5-6 REsiST Anxiety

“Remember the Sabbath day to set it apart as holy.For six days you may labor and do all your work,but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your cattle, or the resident foreigner who is in your gates.For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.

Matthew 6:25–31 NET

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky: They do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you more valuable than they are? And which of you by worrying can add even one hour to his life?Why do you worry about clothing? Think about how the flowers of the field grow; they do not work or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these! And if this is how God clothes the wild grass, which is here today and tomorrow is tossed into the fire to heat the oven, won’t he clothe you even more, you people of little faith? So then, don’t worry saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’

Set the scene, Exodus: God, speaking from a mountain, addressing people who’ve been forced to work every day, meeting ever harder quotas with ever fewer resources. An Anxious people serving an anxious ruler, creating a system where anxiety is a core value.

Takes them out to the wilderness. Tells them “take a break every week. Relax. Don’t work. Work will still be there when you get back.”

Not only that, but don’t have anyone do your work for you.

Sensing their coming anxiety, God reminds them she herself rested after the creation of the world. Is their work more demanding than God’s? Probably not.

Set the scene, Matthew: Jesus, speaking from a mountain, addressing people who’ve fallen on one side or the other of a sabbath divide: Some have adopted the ways of the Roman Empire, where every day is a work day, and leisure time is something enjoyed by the wealthy who can afford to outsource their work. Others have made up so many rules about the sabbath, it’s become its own kind of work. The have heard that keeping the sabbath holy will result in blessing, so they work hard to meet the holiness requirements in order to receive the blessing.

Both groups are participating in a system of anxiety: One is anxious about social status, and meeting the demands of the world in order to scratch out a living. The other is anxious about spiritual status, and meeting the demands of God in order to earn a blessing (a physical blessing, which will enable them to get by).

Jesus points up at some birds. Then at some flowers. These birds and these flowers are getting by just fine by following the patterns God created for them. The birds do what is in their nature, and are well-fed even if they do not find food every day. The flowers, likewise, are brilliantly clothed even though the plants which produce them spend whole seasons dormant.

So if the birds and the flowers are fed and clothed by following the rhythms of life God designed for them, so can the people Jesus is addressing.

It’s safe to say we are an anxious people. Study after study after study repeats the same claim: Americans are more anxious today than ever before. This is especially pronounced among white, middle class Americans. And we are decidedly more anxious than other developed nations.

As with anything, our national anxiety has more than one cause. Studies have shown people who pay attention to 24 hour news channels are more anxious. So are people who use their phones too much. So are people with high debt and other financial concerns. And that’s to say nothing of the 3% of the population or so who suffer from clinical anxiety.

But… other developed nations have the news.

Other developed nations have smart phones.

Other developed nations have consumer debt and financial issues.

Yet we are decidedly more anxious than them.

You know where we differ from other developed nations? Our approach to rest.

Americans work longer hours and take fewer days off than citizens of other countries. We have more jobs which do not offer paid leave than other countries, and the ones which do tend to offer less total time off. Even so, those of us in America who had paid time off in 2016 combined to use only one half of it!

And while other nations have computers and smart phones, same as us, we have quickly turned notifications from our devices into an excuse to do work even when we are supposed to be off the clock, out of the office, or otherwise unavailable. We know there is always more work to do, so we never truly unplug from work.

And it’s seriously harming us.

That harm takes the form of more anxiety, less self care, and a host of health problems too numerous to list.

It causes us to evaluate people not for the relationships we could develop with them, but what value they might add to our lives.

It puts us in a mindset of doing a cost benefit analysis on each activity we might engage in, robbing us of the chance to pursue a passion, develop a hobby, or simply receive the rest we need.

It makes us feel guilty when we are not working.

And from two different mountains, the voice of God calls us to resist. Stop the cycle of worry - each day has enough troubles of its own. Stop the endless devotion to work - there will always be more work to do.

Instead, embrace the rhythm God has designed for us. Let God’s promised rest sustain us - not by following strict laws in hopes of blessing. Not so that we can be more “productive” when we return to work. Rest is its own blessing. Rest is its own form of productivity. We were designed to rest. Simply doing what we were designed to do is an act of resistance against our culture of anxiety.