Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Therefore, I say to you, don’t worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. There is more to life than food and more to the body than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither plant nor harvest, they have no silo or barn, yet God feeds them. You are worth so much more than birds! Who among you by worrying can add a single moment to your life? If you can’t do such a small thing, why worry about the rest? Notice how the lilies grow. They don’t wear themselves out with work, and they don’t spin cloth. But I say to you that even Solomon in all his splendor wasn’t dressed like one of these. If God dresses grass in the field so beautifully, even though it’s alive today and tomorrow it’s thrown into the furnace, how much more will God do for you, you people of weak faith! Don’t chase after what you will eat and what you will drink. Stop worrying. All the nations of the world long for these things. Your Father knows that you need them. Instead, desire his kingdom and these things will be given to you as well.

“Don’t be afraid, little flock, because your Father delights in giving you the kingdom.”

-Luke 12:22-32

 

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Though the month is almost over, it’s never too late to take a moment and notice the effect that mental illnesses have on us. As we do so, we can also reflect on how God acts in the midst of mental illness.

In its most recent complete data from 2022, the National Institute of Mental Health reported that 23.1% of U.S. adults experienced some mental illness in the previous year. By contrast, 2021 data report that 14.7% of U.S. adults have diabetes. Though mental illness is 63% more common than diabetes, you’d hardly know it by the way people talk about it. People account for diabetes. There are low- or no-sugar options for dessert. If someone asks for half a slice of cake with the explanation, “I’m diabetic,” we cheerfully accommodate them. 

Unfortunately, we don’t often extend the same gracious flexibility to mental illness. If someone says that their bipolar disorder is making it hard to get out of bed in the morning, do we reschedule our early meetings? If someone shares that their anxiety affects their participation in an event, do we make accommodations? If someone points out their depression as the reason they haven’t returned our calls, do we kindly let them off the hook? I hope the answers to these questions would always be yes, but often people receive judgment instead of understanding when they share their mental illness diagnosis.

This can be especially complicated in church, where we hear words like the ones from Jesus above. “Don’t worry” can feel like just another impossible expectation to a person with a persistent anxiety disorder. “You are worth so much more than birds!” might make someone with depression wonder if Jesus really meant them, too.

But there’s a funny little bit where Jesus calls the disciples “people of weak faith” (you might have read a translation that says “you of little faith”), right as he’s assuring them that God will do good things for them. It turns out that Jesus isn’t actually all that worried about how good we are at not worrying or how worthy we feel compared to birds and lilies. This isn’t a mental health to-do list from Jesus. It’s a promise: even when we worry, even when we feel worthless, even when we have the tiniest bit of faith: God’s delight is to give us everything, even the whole kingdom of heaven. The promise doesn’t ride on whether or not we get our act together or produce enough serotonin. 

The promise is simple: have no fear; don’t be afraid, little flock, because your Father delights in giving you the kingdom. Since God gives the kingdom and all its riches to us (that’s forgiveness, mercy, love, belonging, faith, to name a few), all of us, whatever our mental health might be at any moment, can rest in that promise. 

I invite you to reflect on God’s promises and how we can share them for the sake of nurturing mental health as you listen to this hymn, “Have No Fear, Little Flock.”