‘Don’t Overthink It’

By Emily Bruce
UUAC First Parish at Sherborn
November 10, 2019

Reading – ‘Praise What Comes’ by Jeanne Lohmann

surprising as unplanned kisses, all you haven't deserved
of days and solitude, your body's immoderate good health
that lets you work in many kinds of weather.  Praise

talk with just about anyone.  And quiet intervals, books
that are your food and your hunger; nightfall and walks
before sleep.  Praising these for practice, perhaps

you will come at last to praise grief and the wrongs
you never intended.  At the end there may be no answers
and only a few very simple questions: did I love,

finish my task in the world?  Learn at least one
of the many names of God?  At the intersections,
the boundaries where one life began and another

ended, the jumping-off places between fear and
possibility, at the ragged edges of pain,
did I catch the smallest glimpse of the holy?

Sermon – ‘Don’t Overthink It’

Good morning! It’s lovely to see all of your faces and I’m glad you’re here with us. 

Our theme this month is Communion: The Practice of Simplicity. I have to say that I love the idea of simplicity, the idea that if you just move aside all the noise, there are basic facts and core truths to life. That there is a simple way of living, of seeing the world, a simple way of being.  

I’ll admit I often fall victim to the “if I could just [fill in the blank], my life would be so simple.” Anyone else? I dream of simplicity in my life, in my daily routines, even in my thoughts and beliefs about myself, about God and the world. 

But I am really good at overthinking things. Truly, I mean, I can whip up a frenzy of questions with even the simplest issue. I am that friend that is always putting the cart before the horse, analyzing problems before they are problems, trying to prepare for every eventuality before it happens, thinking all the thinking so I will know how to react, how to protect myself, or how to look smart. I never see the forest – only the millions and millions of trees. 

I guess I’m trying to think my way into safety which in many ways is a good thing. When you’re trying to drive safely and not get in a car accident, thinking ahead and being prepared is a good thing. But when you do that with everything, it’s really just a way of trying to control the world, isn’t it? Overthinking often feels oppressive and yet I find myself tangled up in it on a regular basis, as a weird way of trying to control my environment. Maybe that happens to you sometimes too. In our over-scheduled, busy and often frantic lives, we think we have to think of everything or chaos will take over, yes? How many times a day do you ask yourself “What am I forgetting? What else needs to happen today?” Or, my favorite, “Oh crap, what did I forget to do?” 

Well, this past week challenged my overthinking tendencies in surprising ways. I was part of the group that traveled to New Orleans for the service trip. It was a wonderful week - I got to be in my home city. I got to see my family. I got to do some good by helping rebuild a man’s home. It was, by and large, a wonderful experience and I’m so glad I got to do it. 

That said, the trip challenged me in ways I did not expect and I spent a considerable amount of time outside my comfort zone. I knew we were going down there to help repair someone’s home, but I didn’t really think through what that meant. Despite all of the overthinking that I am capable of, I think it’s safe to say, I “underthought” my way into this trip. 

Because, I wouldn’t describe myself as particularly good at working with my hands. Or working with a paintbrush. Or using a hammer. And one of my least favorite things is a ladder. I am not a fan of ladders, or trying to balance myself and other things when I’m on ladders. I’m also kinda lazy? I don’t really like manual labor. I get tired and bored easily. I don’t like having to stand and hold things. I’m a peach, I know. 

But I decided to tackle the week with gusto, telling myself that I was here to help, I could manage all of these things, that I could do good work. And I did! But I also dropped things, I splattered paint everywhere, I broke a big piece of siding right in half because I picked it up in the wrong way. I almost fell off a ladder many times – I mean many times. I took a lot of breaks. I sat down when I was tired of standing. My feet got sore, I got bruises and splinters. There were several times when I thought “Shouldn’t I be having more fun??”

I wish I could say I found a way to snap out of it. Instead the reverse happened and I started to get into my own head with all of that. I got discouraged, embarrassed, frustrated that I couldn’t do as well as everyone else. I worked my way into an overthinking tizzy, telling myself that maybe I didn’t belong there, that maybe I wasn’t strong enough or good enough to do this work. And I got really disheartened when I remembered that I would have to come home at the end of the week and somehow preach an inspiring sermon about this experience!

I didn’t share these frustrations with the others – because they were awesome and we were having a great time together. I really loved getting to know some people better, and sharing the experience with them. But also, I was the ministerial representative on the trip! I was there to support them and keep them going. This wasn’t supposed to be about me! And they all seemed to be having a great time, laughing and joking and not looking nearly as tired as I felt. I now know why all Nathan does on these trips is lean on things and drink beer. A tip for next time!

On the plane ride home, I realized how my overthinking really got in my way. Sure, I struggled with doing the work – but that didn’t mean I shouldn’t have gone, that I wasn’t helping. I knew I helped, and I got to spend a few days with some amazing people doing something Real that helped someone. That is simply the truth, no matter how much my overthinking tried to get in the way. And my only regret is that I didn’t allow myself to rest in that truth until it was over. 

This experience got me thinking about how much overthinking interferes with life. It really is true that things – some things – don’t have to be as complicated as we make them. There is an incredible amount of beauty to be found in simplicity, but we often don’t trust it. We think if it’s too easy to grasp, it must be false.  

For example, I spent much of my time in seminary completely overthinking my faith. I came into school knowing that I believed in God, but also that I didn’t believe in many of the creedal tenets of the Christian faith like the Virgin Birth, the resurrection, etc. I didn’t believe those things actually happened, so I thought that meant I couldn’t be Christian. But then I met other Christians who didn’t believe those things either and still called themselves Christians. This sent my mind into a whirlwind and I spent almost three years second-guessing and often third-guessing my own faith. 

I read all different kinds of theology, wrestling with this idea of what a Christian was, vs that idea. I thought I had to read it all in order to figure out what the capital T-Truth was, so that I could then create a theologically-sound framework to base my faith on. I really did think it had to be that complicated. I thought I had to have all the answers, before anyone asked me a single question. 

And then I was sitting in our chapel service one day, listening to someone read scripture. I was at a point much like the end of last week. I was tired, somewhat disheartened and discouraged. I was still wrestling with my faith but I didn’t feel like I was really getting anywhere. I was surrounded by people who seemed really sure of what they believed, and honestly, I was starting to question whether I really wanted to be a minister after all. I mean, if I couldn’t get my own faith right, how in the world would I help others with theirs?

The scripture reading in chapel that day was from the book of Micah in the Old Testament. Micah is one of the minor prophets I had studied in my Old Testament class, so I had heard this scripture before,… but something about the way the student was reading it drew me in. He finished on this passage in chapter 6, verse 8 which reads “…but what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” 

You know when you hear something profound, it can kind of just hang in your head, and you hear it over and over again? That passage hung in my head for days. “…but what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”

Was that really all that God required of me? Justice, kindness and humility? What about all the complex theology I’d spent months – no years, reading? What about all those papers I wrote, agonizing over every word? What about sin and salvation, repentance and resurrection? It couldn’t be as simple as justice and kindness…could it?

The answer to that question – or rather, my answer to that question is yes. Faith can be, and for me is as simple as doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with my God. My faith, as it stands today, is built around that simple truth.  

My favorite part is “...walk humbly with your God” because how UU is that? Your God. Whoever or whatever your God is. Maybe you don’t use God language – that’s okay. Whatever figure or concept you use to express that undefinable source and power – whether it’s love, community, Holy One, Goddess – use that. Use any of that.  Walk humbly with your Goddess, walk humbly with Love. How beautiful is the simple idea of walking humbly with love?

What’s more, this passage has really helped me knit together my Christian faith and my UU faith. My free and responsible search for meaning is built on an understanding of my calling to do justice and love kindness in this world. And my firm belief is that by doing so, I am walking alongside that which I call God. And that brings me to another simple truth of my faith: that I am not alone in this work. God is with me through every step I take.  

Now, does this one passage quiet all my overthinking about all of those theological questions? Of course not – Micah doesn’t answer to everything but it actually does something more important. It is a lighthouse for me when I get lost in overthinking. It’s a foundation for my ever-evolving faith – because I know when I get lost in the woods of my mind, I can come home to “doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with my God.” The beauty of that simple phrase does more to draw me close to the divine than anything else ever has. 

Thinking back to our trip last week in New Orleans, being actually good at the work didn’t matter. Being comfortable on a ladder or with holding a hammer was beside the point. What mattered was that I was there because I was trying to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with my God. What mattered was that I was living out my faith in the world. My prayer for all of you is that you might find your own Micah, your own simple expression of faith to guide you through the overthinking of life. In doing so, may you embrace the beauty waiting for you as you walk humbly with your love, your community, your God. May it be so, Amen.