Jesus invites us to release our ideas of what we think we ought to be or what we need to do to get approval. "Don't let your hearts be troubled," he says, "I am preparing a place for you."
How we needed these words this week. We recently had some work done to our place and needed to have the work inspected. We went over (and over) the details, wondering how the updates would look to a fresh pair of eyes.
I confess that I fretted. It was because we did have some control, but then again we didn't. There's sometimes a bit of subjectivity when it comes to tradework. There's more than one way to do things and having an older house which has undergone a series of random renovations by various owners doesn't make things particularly straightforward.
So my fretting seemed warranted.
Which is why the reading for this coming Sunday caused me to pause:
Don't let your hearts be troubled.
I am going to prepare a place for you.
Don't be troubled?
Prepare a place for us?
...
Trev and I sometimes refer to "the view from 30,000 feet" as a way to get perspective on things. Rather than fixating on our relatively small problems, or rehearsing our minor grievances, the idea is to zoom out and consider our situation from a macro perspective.
In the case of John 14, Jesus is inviting us to view things cosmically, to embrace this view which stretches from eternity to eternity.
Here's the practical question I just have to consider: how can we still be residents of this property that's in our care at this point in history and not let it determine the way we feel about ourselves? ... and not give into anxiety?
While our furnace room was being looked over microscopically, I stayed upstairs in the kitchen (wiping down the counters for the umpteenth time) and remembered the cosmic view -- those words of Jesus ringing in my ears... he is preparing a place. Don't let your hearts be troubled. (Don't be anxious.)
What this has to do with Lent is this: we receive this time as a season in which to allow our lives to be inspected. We undergo a kind of merciful scrutiny that applies the demands of love to the rambling spaces of our lives.
The good news is there are so many ways to live a well-ordered life.
And the other good news is that it is really not primarily our responsibilty to create the place in our lives where love must dwell -- either in this life or the next. In both cases, we are the recipients of love.
We don't create a life that God deems worthy. We receive one. It is not because we have any particularly special skills that makes the places of our lives remarkable; it is simply that we are willing to listen and receive all that grace.
We actively receive what is being offered. We go along with the "don't be anxious" motto because we've discovered that the anxiety itself can quell the gift of the given place (that welcoming space by the still waters). It can quell the gift now because we might be so preoccupied with the physical structures around that we can't see beyond them... and anxiety can put a shadow on the hope of the place yet to come because we haven't allowed ourselves to receive the cosmic view which Christ holds out to us.
Don't be anxious.
Don't let this throw you.
Que votre cœur ne se trouble pas.
Μὴ ταρασσέσθω ὑμῶν ἡ καρδία.
Euer Herz erschrecke nicht!
No se turbe vuestro corazón.
Huwag mabalisa ang inyong mga puso.
“你们心里不要愁烦，要信神，也要信我。
Don't let your hearts be troubled.
...
Sometimes we need help to ease our grip on anxious living: help from people who know what they're doing.
All the time, with or without help, we can take up the practice of rehearsing the hope we receive rather than capitulating to anxiety which can rarely be satisfied by making improvements or getting approval. That is the haunting thing about anxiety which Jesus promises to release us from. And so he gives us his Spirit to be for us the very nearness we yearn for, the ultimate antidote to anxious living.
And then Jesus asks us to believe him.
For those of us who like things complicated, this is almost too quick an answer. Just believe him? There has to be more. Just receive his love?
Well, there is more. (There is always more.)
That is simply where we must begin everyday because nothing else can really be done unless that comes first.
Believe him. Don't let your hearts be troubled.
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