A Life Without Fear
Psalm 46
October 27, 2019
Rev. Elizabeth Mangham Lott
St .Charles Ave. Baptist Church

1 God is our refuge and strength,
    a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
    though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
3 though its waters roar and foam,
    though the mountains tremble with its tumult.Selah

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy habitation of the Most High.
5 God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
    God will help it when the morning dawns.
6 The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
    he utters his voice, the earth melts.
7 The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

8 Come, behold the works of the Lord;
    see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
    he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
    he burns the shields with fire.
10 “Be still, and know that I am God!
    I am exalted among the nations,
    I am exalted in the earth.”
11 The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah
- Psalm 46

I am learning to enjoy air travel. It hasn’t always been that way, but I’ve taken quite a number of trips over the past several years for trainings and professional gatherings. I am fortunate that this wonderful congregation supports my continuing education and need for collegial community with budgetary support for conference travel. As I have gone off on my own more and more, I have grown increasingly accustomed to navigating the complexities of airports and planes because I’ve had more opportunities to travel and because I have a great therapist.

There was a flight from Richmond to Atlanta years ago, before children, when the turbulence was so bad that the plan dropped and re-settled. I didn’t know if I could get back on the connecting flight form Atlanta to Mobile and spend the layover debating renting a car and driving the next six hours. Then I had a panic attack on a flight to California with Nathan three years ago. I didn’t know at the time that’s what it was. I’ve just said I was a nervous flyer. I would get increasingly panicked in the days leading up to a trip. On the California flight, the woman next to me gave me some kind of concoction of lavender and other essential oils to smell or rub into my skin. I don’t even really remember. I just remember gripping Nathan’s arm and knowing every part of my body wanted off of that plane. 

These moments escalated beyond flights, though, and I had another anxiety attack at Bayou Boogaloo a couple of years back. The crowd was too thick, and the area along Bayou St. John had been barricaded to make entrances and exits. Even now, I can feel the tightness in my chest as I recall the sensation of feeling trapped in that space. Thankfully, by then, someone had taught me to look up at the clouds and watch them move as I breathed deeply. I was beginning to develop strategies for these moments I still attributed to being jittery or nervous or high strung, though I knew it was more than that.

It was my therapist who worked with me to calmly and non-judgmentally own the language of generalized anxiety disorder. After many years of not wanting to accept medication as a way of life, I began to try a variety of things that address anxiety and panic. There’s a balance of finding the one that addresses the right symptoms with the fewest side effects, and then you begin to work with a doctor to get the dosage right. After four tries, I seemed to have found the right med at the right dosage with the most most obnoxious side effect being weight gain. But for much lower anxiety and only one notable panic attack that I can think of in the past 12 months, I’ll take it.

I share this not to make this a day to focus on me and my needs and my complicated brain or life story. I share this as a way to tell another truth about my life in hopes that you can also tell another truth about yours. Life is hard. And we are all carrying more than we usually let on. You are not alone in that, my friends.

Today’s psalm is older than our language around anxiety and panic disorders, but it’s not older than anxiety and panic. Scripture is overflowing with words of assurance: do not be afraid. Hundreds of ways of saying: fear not!

Be strong, do not fear, your God will come. (Isaiah 35:4)

Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid. (John 14:27)

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:9)

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:34)

But now, this is what the Lord says—he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.” (Isaiah 43:1)

These verses go on and on and one. There are so many beautiful, ancient words about fear and anxiety. 

That means humans across time and place have panicked. Fight, flight, or freeze has been an instinctive response in people since the beginning of human story. I find comfort in knowing I am not the only one in this room who experiences moments where my brain is telling my body to react in a way that does not match what is happening around me. I am definitely not the only one in our city or in our world. And humans across time have dealt with the complex reality of fear.

Whether you have experienced right-sized fear in a genuinely frightening situation or wrong-sized panic and anxiety in a less obviously frightening situation, having someone say to you, “Don’t be afraid,” can either be beautifully reassuring or totally unhelpful. “Calm down. Don’t panic,” is easier said than done. And sometimes it isn’t helpful at all, right? That’s why I love how many verses are paired with, “I am with you.” 

When the people of God are enslaved. When the people of God have been captured and taken into exile in Babylon. When the people of God are under oppressive Roman rule, the word comes through prophets and priests and rabbis and friends, “I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.” (Isaiah 41:13)

These words are not meant to be bullying commands, either. I know there is a pressure among a certain strain of Christianity that anxiety and depression and all other kinds of mental illnesses are somehow signs of weak faith. If you just believe enough, the fear will stop. If you just pray right, the sadness will go away. If you really, really believe God will heal you, then God will. Malarkey. Not only is that teaching utterly ridiculous, it’s downright dangerous. These words of sacred text are mantras and not medication. They are guides and strategies, not singular tools for rewiring the brain.

But they are good mantras, guides, and strategies, when we appreciate the scripture for what it is and allow it to companion us and not bully us. I am with you. I go before you. I will fight for you. I will strengthen you. You are mine. Do not fear. These are the words attributed to God across time and across texts.

Psalm 46 is my very favorite psalm. It is a beautiful word on stilling ourselves in awareness. The psalmist offers awareness of God’s presence and power as well as awareness of the ephemera of terrible and disastrous moments; even this will pass. 

We read this psalm in a jazz worship service sometime in the past year or two or three. A neighbor, part of our mardi gras congregation, wrote to me after and expressed concern that this psalm makes light of climate change and dangerously tells us to not act but to simply hope God will fix it. I was so discouraged that he heard these words of ancient hope in such a confusing, modern way. I wanted him to hear beauty and expansive love. I wanted him to sense the oxygen that fills my lungs when we read, “we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.”

Of course, I also don’t think these words are describing a literal phenomenon like climate change. Just as with Genesis 1 (the beautiful creation story), this isn’t science, this is poetry. And poets are notorious for their love of hyperbole. And this isn’t just any poem, it’s also a prophetic poem. “Come and see what the Lord has done…he makes wars cease to the ends of the earth.” That wasn’t literally truer then than it is now. This is doubling down on the goodness of God and the stubborn belief that the world will get better, with God’s help and our partnered work, despite all kinds of evidence to the contrary.

Maybe the earth is shaking. And it looks like the mountains may crumble. And yes, the waters are warming and rise. So nations are in an uproar, and it looks like the kingdom around us could fall at any moment. Don’t get lost in your worry about that stuff. Rise out of it and above it. Let the fear thoughts pass like floating clouds and remember that you are not alone.

Because God is with us. God is our refuge and strength. God will always help us when we are in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear.

And the last bit I love about this psalm is that it is about the collective and not the individual. As Brod Baggert reminded a group of us last Thursday night in his !QCommons talk, “There’s a whole lot more scripture directed at ‘y’all’ than at ‘you.’” 

I am not facing the reality of natural disaster alone. I am not facing the reality of national disaster alone. I am not facing the reality of wars or storms or any other reality alone. We are in this together. God is with us, and we are with each other. We will not fear. We will remind each other of what is truer than what appears to be falling apart. We will remind each other that feelings are not facts and hold space for one another when we get lost in anxiety. We will embrace and live the mantra, “Be still, and know that I am God,” not as permission to quit working for good in the world but as a gust of fresh air into our lungs and opportunity to slow down and reframe what we are seeing and experiencing. 

I get it. There is a lot that looks terrifying and bad out there. I am hyper-aware. I really am. And I want help repair it all and do it right now and make it better. I battle my own savior complex as well as my own stubborn optimism that we really can make the world a better place. But sometimes we also need the reminder that it’s more than okay to press pause so that we also remember: you do not have to take all of this work on by yourself, it is ours to do together, and ours to do together with God. You cannot repair in one lifetime what has been broken across millennia—wars and nations and even nature itself. That doesn’t mean we cease our efforts, but we still ourselves to regain perspective that we are part of a story much larger than ourselves and much longer than we can write. 

We hold these words as guide and promise: God is our refuge and strength. We will not fear. No matter what is going on around us, we remember God is with us and holds a space of gladness. No matter how bleak the world appears to be, God is at work making things right. 

Take a deep, deep breath. Exhale. Take another deep breath. Exhale again. Be still, friends. Be still and know that God is God. God is with us. God is our fortress. Together, you and me and God, we will take the next step and the next action and the next shift toward goodness. But right now, for this breath—we breathe in together and hold it, we release that breath slowly, and we give thanks for this stillness of this moment, the community of friends gathered here in this place, and the unchangeable God who whispers to us now just as to folks across the globe and thousands of years ago: Do not be afraid. I am with you. You are mine.

Amen.