How to Hang On to Your Soul

How to Hang on To Your Soul 

Last week we marked the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was a sophomore in highschool in 1989. I remember my journalism teacher, Ms. Pritchard, rolling in the AV cart, with this 200 pound tv with a 30” screen so we could watch some of the live footage. Thick men pounding at the wall with sledgehammers. Teenagers carrying off big chunks of concrete as souvenirs. People crying with joy, dancing in the streets. It was the crumbling of fifty years of cold war. A new day of harmony and peace. And for many people, it was the dawning of a whole new era, and it was here to stay. For about 10 years. 

If you came of age in a white, middle class family in the 1990’s, you were nurtured in this incredibly hopeful time. This little sliver, after the threat of nuclear annihilation but before Sept 11. Before we knew the seriousness of climate change; before being humbled in the Middle East, before the economic collapse, before Columbine. A time when you could curl up with your family and your dog to watch Bill Cosby as Dr. Huxtable without a shiver going down your spine. 

Of course, if you were not a straight, white, middle class American male like me, it may not have been such a golden decade. I was probably watching Family Ties, when Rodney King was taking blows facedown on the asphalt in LA. While I was caught up in whether Ross and Rachel would ever get together, there was a genocide in Rwanda; between 500,000 and a million people killed in 2 months. It was not rosy for all people, but on the whole, generally speaking, it was an age with so much less anxiety than we have today. 

At 5:45am on this last Wednesday morning, every parent in the Shorewood school district received a call telling us all the classes for the whole district were canceled. The day before a high school student had been caught with a magazine of ammunition and hit list of fellow students. After getting that call I was lying awake staring at the ceiling, thinking this trajectory of violence in schools is so completely insane. There seem to be so many factors. The week before I had read an article about how we already have the technology that could prevent at least some of the cases of a kid stealing their parent’s gun and bringing it to school. We use a fingerprint match to get into all our most private data on our phones. We can ask for a fingerprint match before a gun can fire a bullet. Lying in bed, I could feel my brain and the muscles in my neck, being flooded with this toxic cocktail of rage and sadness and panic. Lying in bed thinking “Who are the people standing in the road of basic safety measures and common sense reforms? I could feel a darkness growing in me, a violence of thought, a reduction of the complexity of others, turning into a person I do not want to be. 

I got out of bed and came to church for the 9am Eucharist. In that short service, we typically meditate on the gospel passage for the upcoming week. So we read this passage from Luke’s gospel - in which Jesus is giving counsel for how not to lose your soul in the midst of intense anxiety and disaster and utter political chaos. 

Jesus says things are gonna get bad. He points to the Temple, and says, “The day will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” This is not a Berlin Wall kind of throwing down of stones. Not a liberating destruction. Just plain destruction. Luke is writing after the Romans have actually torn down the Temple in 71 A.D. Luke and many of the people listening to his gospel had likely seen with their own eyes this incredible brutality against men, women and children not many years before. Really bad staff. Game of Thrones kind of stuff. And it only got more chaotic from there. Luke is writing at a time of high anxiety, high political tension, incredible division, when those who follow in the Way of Jesus are mocked, arrested, beaten and sometimes worse. A time when earthquakes were in the air and it felt like the world was coming apart. 

Jesus tells his disciples that as they endure all of this chaos they will be in danger of losing their souls. In a couple different ways. First, in times of intense anxiety, charismatic leaders emerge who try to take advantage of people’s fear, for their personal gain. Jesus says, When they say, Here I am, Follow me, don’t fall for it. Throughout his ministry, Jesus stays the course of love even in the darkest days. When anxiety is high, the knives come out and smart, good people get so afraid they can’t even begin to talk about the substance of complex issues. I know this happens to me. In anxious times we say, “I don’t want to think for myself anymore, just tell me what my tribe thinks. And sign me up for the strong tribal leader who will help slay the other tribe.” This is one way to lose your soul. 

Second, when things are highly anxious, Jesus says you are going to be tempted to be perpetually defensive, to keep your guard up high all the time. Jesus says to risk lowering your guard. Jesus uses the particular example of when you are arrested, don’t prepare a defense in advance, but stay open to the words you are given. It’s easy to let your guard down when things are good and easy, but when things are anxious we layer on the armor, we prepare for battle, we are so deep inside our own helmets we can’t even hear other voices. Most importantly, we can not hear Jesus’ voice, this voice of Love. “I will give you words and wisdom,” says Jesus, “But if you will not listen you will lose your souls.” 

Some of you have read the book, Rising Out of Hatred by Eli Saslow. It tells the story of Derek Black, who grew up at the epicenter of white nationalism. Derek’s father founded Stormfront, the largest white supremacy community on the Internet. Derek’s godfather, David Duke, was a KKK Grand Wizard. By the time Derek turned nineteen, in 2008, he had become an elected politician with his own daily radio show and was already regarded as the “the leading light” of the burgeoning white nationalist movement. 

But then he went to college, a liberal arts school called New College of Florida. He continued to broadcast his radio show in secret each morning, living a double life, until a classmate uncovered his identity and sent an email to the entire school calling him out. The news went through the school like a lightning bolt, super-charging the place with anxiety. As you can imagine, most people ostracized Derek. Quite naturally trying to teach him a lesson with silence and cold stares. Some were more actively try to make his life miserable. 

But there was one young man, an Orthodox Jew named Matthew Stevenson, who reached out to Derek. With radical hospitality and extraordinary leadership, Matthew invited Derek to Shabbat dinner with him and some other friends. Derek said that he came fully armed, prepared for battle. What he was not prepared for was people treating him, not like a monster but like a human being, someone with a particular story, someone who they recognized as smart and kind, even worthy of friendship. He kept coming. Some on campus condemned Matthew for giving Derek a place at the table, but Matthew refused to give up on Derek’s humanity. They kept meeting, and gradually Derek began to question his worldview. 

Another person from those Shabbat dinners did what Derek called “the heavy lifting” of diving into the substance of his arguments. This person listened as Derek presented things like IQ statistics of different races to support white supremacy. This person listened and then patiently explained, “No, you are misusing statistics,” and said, ”Here’s how social science data works....” The Shabbat dinners established shared humanity, established enough trust so the armor could be put down on all sides. And then from that place of shared humanity, they could actually begin to work with the substance of ideas, dive into the complexity of evidence and the search for what is true and real. Derek changed. And he now speaks all over the place about what he calls his process of awakening. Using religious language, we might call it the saving of his soul. 

All our souls need saving, says Jesus. I know mine does.I am so subject to the anxious forces around me. Here is a little exercise for tuning into the words and wisdom of Jesus. I forget to do it but it has real power. It’s Called the Jesus prayer. Looks like it has been used in the Church for about 1600 years. When you find yourself lying in the bed becoming filled with toxic things. Or even proactively on a good day, you can repeat this mantra: Different variations. Lord Jesus, You are here. Lord Jesus, You are Peace. Lord Jesus, Have mercy on me. All kinds of stories of the transformative power of this prayer, coupled with the breath. These days we need every tool we can get. 

Amidst the anxiety, may we tune our hearts to the Living Christ, the King of love, the One who promises to be with us now and forever.