Hitting your head against a wall? Me, too

A couple of weeks ago, I was leaving my downtown office as usual. I had taken the elevator to the parking garage as usual. And, as was becoming more and more usual, my thoughts were whirling with the atrocious statements that had emerged from a certain president’s mouth that day. As I crossed the parking lot toward my car, though, I was pondering how futile was all our collective shock and indignation. No amount of  righteous anger, I expect, will magically turn a person of questionable character into a font of wisdom and grace, and it is perhaps silly to think otherwise. The phrase "hitting our heads against a brick wall" sprang to mind.

I drove up through the parking levels to the security gate, where I stopped the car as usual, got out, and walked the 15 or so feet to the card reader where I swipe my employee pass in order to raise the gate. But my thoughts were still boiling over and I was clearly distracted. Just how distracted became immediately apparent when I turned back towards my car, only to see it driving itself straight towards the wall of the garage. That was definitely NOT usual. Yes, I had forgotten to put the car into park; my Honda was now moving along at a pretty good clip and though I tried to reach it in time I couldn’t do anything before it smashed into the wall, causing the open driver-side door to spring back on itself and smack my arm, sending my phone flying across the garage. Further dramatics ensued when I couldn’t cancel my iphone’s automated distress call in time, and emergency services and my emergency contacts all had their screens light up to tell them Peggy had been in a crash.

Despite feeling a little bit rattled by it all, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself at this message from the universe. Just as I had been thinking that letting one’s negative thoughts cycle endlessly is akin to banging one’s head against a metaphorical wall, I turned around to witness my car bang its head into a literal wall. Fortunately, both wall and car emerged unscathed. But it was a lesson in what happens when spiralling thoughts about things I cannot change distract me away from things I actually can (in this case, operating my car safely!)

So this life lesson was still in my mind when I read through the scripture readings for today, and I was captured by the words from Jeremiah that we had in our first reading:

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the years of drought, it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.

I had visions, I think, of writing a sermon in which we could think about some of the things we do to achieve this kind of trusting groundedness that keeps us fruitful and non-anxious even through the tough times. I would talk, perhaps, about the benefits of regular prayer, or the restorative power of walks, or the healing that comes from rest, or the satisfaction and reassurance that comes from doing one small act for good - lighting that proverbial single candle amidst the darkness.

But then life happened, and I got sick, and then I was covering for others who were sick, and I had cranky spats with my nearest and dearest, and I thought, man… all that stuff I was going to say about healthy practices that keep us faithful and well? They are much easier said than done. And I thought (not for the first time!) what the heck do I have to offer you folks at St. Clement’s, who are so wise in your ways and who are so often my own inspiration?

And then thankfully I remembered that it isn’t my job to have my act all together. It’s my job to point you to the God who does. It isn’t my job to be a shining example of exemplary Christianity, or even to know exactly what that looks like; it’s my job to walk alongside you as we figure out together what it means to be people of faith in this juncture of history.

In fact, striving to have all the answers, however well-intentioned an exercise, often just serves to put up a roadblock in our relationship with God. We lure ourselves into relying on our own know-how and power, and become unaccustomed to trusting in God’s. By definition our vision then becomes constrained by our human limitations, drowning out the voice of the Holy Spirit p0inting us to wider possibilities, that "infinitely more than we can ask or imagine" to which we may be called.

I have to remind myself, sometimes, that God is not waiting on me to send them a memo containing all the steps necessary to ensure the wellbeing of the world and all who live in it. I don’t have to come to prayer with an itemized list detailing all the ways God should effectively intervene to make certain situations better. Most days, that takes energy and wisdom I just don’t have. And anyway, it’s never me who is in charge of outcomes - it’s God.

People are sometimes taught to use the well-known prayer prompt ACTS - an acronym to guide our conversations with God. (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication).

A stands for Adoration, and honestly it’s an aspect of prayer that I skip over too often. At least in part, adoration means reflecting on the unknowable glory of our Creator and all the aspects of God that we will never fully understand this side of the veil. Adoration helps us remember that all our concerns, all our opinions, all our talents and all our challenges exist in an infinitely larger picture. That’s not at all to say that our lives are insignificant - but remembering the immensity of God can remind us that it is OK to be small. To feel like we are stumbling our way through the dark.

The C in ACTS stands for Confession, and I confess to too-often failing to put my whole trust in our magnificent, unseen Creator. The prophet Isaiah wrote of the Israelites who had turned away from God: "In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee!"

The Israelites at that time had curried favour with Egyptian powers that be; as a result, they had access to horses and could turn to this newfound asset in a bid to deal with their problems. It is a constant temptation to all of us to put our faith in a human-crafted solution rather than putting our wellbeing first and foremost in God’s hands. But it is in returning and in rest that we shall be saved.

In the lives of individuals and countries around the world, cracks are increasingly showing. During the pandemic, it became a tired figure of speech to make reference to the "unprecedented times" in which we were living. But really, every time is unprecedented, bringing with it its own blend of blessings and burdens. When Paul wrote his letters to the early church communities, he was often tearing his hair out about the destructive effects of false prophets who were pulling the faithful away from Paul’s vision of a universal Christ who loved slave and free, men and women, Jews and Gentiles alike. That may remind you of false prophets peddling their wares today.

In the gospel this morning, we heard Jesus’s Sermon on the Plain, in which he talks about a time in which the poor will be fed and when his followers, instead of being reviled, will receive their reward. But it is clear that that day has not yet come; false prophets were still being flattered and people were still misplacing their faith. 

So let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that there was ever a Golden Age in which putting our whole trust in God was any easier than it is now. Even when Jesus himself was at the peak of his earthly ministry, we know from the scriptures that there were plenty of folks who shook their head at him and walked right on by. Faithful understanding was often hard then, and it is often hard now.

So - despite my original hopes to the contrary - I can’t give you any guaranteed methods for achieving the non-anxious state of a tree planted by the water. I can’t tell you with any certainty how to free your mind from whirling obsessive thoughts that might lead you to accidentally crash your car into a wall - but if you figure it out, please let me know.

I can tell you, though, that there has never been a time when I lost faith in faith, even when I think I’m "doing it wrong," or  when God feels a little bit more distant than I would like. I know that with my imperfect faith I am a thousand times happier than I would be with no faith. 

When we are convinced we have to "succeed" at something - whether it is our faith life or our career, our fitness goals or our life milestones — we might hide behind a smiling mask if things aren’t going in the direction we’d like. We might sit with a friend or relative over dinner and assure them everything is "fine," in an effort to project a desired image.

I was speaking with someone about this common tendency, and how the deepening of relationship is hampered when one or all of the people around the table are gamely doing their best to convey who they want to be, not who they are.  And we talked about how differently discussions might go if we all "brought our real to the meal." If we shared our worries as much as our strengths, our stories more than our opinions, and our hopes as much as our accomplishments.

It stuck me that it would make a good motto for the Eucharist as well: "Bring your real to the meal." Perhaps we can grow our trust not by bringing God our Sunday best, but our weekday worst.  Perhaps it isn’t an interesting new prayer practice that we need, but a more authentic conversation. Learning to say "God, I’m in a bad mood and I don’t feel like praying so I’m going to keep this short" will likely do more for our faith life than waiting until we have the energy or enthusiasm for more sophisticated or substantial prayers.

It comforts me to think that there was nothing particularly special about that tree in Jeremiah’s image - other than where it was planted. So may we, too, plant our struggling and hopeful selves by the source of life itself, confident that our faith will grow strong, not due to any polished performance on our part but thanks to a perfect love on God’s. Amen.