| Anxiety |
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Sermon preached at St Mary’s, Primrose Hill How will history view us? Some historians call the period when the Roman Empire fell apart ‘The Age of Anxiety'. In the fourth and fifth centuries the road system, which had guaranteed the swift and safe movement of food, troops and commerce throughout the empire, began to deteriorate. People were reluctant to travel because they no longer felt safe. There was a loss of confidence in civic life. People began to move out of the towns, which were becoming lawless, and found refuge on country estates which took on the dimensions of fortified enclosures. Rumours of barbarian incursions could generate panic in a city. It was rumoured that the forces of chaos were at the gates of Rome. Civilization itself was under threat. Parallels with our own time are not hard to draw. Many today feel similarly anxious and don't like going out late at night in case they get mugged. Our towns are peppered with gated enclaves, miniature stockades to keep undesirables at bay. In some sections of society there is a collapse of trust which is strange given that we are more protected and secure than any previous generation, at least in the West. We have better medicine, safer transport and social security, but international terrorism has undermined public confidence. Dark forces intent on causing havoc in our cities are said to be threatening western civilization. Thomas Merton, one of the great spiritual writers of the twentieth century, says that anxiety is something we impose upon ourselves and one another. I for one live at a frenetic pace, put myself under pressure, get anxious and then with great generosity distribute my angst amongst my friends, family and colleagues. There have always been those who are sad and disturbed, and there are some whose anxiety is pathological and get trapped in compulsive behaviour. But the levels of illness and breakdown in Britain today caused by stress and anxiety are running at an all-time high. Ours is the new Age of Anxiety. So how do we live without anxiety in the midst of it? ‘Be anxious for nothing,' says St Paul when writing to the Philippians, ‘but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make your requests known to God. And the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.' How do we make this a reality? If we want to reduce our anxiety levels the first thing we have to do is face our fears. Since Freud we tend to think that sex is the thing that ultimately controls our actions and everything. I beg to differ. I think fear is the strongest of all our emotions. What we are frightened of controls us, as individuals, as communities and as a society. It says in the Bible that ‘perfect love casts out fear.' But the reverse is equally true: fear casts out love perfectly. God does not want us to be paralysed by fear, anxiety and worry. We begin the healing process by facing and naming our fears. As it says in the Christmas carol, ‘O Little town of Bethlehem': ‘Cast out our fear and enter in: be born in us today.' That sentiment needs to be true 365 days of the year, not just on Christmas Day. The second thing St Paul encourages us to do is to pray - pure and simple. One of the classic texts for prayer is from the psalms: ‘Be still and know that I am God.' When the psalms were translated from Hebrew into Latin this was rendered vacete mihi - meaning ‘Be empty, and know that I am God.' When we are anxious we need to empty out our worries before God. When you pray, pick up your dustbin with all your worries and anxieties, and turn it upside down before God, and just walk away from it. Let God sort it. If we are consumed by worry we will become self-preoccupied and God will never get a look in. We cannot expect to experience the peace of God if we are full to the brim with angst? ‘Empty yourself out, and know that I am God.' Thirdly, Paul says be thankful. Being thankful to God is not an optional extra: it is a fundamental discipline. How many of us say grace at home before meals? People moan about children taking food for granted but how are they ever to have a sense of the wonder of the food on the table if we don't teach them to pray ‘Give us this day our daily bread'? If these things are not important to us, they won't be important to our children. Be thankful says St Paul - in fact the number of times this little phrase pops up throughout his letters is mesmerizing. The trouble is the colour supplements cast spells over us with pictures of beautiful people doing beautiful things and unconsciously we can find ourselves devaluing our lives, comparing our situations unfavourably with some pretty bizarre fantasies. We become jealous of other people's supposed good fortune. If we don't stop ourselves in our tracks we will become shrivelled up shells of resentment where once upon a time there was a human being. We need to practice the discipline of thanksgiving and be thankful for what we have rather than focusing either on what we don't have or what the adverts tell us we ought to have. Thanksgiving unlocks our imagination and allows a change of perspective. When we acknowledge life as a gift of God and not a possession, we become less anxious, less self-centred and more willing to share the good things of life with others. How do we live without anxiety in the midst of it? By
In the Roman mass is a lovely prayer which sadly never found its way into the Anglican service because it was written after the Reformation, but it is worth knowing and meditating upon. I invite you to pray it with me now.
Deliver us, Lord, from every evil |
