What I love about the bible…is its honesty.  I don’t mean that the bible is literally true about all things at all times, but it is honest.  Honest regarding God’s truth and honest in regards to the human experience, honest about what we all encounter and feel.  Even so, I find that Christians can be less than realistic with their expectations of what Christian life should look like.

We have a tendency to think that Christians have to be nice all the time.  That bad things won’t happen to us if we have faith.  That prayers will cure all ills and that a faith that moves mountains will make you happy, healthy and successful.

But life we know isn’t like that…nor I’m happy to say is the bible.  Yes, we read of miracles and of prayers that cure…of happy, joy filled people and lives that are full of mission and ministry bringing peace and prosperity.  However, we also read of grief, depression and people that are at the end of their rope.  

This week we are looking at the stewardship of our physical and mental wellbeing.

On of the things that COVID also brought into sharp relief the importance of talking and dealing with mental health and a new openness to speaking of our struggles.  Isolation and grief ran rampant with that plague and many of us were forced to live with demons we had avoided for a lifetime.  Now, post COVID we face physical and medical slowdowns, financial crises, insane inflation, war and climate change that has the world crashing down around us.

It is enough, more than enough to test the faith of anyone.

Yet many of us have got it into our minds that a good Christian shouldn’t question God or even doubt.  That if we believe in God, that our faith should be enough to keep us from fear and worry.  That the hope we have in Christ means that we should never be without joy let alone get depressed or suffer mental illness. 

This is doubly true for our spiritual leaders, right?  Clergy, bishops, we assume have a special and superior relationship with God and their faith is never shaken, their relationship with God infallible and unassailable!  Clergy no matter their rank have their struggles, the stresses and the pressure to hide imperfections often emerge in unhealthy ways, alcoholism seems especially common, but we can think of many others. 

However, when we read scripture, it is clear that even great faith doesn’t guarantee a life without struggle.  The struggling with faith and with health is real and it is there in scripture plain as day and deep as night.  The bible lays bare spiritual heroes not only in their triumph but in the truth of their challenges as well.

King Saul and King Nebuchadnezzar both had bouts of mental illness, Jesus knew grief and wept at the death of Lazarus, and the Psalmist, traditionally assumed to be the mighty King David…certainly knew the depths of mental darkness.   As is clear from Ps 88

O Lord, God of my salvation,   …

… my soul is full of troubles,…

But I, O Lord, cry out to you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
O Lord, why do you cast me off?
Why do you hide your face from me?

…

You have caused friend and neighbour to shun me;
my companions are in darkness.

 

Most psalms we know end in hope, but psalm 88 ends in darkness.  There is no apology and no shame. The psalmist freely acknowledges what they feel and their frustration at God’s lack of intervention.  They know how they feel, they acknowledge it and articulate it.  It is their truth, full of darkness and full of faith.

Yet, even when frustrated and depressed, even when the psalmist knows how isolated from God they feel, they still addresses the psalm to the God of my salvation. 

Speaking aloud how frustrated or betrayed you feel by God, is not the same as abandoning faith.  Rather knowing how you feel and still being faithful is a great sign of faith and courage.

Because as we know, as we experience, being faithful doesn’t mean being without pain or suffering…rather being faithful defines how we deal with our suffering.   

Stewardship means knowing what you have, good, bad and indifferent and making the best of it.   That goes as much for our health as our time or our finances.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.

I do not give to you as the world gives.

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

 

We are not promised ease of life, but a peace filled life…but not as the world gives.  The peace Christ speaks of is not a lack of trouble or difficulty, but the possibility of a life at peace within itself…which give us the courage to hope and not let our hearts be troubled regardless of what we experience.

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.  Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

 

One of the things that I have found in the midst my depression is that my soul feels heavy…too heavy to do anything but despair and turn against itself .  Prayers don’t come, hope seems to have disappeared, God seems far off and in this mental darkness it may feel that God has left me for dead.   Yet, this is where good stewardship comes in. 

In acknowledging your brokenness you can rely on others to carry you and your faith, when you haven’t the strength to do so.

  “that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. “ it is one of the more beautiful and comforting words of scripture.

In the midst of poor mental health you often feel you ought to pray, but cannot manage or bear to do so… that’s where one of the benefits of being an Anglican comes to light.  We have a prayer book, two prayer books…full of prayers written for you…so that when you have no words the wider community can pray for you. 

Even the prayer books know that the most faithful of people suffer grief, anxiety and poor mental health and provide prayers for just such occasion.  And if finding your prayer book is too much at the time…we find reassurance that when we don’t know how to pray, as we ought to…the very Spirit of God interceded on our behalf…with sighs too deep for words.  We are not alone.  We are never alone.

Which is something that too often is felt in times of mental distress…isolation, loneliness and for many a misguided sense that you simply need to work harder, get busier and pull up your bootstraps.  It simply isn’t so. 

All the activity simply avoids the truth of how you feel and doesn’t allow you to deal with the truth of the situation, and repression too often come out anyway in anger, in addiction or self harm.  It is biblically and spiritually sound to feel simply awful and it is ok to ask for help.

Moses was the leader of the people of Israel in a very stressful time.  The had just left Egypt, life had changed overnight and the people were all over the place.  Moses personally had confronted and cursed the place he had grown up…he went from a prince, to a murderer to a shepherd, to leader in exile. 

He had a direct communication with God and still felt very isolated despite that relationship.  The stress, the grief, the fear and the anxiety Moses must have felt would have been crippling.  Yet, we read of his incredible busy-ness…

The next day Moses sat as judge for the people, while the people stood around him from morning until evening. 14When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, ‘…Why do you sit alone, while all the people stand around you from morning until evening?’ 15Moses said to his father-in-law, ‘Because the people come to me … and I decide between one person and another, and I make known to them the statutes and instructions of God.’ 17Moses’ father-in-law said to him, ‘What you are doing is not good. 18You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. 19Now listen to me. I will give you counsel, and God be with you! …You should also look for able men among all the people, … 22Let them sit as judges for the people at all times; let them bring every important case to you, but decide every minor case themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. Ex 18:13-22

 

Moses was trying to do it all alone…and it was not good.   We all need help and being aware of our self, our feelings, our faults and failings, our needs… doesn’t make us weak, but rather is good stewardship of our mental health.  It allows us to takes stock of where we need support and share the burden with others, so that all may thrive. 

Moses father in law, Jethro, observed a great truth and failing of church leadership…that erroneous sense that your calling is yours alone.  The wise Jethro tells Moses ‘you will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you.’  Being good stewards of our mental health benefits the whole community.

In fact, as the bible truthfully tells us, our burdens are meant to be shared.

Each of us will encounter an occasional or extended bout of poor health, physically or mentally, either from circumstance, accident or predisposition.  We each have our dark nights of the soul, as they were called by St John of Cross, times of spiritual desolation times when we simply cannot make it alone.  That is when we need to be aware of our selves, aware of our needs and aware of our need for each other.

In my office there are framed quotations meant to inspire and remind me of how I should lives.  One of them is a quote from 1 Kings at a time when the Prophet Elijah was under an extraordinary amount of stress.  He ran away, and when he reached a bush in the wilderness he simply gave up.  It reads…

“I’ve had enough, O Lord…Then Elijah lay down under the bush and slept.  After a time an angel came with hot bread and fresh water, “get up and eat”.  Elijah ate and drank, then lay down again.”         

           

            I keep it there as a reminder to me that if I need rest, it is not a failure.  That if I have had enough, it is ok to stop. Eat. Drink. Nap. Repeat.  It is biblical to be afraid.  To fall.  To give up.  To rest and eat and try again.  It is leaders like Moses, David, Elijah, and Christ himself that set us examples of taking time apart to care for our physical and mental health.

            To be good stewards of the bodies God has given us, mind body and soul.  Stewardship is a responsibility of care of all that has been entrusted to us, not just others, but often more challenging of ourselves as well.

 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.    Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 

 

My favorite psalm 139…reminds us that no matter what those nasty inner voices may say…we are wonderfully made…mind, body and soul, and God wants us to care for us too with all the love and forgiveness we can muster.

After all if we are to love others, as we love ourselves, then we must be good stewards of ourselves as well. amen