Gnats & Camels: following Jesus as an antidote to fear and anxiety - Kyle Hanawalt

SPEAKER NOTES

Since becoming a parent one thing that has surprised me is that I never knew that there could be so many things that can be a source for potential stress.
I worry about them getting hurt, worry about them sleeping well, getting sick, that their poops stay regular.
And this never ending list of things that worry me can put me in a place where I am less intentionally parenting and more just reacting to my anxiety about all of these things.
I think back to a podcast that psychologist and professor Brene brown did talking about parenting. That we can often think parenting is about keeping our kids safe, keeping them from getting hurt or feeling disappointed, but in fact she posits that parenting is about our kids feeling loved and a sense of belonging even when they mess up, fail or get hurt. Because as much as we try we can’t ever actually prevent those things from happening. Now, I am at the very least compelled by her point, I would that agree with her Yet I still feel the temptation to jump in when my son starts climbing Even though it does not align with my values it just hard to not give way to my worry

Truth is I think this kind of thing is not unique to parenting, I think we see it all over the place. Fear and anxiety overriding our value systems in our decision making.

We hate our job but it’s too scary try to find something different -- so we stay in it, because it’s at least familiar.

Or we’re locked in a relationship that is toxic, but it’s too scary to risk loneliness for a period of time, so we stay in it.

Or For me there was a long time where I felt the tension of this in my experience of faith. I grew up going to church with the value system that taught me that we had a loving god who was full of mercy and grace. That this god is inclusive and cares for each of us individually.

However, I also felt a lot of fear and anxiety in my faith, fear that openly questioning my beliefs would put me outside of gods favor, that mistakes in my behavior, particularly if it had anything to do with sex would put me outside of gods favor, that doing anything that could be interpreted as affirming the beliefs, opinions, or behaviors, that differed from my religious tradition, particularly if it had anything to do with sex, that would put me outside of gods favor.

So there was a loving God (great!), BUUUT that love was fragile because if I let even one wrong thing or person into my life, that love will cave in

Now I don’t think this was totally unique to my religious experience. I had an old pastor and mentor of mine that said, that his greatest frustration with the modern American church is that far too many seem to have decided that they would rather keep 100 people out of their church for fear of letting 1 “wrong” person in.

Or I recently read a study out of psychology today that found people who grew up religious report feeling more shame on a daily basis than their counterparts who grew up non religious.

fear based decision making and religion seemingly have strange relationship with each other.

And this is notable for me and us here today if we’re trying to follow Jesus, because Jesus was pretty down on this way of approaching life. In fact I think he had the best analogy that I’ve come across to talk about it.

From Matthew 23. He is in the middle of a long rebuke of the Pharisees, the religious authorities of his day. Where he says.

23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

Doesn’t that say it well. For fear of gnats, we swallow a camel.
Whenever I read this I can’t help but think of one of my most recent run ins with gnats. Last spring I was part of a field trip taking a bunch of 4th & 5th graders to visit Northwestern University. And there was this one area that we walked that was full of gnats. Now there were like 10 groups of kids. And 9 of these groups seems to handle this fine, maybe a swat here or there. However, the group I was in charge of, straight lost their minds. They were bobbing and weaving, running, literally throwing punches at the gnats. And I kept telling them, they’re gnats they can’t actually hurt you, they might be a little gross, but they can’t really hurt you. But they kept freaking out. And they’re bouncing around one of the kids falls over and scrapes her knee, one of the other kids “accidentally” punches another while aiming for a gnat, and one of our other chaperones who is a like 65 women, gets knocked over by this group of 5th graders. You see the fear of the gnat actually cause more damage than the gnats would ever be able to do themselves.

I don’t have any recent camels stories but Back to what Jesus said - here is the deal, if you swallow a gnat it might be kinda gross, but if you swallow a camel you gonna die. He is addressing a misappropriation of priorities. Gnats which he equates to a traditional religious practice, tithing, should just not be treated with the same stakes as issues of justice -- that’s a camel!

As someone who works in our public school system, the inequities of academic outcomes along the lines of race - that is a camel

Considering the current teacher strike. The state of our schools in this city and whether they are adequately resources and set up for success - that is a camel

This week as someone I’ve worked with for years suddenly passed away - appropriately dealing with that loss and supporting others in dealing with that loss - that is a camel.

Or I was just talking to a friend who is a lawyer and who spent her last week assisting immigrants on our southern boarder making sure that their rights are being upheld and are being treated humanely - that is a camel

In fact the reaction to immigration that we far to often encounter in this country is the best recent example of swallowing a camel for fear of a gnat that I can think of. That the fears of immigrants has been so successfully stoked that far too many people were willing to stomach the objective evil of what we have seen around family separation.

But, that’s the catch in all of this, if our fears or anxieties get enflamed, they can take over, when we are feeling fear and anxiety it becomes really hard to not make choices out of that place.

But I can speak for myself and say that I’ve not been very pleased with my choices when they come from that place.

I go back to my own experience of faith when I was younger. I was so concerned with making sure I was getting it all right that I wasn’t doing anything that would put me I Jeopardy of losing gods favor and at that time one area that played out, one thing I feel the most embarrassment and regret in my life, is that this anxious paradigm I was in lead to me making my disapproval clear of others peoples behaviors.

I was so afraid that failing something, failing god, if people didn’t know when their behavior feel outside of what my religious tradition approves of. I had one very good friend who I had been friends with since like 2nd grade. And in like sophomore year I found out that he’d gone to some party where there had been drinking. And he and his girlfriend may have messed around a bit, and so I sat him down and told him that disapproved and couldn’t be his friend if he didn’t stop.

Well we stopped friends after that, decades of friendship gone. But recently I ran into him again and it was a positive reconnection, but he told me how hurtful the whole thing was for him and how he was going through some hard things at the time, and it sucked having me disappear. But I didn’t just disappear, I disapprovingly disappeared, and what I knew at the time was that the hard time he was talking about was that his parents were going through a separation. I was so worried about the gnats - that by not expressing my disapproval of his behavior I was failing some obligation of mine as a Christian - that I missed the camel. I had a friend who really needed one of his oldest friends to be there with him.

Here’s my message for us today:

The way Jesus lived is an antidote to being driven by fear and anxiety.

He walked into places full of risk. For the sake of connection, invitation and inclusion. He violated religious customs and practice, by eating with those consider outsiders, healing on the sabbath, by challenging religious leaders all for the sake of connection and inclusion.

So let me close with a couple practical suggestions that are hitting me this week on how we might try to follow Jesus’ model and experience life NOT as being driven by anxiety or fear of swallowing gnats, AND INSTEAD as something that is rich, meaningful, connected-what-really-matters-in-the-world, and also that is joyful rather than all about prohibitions and labeling things threats to avoid.

Focus on opportunity rather than threat. Jesus said “it is not what goes into us that makes us unclean, it is what comes out of us” -- “What do we have the opportunity to show someone or give to someone?” is a wonderful, productive question that will lead us into connection and presence with other people… That is very different from the usual question in today’s American religious environment: “What do I need to avoid in order to feel assured about my faith?”

Give yourself permission to swallow a gnat If it helps you, I as a pastor am giving you permission right now Here’s something that I personally think is behind Jesus’ rebuke of the pharisees: it’s actually impossible to strain out all gnats… life, by definition, includes swallowing gnats… What if that’s not scandalous, it’s freeing?

So If you notice some fear- Name your fears aloud, and ask god if that fear is a gnat or camel. If God seems to indicate its a camel, than by all means make it a priority, but often times I find, my fears are actually gnats...

Ask God for a legit camel to care about straining out of your world -- nothing like an actual camel inspiring your heart for justice, mercy, faithfulness to crowd out insignificant and distracting fears and anxieties.

Pray...