Doomscrolling (Third Sunday in Lent)
Sermons on YouTube…
Doomscrolling. It’s been a thing for a long time now. Doomscrolling is where you read one horrible story about a tragedy, a political outrage or a vile injustice, and then you see another one related to it, so you scroll down on your phone and read that one, too. And because you saw that one, your social media platform or your news feed suggests three other related stories or posts from your friends. And so you scroll down and read those, too.
Eventually, you realize you’ve not only scrolled down the newsfeed and social media posts, but you’ve descended down into the depths of despair! All you see around you is doom (hence the term “doomscrolling.”)
Now of course, it’s not like many of these tragedies, outrages and injustices aren’t real. They are. And often, they’re affecting us and the people we love. It’s not that we shouldn’t know or be concerned.
The real problem with doomscrolling, though, is that after a very short while, doomscrolling frequently causes us to:
- Focus only on the things we can’t fix, control, or do much about – whether I like a current political decision or not, I really can’t change it; and if people have died unjustly, I can’t bring them back from the dead…
- Become emotionally exhausted – when you read nothing but doom, you start to feel nothing but doom; and any energy you might have had to do something, no matter how small, to address a problem seems to have evaporated…
- Feel more and more alone – after all, if all of the people and institutions which are supposed to be able to fix problems can’t or won’t, it can feel more and more like you’re just a voice in the wilderness re-posting complaints about how bad things are…
Today, doomscrolling is becoming more and more enabled by AI and marketing cookies, which constantly direct more stories and posts about the doom we just read about towards us. And so it can seem like this is a problem that would all go away if we just stayed off social media. And indeed, there are many more of my Facebook friends this year who have pledged to stay off, or at least reduce the amount of time they spend on social media during Lent specifically to reduce “doomscrolling.”
That’s not a bad idea, but in fact, doomscrolling has been around for a long time. It just didn’t have the internet to help it along. In fact, it’s really what’s happening in today’s Gospel reading.
“At that time, there were some present” who say, “Oh my gosh, Jesus! Did you hear the latest moral and political outrage about Pontius Pilate and the Galileans he murdered in the Temple!” We have no record of this happening apart from this story in Luke’s Gospel, but apparently it was the headline of the day and because there were Galileans involved – and Jesus came from Galilee – folks figured they could really get a rise out of Jesus. Maybe he would stop what he was doing and join in the doomscrolling of how bad the Romans were, or how mistreated Galileans were, or how maybe there should be some kind of revolt.
But instead, Jesus refuses to doomscroll, but it’s not because he’s clueless to tyranny or injustice. In fact, he makes it clear he knows the headlines, too – there was that tower in Siloam that killed all those people because apparently the Judean building inspectors weren’t doing their job (or something like that – we don’t have any other record of that tragedy either.)
Jesus also doesn’t say these things aren’t tragic, or unjust or even unimportant. They are because they affect real people and real lives. But the problem with doomscrolling is that it doesn’t solve anything or help anyone. Indeed, it often makes things worse.
And so Jesus’ response to the invitation to doomscrolling is to begin to talk about “repentance”, which at first glance might not seem to make much sense. “Repentance” is often understood as meaning, “stop doing something bad”. Yet Jesus doesn’t specifically call for Pontius Pilate to “repent” (although clearly Pilate would be included!) Instead, Jesus called for all of his doomscrolling listeners to “repent.”
The thing is, the word “repent” really means “turn around” or “re-orient yourself.” And so in this context, “repentance” is a call to live in a new way, such that, instead of doomscrolling, you:
- Focus on yourself and what you can do to make a difference in the life of people around you – part of the problem with doomsrolling is that we’re tempted to simply sit around and complain about how bad somebody else is, or how terrible a tragedy was, instead of asking what we have the ability to do right now to make a positive difference even and especially if the world isn’t going the way we’d like … (this was as true for dealing with guys like Herod and Pontius Pilate as it is for dealing with political policies and politicians we might not like; it’s actually helpful when, instead of doomscrolling about how badly refugees have been treated that we take action to collect things to help them and to know where we can donate to help them pay rent…)
- Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by the latest portent of doom – things like murder and building collapses were always around in the first century, and so were things like earthquakes and signs in the heavens that people wanted to interpret as signs of the end. And every single time that happened, Jesus always told people to stand up and raise their heads and be about the work God was giving them to do. That is, as in this story, Jesus told people to take their eyes off their phones and look around to see what God was doing – and calling them to do – in the world around them, instead of stewing about the latest outrage or sign of doom; stewing about stuff just saps our energy and distracts us from positive things we could do around us and positive relationships we could build with others; and often, the moments when God most needs us to pay attention to the needs around us are those times when everybody else is being distracted by other stuff…
- Look for – and even expect – God’s help. At the end of the story, there’s this thing about the fig tree, which isn’t bearing fruit. But the thing about the fig tree is that it’s probably doing the best it can by itself. So the gardener realizes it needs help. It at least needs fertilizer and aeration. And possibly in the years before, the ground was fine, but the situation has changed. And the fig tree can’t do it by itself anymore. And the gardener represents the presence of Jesus helping us out. Part of the problem with doomscrolling is that we feel like we have to solve problems by our own strength and might. But Jesus’ words about the fig tree remind us that sometimes “repentance” means looking for and accepting God’s help to empower us to adapt to new situations, even and especially the situations we may not like. And even more, to look for God’s help to live in new ways that we really couldn’t even imagine by ourselves…
So whenever you’re tempted to doomscroll, try to resist the urge. And instead, remember Jesus’ call to focus on the gifts God has given you and how you can use them to make a difference in the lives of others. Remember to look for Jesus’ guidance to use those gifts instead of being consumed by the chaos in your newsfeed. And remember to always look for God’s help and strength, which is always digging around you to help you grow and adapt to whatever situation you find yourself in.
Amen.