Sermons

“To Treasure and Ponder”

Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 2:8-19 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – December 27, 2015

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that we might come to you with all our cares and find rest in your faithfulness. We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

It’s really quite an extraordinary story. The angels and the shepherds, and the journey and the manger… and then there’s this tiny mention of this quiet moment that stands out, I think, because of its stillness: “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” It’s a powerful sentence. I think there’s a bit of a time leap happening here. Surely that sentence isn’t merely summing up Mary’s immediate reaction to what the shepherds shared when they arrived. Pondering isn’t something you do in a split second. I think this sentence is telling us how Mary responded to the shepherds, but also what the rest of her night was like, and maybe most of the nights for the coming weeks and months.

Many of you know from experience what I’ve only heard tell of: apparently babies wake up during the night a lot. Having a newborn seems to provide a lot of moments for middle-of-the-night reflection. It also seems to focus one’s attention. I remember once when I called my sister, when my niece was still quite small. “What are you doing?” I asked. “We’re watching the Claire show,” she said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Which it probably is. So maybe when Mary was awake at all hours of the night with her holy baby, she was simply gazing upon his pretty little face. Then again, it’s not like she didn’t know her child was a little special. Most of what had been said so far sounded pretty great on the surface, but there were some ominous undertones. From the sound of the song Mary herself sang at Elizabeth’s house, it seems clear that she understood that her baby’s life was not going to be free of conflict. So what was going through her mind that night? Everyone else had gone home or gone to bed. Was Mary awake because the baby was awake, or was she awake because she couldn’t sleep? We would all like to sleep the sleep of the angels, but the truth is that much of the time, we don’t. When we’re up in the night, whether it’s because we have to be for some reason, or because we’re simply not asleep, it can be a challenge to be like Mary and “treasure and ponder” things in our hearts. We are much more likely to be indulging in worry, which is pretty different from treasuring and pondering.

This still moment where Luke notes that Mary “treasured these words and pondered them in her heart” caught my attention because it seems such a contrast to how many of us spend our wakeful moments. I started to wonder how we could turn our worrying into pondering. Knowing that we don’t all handle things the same way, I decided to turn to Facebook to sample the variety of responses to worry that different people may have. I want to share some of that with you today. First of all, there was a great exposition of worry itself, written by one of our own. Daphne Flores created a WORRY acronym for us, to help us remember all the things we could be worry about. I’m going to paraphrase it for you. First, the W is for Work – am I meeting expectations, will I get fired, will other people get fired… The O is for Outstanding Bill Balances – which is a symbol for all financial insecurities, whether for bills already incurred or those coming in the future, retirement, providing for your family, etc. The first R is for Remembering My Past – Did I make good decisions? Did I overreact? What about all the things I messed up that I can’t fix? The second R is for Reality – not all my dreams and plans are going to materialize. And finally, the Y in Daphne’s WORRY chart stands for Years to Come – the biggie – the future, which holds slightly different questions for each of us, but common concerns.

So there you have it. There are a lot of things we could be worrying about. Now that we’re clear on that, let’s get back to the original question, which was “What do you do when you find yourself worrying too much?” There were a wide variety of answers, but there were also a lot of commonalities. Broadly, you could divide the responses to worry into two categories – the healthy and the less healthy. A few people took advantage of the question to make confession. “If I’m honest, what I do is keep worrying.” Wallow. Get mad at myself. Eat. There were a fair number of votes for “chocolate.” One person claimed that when he worried it made him “Let my health insurance expire, bounce a mortgage check and commit a felony.” I’m pretty sure he was kidding.

Beyond that, moving back in the direction of positive behaviors, there was sort of a spectrum of responses. At some level, we are aware that much of what we worry about is not worth it. We worry about trivial things, things that are over and done with, things that will probably never happen. So responses like distracting ourselves with mindless tv shows or cleaning the house or music or cuddling with our pets are entirely sufficient.

For deeper worries, many people named more intensely distracting activities. Doing something that engages your whole brain is a good way to get your mind off the things stressing you out. For many people this is something physical, like running or rock climbing or yoga. I would argue that even a good cry can provide the physical release that often brings relief. For others, it’s something that just requires focus or induces a “flow state”, like cooking or a good book or a puzzle, or even while you’re lying in bed, counting.

Then there are the things you can do something about. Often, we get stressed out because we have too much to do. It turns out that getting some of it done is useful in such a scenario. People have discovered that making a list and doing one thing at a time is more effective than sitting around freaked out about how much there is to be done. I’m going to have to look into that.

Finally, there were a lot of responses toward the healthy and holy end of the spectrum. It’s important to remember, at this point, that there are a lot of preachers in my collection of Facebook friends, so these answers may be skewed. One colleague wrote “I get irritated with myself, because I don’t like worrying, and then I remember I was supposed to be praying in the first place and then I feel stupid because I’m a pastor and I should know that.” And then she added, “And then I feel much better!” The honesty is refreshing, isn’t it?

There were a variety of responses connected to the idea of prayer. A lot of people mentioned breath, whether connecting it to God or not. Focusing on your breath, counting your breath, simply remembering to breathe – these techniques can help quiet our hearts and our minds, and for many, they are prayer. Others mentioned journaling, which can also be a form of prayer. I think one of the most important things about how prayer helps us let go of our worries is that it shifts our perspective. Prayer helps us remember that we’re not alone because God is always with us, loving us and sustaining us. Prayer can help us realize that so much of what we’re worrying about is not that big of a deal. And prayer can remind us that God is there, that God is here, that God is actually holding all that junk you’ve been trying to juggle, so you really don’t have to try so hard. Prayer can remind us that our longing for perfection is misguided and our need for control is unnecessary. And if you get rid of those two things, a lot of what we worry about goes away.

A different preacher friend shared this about what she tries to do when she’s worrying too much. “I take a trip through memory lane reminding myself of the Spirit’s faithfulness throughout my life.” And here I do believe we’ve come full circle back to Mary. Again, it’s about shifting our perspective. Mary discovered she was going to have a baby, in complicated circumstances, but the song she sang was not about her own problems, but about God’s faithfulness to all those who are living difficult lives. And here is where it comes back to us as well. If we are going to recall the mighty deeds of God, in order to reassure ourselves that things will be okay, we have to be aware of them. Regular participation in a faith community, study of the scriptures, intentional tracking of God’s work in our lives and the lives of others, through conversation, prayer disciplines and journaling – there are lots of things we can do to help ourselves be better able to sing the kind of song Mary sang in the face of complication.

I think this might be what Paul was talking about when he encouraged the Colossians to “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” and to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” That seems to me to be what Mary was doing when she was “treasuring these words and pondering them in her heart.” She was definitely treasuring the Word – the capital W Word – during those middle-of-the-night moments. The Word was not just dwelling within her, but within her very arms. Sure, she could have worried about his future, but God had made promises, and Mary knew God to be faithful.

As we move through the season of Christmas – the twelve days which started Friday – perhaps we can make it a season of pondering. As we prepare to welcome a new year, this is a good time to reflect on our lives, not through worry, but through seeing them from God’s perspective and giving thanks for God’s faithfulness. If we can shift the habits of our minds just a bit from worrying toward pondering, it will have been a fruitful Christmas season indeed. Alleluia and Amen.