The Non-Anxious Presence

Text:  Psalm 23

Theme:  "The Non-Anxious Presence"
4th Sunday of Easter

April 21, 2013

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

A psalm of David.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside still waters.  He restoreth my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.  Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me; they rod and thy staff they comfort me.  Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Today, the fourth Sunday of Easter, is also known as Good Shepherd's Sunday.  The occasion comes over a little half of the way through the grand and annual celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, from the grave.  All of today's readings, as you may have already observed, in one way or another, have to do with shepherds and sheep.  King David who wrote Psalm 23 -- one of the most famous and best-loved selections from the Bible -- was, as you will recall, a shepherd-boy.

 

What do we say about shepherds?  Has anyone ever seen one at work?  In Bible times, it was one of the dirtiest and most menial jobs around.  It was the lowest rung on the economic totem pole.  But you had to start somewhere; at least the shepherd had a job. 

 

What of the sheep?  Well, they got dirty a lot, and they weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer of the animal kingdom.  They were prone to stray. 

 

As far as sheep are concerned, the Bible has us pegged.  From Isaiah 53:  "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."  Sheep and people.  Put them together, and you get "Sheeple."  But something happened to us "sheeple" along the way.  From 1 Peter chapter 2:  "You were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls."  "I am the good shepherd," says Jesus Christ.  "I know my sheep, and my sheep know me.  No one can snatch them out of my hands."

 

All of this takes us back to King David and Psalm 23:  "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."

 

Thank goodness for that, because there was much "want" this past week.  We "want" a world where pressure-cooker bombs -- laden with nails and BB's --  do NOT go off at marathon races in Boston or anywhere, for that matter.  We "want" a world where fertilizer factories do NOT explode.  We want a world where "small and stunted individuals" -- to use the president's phrase -- do not, for any reason, seek to take the life of the innocent.   While the nation debates "common sense gun control", as it has been called, others seek revenge -- as in Kaufmann County.  We want a world where we don't have to hide out in our own homes.  We want a world with more people like Janice Hauge who, having run the Boston marathon this year, has returned safely among us.  We want a world with more people like Lynn Eustis -- an incredible soprano voice from Texas who is now teaching in the Boston area -- not having to hide away in her own residence for fear of the dark and terrorists on the run.  We do have wants -- good wants; meet, right, and salutary wants. 

 

But there are still sheep who go their own way, and so there is anxiety, want!  Get rebellious with me and take the words of David as your own:  The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 

 

Because we so often want something we don't have, we have anxiety.  As Harriet Lerner, in her book Fear and other Uninvited Guests, has said, "to be alive is to have an anxiety disorder."  As a result, we seek to regulate our own anxiety.  Sometimes medicines are prescribed for that, but then people compound their anxiety when they discover they're hooked on the pills that purport to treat the anxiety.  On and on it goes. 

 

Yet regulating anxiety to the point of no anxiety at all is humanly impossible. Anxiety is always present.  To be human is to be anxious -- in one way or another.  It is a fundamental human expression -- and can even be a healthy response to life. 

 

Anxiety has been defined as an automatic reaction "to a threat, real or imagined."  Anxiety is a natural reaction designed for self-preservation.  Our Creator has given us a strong urge for survival.  Thus, at one level, anxiety can make us alert, more self-conscious, and highly motivated to take action.  But at an elevated level, anxiety can paralyze you.  The actual word "anxiety" is derived from a word meaning "to choke" or "to cause pain by squeezing". 

 

One of the things I like about the Presbyterian Church is that it places an emphasis on the life of the mind in the service of Jesus Christ.  Put simply, we don't check in our brains at the door!  Last Tuesday, with the events of the Boston bombings fresh in my mind, I went to listen to former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice speak at UNT.  I was pleasantly surprised to hear that she was Presbyterian.  She grew up in Alabama which is definitely in what is called the "Bible belt" where there were quite a few Southern Baptists.  But she became Presbyterian.  Why?  Because it was Presbyterian churches that offered her and her siblings the scholarships that enabled them to attend college.  Her entire family became Presbyterian  -- among other things, because the church valued education.  If anyone would qualify as one who experienced anxiety in the mind on a world stage, it would have to be a U.S. Secretary of State, don't you think?

 

Whether on the world stage or in our own little corner of the world, we -- with our minds -- can get anxious.  And the mind can do different things when confronted with threats real or imagined.

 

Author Peter L. Steinke tells of an Israeli army exercise.  Soldiers learned that they were going to take a forced march.  They were divided into four groups that were not allowed to communicate with each other.  Each group went over the same area on the same day and with the same backpack.  Group 1 was told the exact distance they had to go (25 miles) and were kept fully informed about how far they traveled.  Group 2 was not told how long the march would be and were not informed regarding the distance.  Group 3 was told at the last moment they were expected to march more miles.  Meanwhile, Group 4 was told they had to go twice as far as the first group but they were stopped about halfway there.  They all walked the identical distance, but they walked with different ideas in their heads.

 

At the end of the march, the effects on the soldiers were measured -- in terms of morale, performance, and change in body chemistry.  The results were quite interesting:  Group 1 showed the least evidence of stress and the highest degree of hopefulness; Group 2, not knowing the distance, fared the worst; Group 3, with information that they had to march more than the others, was very discouraged; Group 4, initially told they had to travel twice the distance, was demoralized and had high levels of stress.  In the end, the degree of anxiety -- the degree of "want" -- was determined more by what was in the head of the soldiers than in their tired feet!

 

Obviously, this isn't a group of Israeli soldiers here this morning.  But we do have a group of people that knows a little bit about marching orders.  We ALL have marching orders -- in terms of responsibilities to ourselves, our families, our work, our church, you name it.  Sometimes the orders are clear, and at others they are confusing.

 

Think of it:  would not all of us -- with our anxious minds, at times, going every which way but loose -- benefit from a non-anxious presence?  Of course!  Our lives would be stabilized -- and our situations right along with them!  There would be less emotional friction, less reaction and more response; there would be healthier functioning. 

 

Anxiety, like some diseases, can be infectious. A non-anxious presence would not transmit further anxiety.  A non-anxious presence would calm the mind and, to use language of our text, "restore the soul."  Have you ever thought that maybe you could be that non-anxious presence to someone else? 

 

In the Bible, there are numerous texts about being a non-anxious presence.  In Ephesians 4:26 we read:  "Be angry but do not sin."  In 1 Thessalonians 4:  "Grieve, but do not grieve as one who has no hope."  In 1 Corinthians chapter 14, Paul wrote:  "In thinking be mature."  The non-anxious person is what Paul has in mind when he writes:  "Do not repay anyone evil for evil" (Rom. 12:17) and "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them" (Rom. 12:14).  He lists self-control as one of the "fruits of the Spirit" (Gal. 5:23).  Of Jesus himself, it was said:  "When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten" (1 Peter 2:23). 

 

When people are under extreme anxiety, most people become an anxious presence.  They don't immediately think:  "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."  People tend to lack restraint and act on impulse. Once anxiety fills the brain, our attention is focused almost entirely on the threat.  Then, we start to obsess about it, and our capacity to see or hear other information that may be helpful is nearly impossible. 

 

But think about it:  the one who can more readily control the anxiety is always more aware of its presence.  To be a non-anxious presence means to acknowledge anxiety but not let it be the driver of behavior.  While we might feel like losing it with someone, the non-anxious person doesn't submit to instinct.  Instead, they turn to their thinking facilities.  The emotional state doesn't go into overdrive.  The non-anxious presence says:  "I'll survive this; I can take the sting out of anxiety and be a calming agent."

 

The greatest non-anxious presence of all is our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ.  Go back to Psalm 23.  Do you sense any anxiety in Psalm 23? No much.  Hardly any at all.  Maybe that's why people love the passage so much.   But look closer; there are two anxiety-causers:  first, there is "the valley of the shadow of death"; secondly, there is a reference to the "presence of enemies".  This is simple truth-telling:  there is death, and there are enemies.

 

But listen:  "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:  for thou art with me; they rod and thy staff they comfort me." The non-anxious presence makes me a non-anxious presence.   And what of our enemies?  "Thou preparest a table in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over."

 

Finally, did you catch how it ends?  "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life."  The goodness and mercy of the Good Shepherd, the non-anxious presence, follows us.  It's the first responder!   And we "shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."  Amen.