will be able to walk around in a little bubble of God’s protection while the rest of the country goes to hell in a handbasket.” If that is what we have to believe in order to not be anxious about tomorrow, then we can only conclude that Jesus wasn’t very conversant with the reality of his followers’ lives.

But I’d like to give Jesus a little more credit than that. Jesus assured us not of God’s magical protection but of God’s constant presence even in the midst of our troubles. Listen carefully again to his words: he didn’t say, “Not one sparrow will fall to the ground.” Jesus said, “Not one sparrow will fall to the ground apart from God.” Like the prophets before him, Jesus promised us that “When you pass through the waters, God will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you, for I am the Lord your God .... your Savior.” (Isaiah 43:2-3) God doesn’t save us from the difficulties of life by making them all magically go away; God saves us from the difficulties of life by walking along side of us through those troubles to give us confidence in our strength to face them and by shaking us out of the paralysis that our fear has brought upon us.