Wait for God’s therapeutic Work.
I Peter 5, 6-11
It gets ugly when people try to overthrow government. David saw this with his son Absalom. Absalom rallied an army against David. As they marched toward Jerusalem, David and his officials evacuated the city.
They marched east toward the wilderness. Many citizens supported them. But one man named Shimei stood on a ridge along the road and showered rocks and dirt on David’s entourage. Shimei basically said, “Yeah, you’d better run! You’re getting what you deserve, David.” One of David’s nobles asked permission to go kill Shimei. David said no: Perhaps the LORD will look on my misery and will return something good to me in exchange for his cursing this day.
You’ve been there. Maybe you’ve felt strained relations with a child like David did. Maybe it sounds like you to think of David questioning his career choice. Perhaps you can relate to David seeing his authority get undermined or public humiliation or even feeling rejected by God?
All of that and more, we call anxiety. Today’s epistle offered the solution for anxiety. Peter wrote: “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.”
Simon Peter knew about anxiety and casting it on God. Today’s Gospel said: “They left the synagogue and went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. Simon’s mother-in-law was lying in bed, sick with a fever. Without delay they told Jesus about her.” Simon Peter knew about stress. He was married. Marriage is wonderful, but it takes lots of work. It’s worth it, but it’s also stressful.
Plus, Peter had a sick mother-in-law. Do you know that powerless feeling when you have a sick loved-one? Or perhaps he had secret feelings of resentment. This sick woman took up his and his wife’s time. He could’ve also carried guilt about those resentful feelings.
That same Peter later wrote this letter, which said: “Cast all your anxiety on him.” Peter could’ve known anxiety from sitting in prison, from swinging a sword in the olive grove, from watching Jesus sleep in a boat during a storm, or from thinking he saw a ghost when Jesus walked on the water. But maybe Peter wrote: “Cast all your anxiety on him” while thinking about the time his mother-in-law was sick.
It said, “Without delay they told Jesus about her.” Peter showed how to cast anxiety on God. If you want that too, then without delay: tell Jesus about your stress. Yes, he already knows it. But what happened when Peter approached Jesus? “He went to her, took her by the hand, and raised her up. The fever left her, and she began to serve them.”
Peter’s mother-in-law hardly sounds like a manipulative old nag. She took care of people. Peter could say: “God cares for me. He gave me this wonderful family. I threw my anguish on him and he fixed it.”
I get to teach Shoreland students this letter from Peter. Talking through it with them has helped me better understand what it means to: Cast all your anxiety on him. I illustrate that in class by holding up my briefcase. I ask them to imagine their backpacks the same way. Each of you could picture your own version of a book bag, some item for organizing your life; a cluttered desk, a smart phone, a marker board calendar in your kitchen. Whatever your item, it should represent all your work; appointments, projects, people contacting you.
For me, it’s that briefcase I hold up in class. Then, I do my best impression of a track-and-field discus thrower and chuck it to the opposite side of the room. That’s what God asks you to do with all your stress in life.
Now one sharp young lady this year asked: “So, God’s asking us to throw away our homework?” That’s an important item in their backpacks and a major source of stress for them. You might say the same about all your appointments or your inbox or voicemail messages. You could reduce anxiety by ignoring tasks, right?
Notice that Peter writes: “Cast all your anxiety on him.” He does not say: Cast all your responsibility or all your efforts on him. What’s the difference? There’s a mental place that humans like to go where our brains are active, but they aren’t creating anything or solving any problem. Let’s call it the “ruminating space.”
It works like this: Pretend your family has regular reunions at a campsite on a lake up north. Everyone pitches in to pay expenses. But, for several years, a few people keep suggesting everyone meet at a resort in the Dells. It’s not in your price range. You’re going to see one of those relatives at Thanksgiving. On top of all the other stress during the holidays, you start thinking about that family member pressuring you to get on board with the Dells resort plan. That’s a ruminating space. Your brain isn’t working on solutions for handling that discussion. It’s stuck in a negative loop surrounding something you can’t control, someone else’s comments.
When Peter talks about “anxiety,” he doesn’t mean your adrenaline when your car slides on an icy road. “Cast all your anxiety on him” doesn’t mean: suppress your emotions if your child goes missing and you need to call the police. Casting off anxiety does not mean avoiding work because it’s less stressful to let other people do it. Cast all your anxiety on him means: kick yourself out of that ruminating space. Slam the door on thoughts that you can take no action on. Slap down mental problems that no one asked you to solve.
Wouldn’t you admit: it’s pretty arrogant of you to think it’s your job to fix your passive-aggressive in-laws? It’s thinking way too much of yourself to imagine you can stop every bigot from being racist. I’d have an overinflated opinion of myself, if I think it depends on me to stop all election fraud or expose corrupt media or to undo the downfall of the environment? Peter wrote in verse six. “Therefore humble yourselves under God’s powerful hand so that he may lift you up at the appointed time.”
If you want to cast anxiety on God, first recognize your own limitations. “Humble yourselves” does not mean degrade yourself. When I talk bad about myself, I’m still discussing my favorite topic: “me.” Degrading yourself is not humility. Humility means you think more about other people instead of yourself.
Another student this year made a great comment about that. He said: So, humility means thinking more about other people and that’s also how I cast off my anxiety; but what if my anxiety already comes from thinking about other people? What if I’m already too worried about their reactions or what they might say?
When Peter said “humble yourselves,” he did not mean: imagine how others might evaluate you. He meant: imagine what life is like for that person. Try walking in their shoes. Take an educated guess about how that person feels right now.
A funny thing happens when you do this. Let’s try it here. Think of two or three things that stress you out most. Now, take a good look around the room, even behind you and across the aisle. Pick one face that you saw and guess what kinds of things might be on that person’s stress list. Maybe you could ask the person if you guessed right or ask what their anxiety is or even try just doing something nice for that person based on your guess. That probably didn’t make your list go away, but it took you out of your ruminating space while you considered the worries of that other person. Humbling yourself actually lightened your anxiety load.
This is what God wants for us. Grace means you do less work, not more. Jesus already did the hardest job of redeeming you. Even with suffering on this earth, God promises it won’t last forever. You don’t have to save
yourself by your suffering. And, if bad things happen to you, he promises to fix and reinforce you better than before. Jesus promised this most vividly by rising from the dead. He guarantees, even if your body dies, he will put it back together on the last day in the new creation. Peter wrote: “After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who called you into his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.”