Stress.
Too little of it and we stop growing, we wither away.
Too much of it and it eventually destroys us, our bodies, our minds, our relationships.
We mostly hear about too much stress, high blood pressure, weight issues, anger, depression, addiction. Coping with stress. Reducing stress.
Many animals when under stress will kill and even eat their young.
Human families and human society find other ways to destroy the young when there is too much stress.
Imagine people complaining about not enough stress. “Oh I’m so unstressed, I just can’t take it anymore.” Sometimes we complain about boredom or monotony but these breed their own form of stress.
During Vacation Bible School the adults had a class as well and one night we listened to this fascinating lady, named Brene’ Brown. The talk is on line, look up Brene’ Brown the Power of Vulnerability.
Most of her talk was fascinating, and our class had great discussion. The therapists, the scientist, the theologians, the accountant all had interesting comments.
In that talk she said that we are, “The most in debt, obese, addicted and medicated adult (population) in U.S. History” and that we do this to numb all our anxiety and fear from being vulnerable to a dangerous and unpredictable world. We numb all the bad stuff, the disappointment, the grief, the shame and when we do this we also numb all the good stuff as well like joy, love, creativity, gratitude, happiness. And a vicious and descending cycle results.
She said we also numb the fear and anxiety of living in a confusing and dangerous world by making things uncertain become certain. We fabricate certainty because so much is uncertain. The result is that religion in America has gone from being about belief in faith and mystery to being about “I’m right. You’re wrong. Shut up.”
And politics has similar results, it is no longer about discourse, it’s about being right and certain and drowning out all the confusion of disagreement. We discharge our pain and discomfort with blame.
Her research shows that vulnerability issues are the core of our struggles with shame, fear and worthiness. No surprise there, but the interesting thing is the paradox that at the same time vulnerability is also the birthplace of joy and creativity, belonging and love.
Vulnerability. Where everything bad and good happens.
So how do we whole heartedly risk vulnerability in a confusing, complicated and dangerous world? How do we risk failure and love? How do we practice gratitude and joy? How can we be gentle and kind to one another and ourselves in a world that is brutal and cruel?
Jesus was stressed out. He said, “What stress I am under” until his baptism was completed.
Another way to translate it is “how I am utterly governed by completing my baptism.”
He was burning up. Impassioned. Impatient. Stressed.
Jesus’ baptism, that he was under stress to accomplish, is his passion, the cross, his suffering and death. He was all about one thing, the journey to the cross, and he was utterly governed by it. The suffering of the cross began long before the betrayal and arrest, long before the beating and the torture, long before the nails and punctured flesh.
It began even before the birth and ministry of Jesus.
The cross is what God is all about, the risk of love, the risk of vulnerability, risking and enduring suffering for being gentle and kind, for being vulnerable. Radical un-protected-ness.
Being baptized into the vulnerability and suffering of God, the whole hearted love of God that risks rejection and that is remaking and recreating a broken, stressed and numbed world.
Jesus said that this baptism will bring fire and division.
The ending of an old way of living with stress.
The beginning of a new way of living with stress.
Jesus is both the change and the invitation to this new kingdom that is taking over.
The vulnerability which risks love, which risks failure, which risks pain and rejection, from that vulnerable place everything good and beautiful is born and renewed.
It is into this vulnerable-ness of God that we have been baptized.
This is what belief and faith and mystery are all about.