ONE THURSDAY AFTERNOON IN NAIROBI, I went for a walk with my friend, Anselm. We strolled through the neighborhoods that surround the Benedictine monastery where he lives on our way to the market. You should know, it is impossible to go for a short walk with Anselm, and this afternoon proved no different. This particular day, we ran into a young woman who was once Anselm’s student. She had finished high school almost 5 years earlier, and she fondly remembered her time in his classroom. We stopped our walk to sit down and have tea where we laughed and told stories. She jokingly asked Anselm why the monastery hadn’t given him a car to make all of his errands and responsibilities easier. Anselm smiled and shook his head. He replied, “If I had a car, I wouldn’t have met you on the road today. I would have zoomed by without a glance.”
In my own life, I wonder how often I zoom by without a glance at the people I pass on the sidewalk or the subway. Even so, I don’t need to be in a car for me to pass so quickly that I don’t truly encounter the people around me. We live in a culture permeated by the need to do everything all at once. We need to accomplish, to achieve, to accumulate … and we need to do all of it right now. As the speed of life continues to increase, our days and our interactions are shaped by the anxiety it creates. Walter Brueggemann calls this the “anxiety system of Pharaoh.” He describes it as a way of life “defined by production and consumption and the endless pursuit of private well-being.” When we allow ourselves to be defined by what we have or what we accomplish, we diminish our ability to connect with others, with our truest selves, and with the God who created us. When we let anxiety rule the day, we submit ourselves to the violence of being pulled in too many directions.
There is a well-known study that was conducted at Princeton Theological Seminary over 40 years ago. The researchers, Darley and Batson, sought to examine how “helping behaviors” were influenced by engaging with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Basically, if students were asked to reflect on and give a presentation about the parable of the Good Samaritan, would they be more likely to help a stranger in need? What they discovered instead, however, was that the busyness of the students and their sense of being in a hurry had a much more pronounced affect on whether or not they even had the ability to notice someone else. Students who had been told they were running late quickly zoomed by without a glance.
Summer is traditionally a slower time of year, a time to rest in the presence of God and the company of people we love. As longer days stretch out before us, it is a time to be reminded that the speed and anxiety of our culture does not define who we are as human beings. Instead, the Heidelberg Catechism proclaims the good news that “I belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ” who would not succumb to the anxiety system of his time. In Christ, God offers us an alternative way of being that refuses to value human life based on productivity or accumulation. This new way of life slows us down; it proclaims that we are beloved, just as we are, and it invites us into a community of compassion, in the name of Jesus Christ.
LAUREN WHEELER SCHARSTEIN is the associate pastor for youth and families at The Presbyterian Church of Upper Montclair, New Jersey. A Columbia Seminary grad, she previously taught in Kenya with the PC(USA)’s Young Adult Volunteer program.