You are sitting there in worship, minding your own business, and what seems like an innocent psalm leaps off the page and stirs up trouble. I don’t expect trouble from the psalm! The makers of the lectionary pair it with a Gospel. It is more like an opener than the headliner.
During the second service yesterday, the psalm did its leaping, its words landing on my often overfunctioning self. Splat!
Psalm 127-1-2
Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord guards the city,
the guard keeps watch in vain.
It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil,
for he gives sleep to his beloved.
Overfunctioning is one of four relationship patterns. When a relationship with your family, a friend, workplace, or even the larger society becomes anxious or stressful, your response may be shaped by what you learned growing up:
- Over/Under-Functioning: You may take over the situation, appoint yourself to think or act on someone else’s behalf. Or step back and disengage, passively let someone else do the thinking or doing for you, even though you are capable.
- Distance: Keep your opinion to yourself, reduce contact with family, adopt an “ism” like workaholism or alcoholism. Or immerse yourself in a hobby.
- Conflict: Respond with criticism, blame, and perhaps even abusively put others down.
- Cut-Off: Avoid dealing with the stress and leave the family/friendship/workplace/society altogether, even though the stress tends to go with you.
Again, these are relationship patterns you rely on with people. And these are your patterns when there is stress at work, or when the nation in which you live is absolutely crazy. Here’s looking at you, America!
We rely on one of these four patterns to keep us steady. The patterns do not make you good or bad, they are simply the way you cope. The good news is that we tend to be consistent, Once you recognize your pattern, you can keep watch for it the next time a relationship with a person, workplace or nation amps up.
Overfunctioning is my go-to. In the psalm, I check all the overfunctioner boxes: laboring, guarding, eating the bread of anxious toil. The psalm leaped out at me because I had been overfunctioning in my work at church, not for the first time. I have eaten a plateful of anxious toil bread.
It happens when there is staff transition, when there are tasks that need to be done but the person who would do them is missing. (Every office seems ripe with transition these days, people coming and going; you may also be eating anxious toil bread.) The risk of overfunctioning increases for me because I’ve been there long enough to know what needs doing and maybe even how to do it.
These days, there is less overfunctioning and more handing off because we are belovedly fully staffed and I feel very excited for this team God has gathered. That might be why God added neon lights to the psalm yesterday. Instead of stirring up trouble, it stirred up curiosity. I notice that my diet of anxious toil bread has decreased.
It is easier to recognize your relationship pattern when you are on the other side of the stress.
I see it now, all that anxious toil bread, all that extra guarding and rising too early to labor. Now that I recognize the pattern, I’ll stir a verse from another psalm into the mix in hopes of recognizing the pattern the next time it emerges…because it will, as will your pattern, beloved human. Your pattern is your pattern, it does not define you. It is simply how you cope with the stress, not who you are.
In peace, I will lie | down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me | rest secure. (Psalm 4:8)
- What is your relationship pattern?
- Would you test your guess by visiting with someone who knows you well?
- Look back into the early pages of your life story. Did you learn that pattern growing up? Visiting with my cousins has helped me recognize my pattern. Mine is inherited. I am in good company!
- How might you keep watch for your pattern the next time you feel anxious?
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Lisa Lewton 