Our
Savior’s Lutheran Church
Camdenton,
MO
Pentecost
Proper 14, Year C
especially in his resurrection appearances. Every time an angel appears to someone in the Bible…it’s the same story: “Fear not!”.... Shepherds, Mary, Joseph… It seems whatever the story of Jesus may be…birth, ministry, death, His coming again….The first word that needs to be spoken into the world is this: “Have no fear…fear not…do not be afraid.” A) Is that really the biggest problem with humans… that we are afraid? Are we constantly shaking in our boots and cowering in a corner? If so… no one would ever do anything daring…or heroic…or noble….or sacrificial. B) Jesus didn’t have to say: “Don’t be cowards”… that doesn’t seem to be our problem…but fear? Yeh…I think that is a problem. It’s not the run shrieking kind of fear…but it is that sort of diffuse…indescribable fear that is the part of the human condition. II. Now, you’ve all heard of phobias…almost irrational fears. Someone fears high places…so they never go out where they might see a tall building. When I was about 8, I remember a phobia I had as a result of having been ill with pneumonia. It had taken be so long to get well again, that I would leave the parts of the bread of my sandwiches lie which I had touched with my hands. I wasn’t going to take a chance on ingesting any bad germs again and risk going through that sickness ordeal again. Well, thank God…I grew out of that one. 2) A) People, however, do not outgrow their posture of fear toward life and the world…and it is this same kind of diffuse…irrational fear. We could have a terrorist attack at any moment. Someone might break into my home and steal my goods and injure my family. We might have war on more than one front in the near future. I could get a fatal diagnosis tomorrow. We don’t have any logical confirmation that these things will happen… But somewhere, down deep…we fear that they could happen! B) Jesus again talks about this anxiety in terms of the way people act it out. Last week, he talked about a man who tried to fend the “wolves” of destruction from the door by amassing all kinds of things to insulate himself against the threat of want. Jesus continues that theme in today’s story. He identifies our need to “protect” ourselves by latching on to things and possessions as an absence of faith… and encourages his hearers instead to make purses “that do not wear out” and fill them with treasures that do not rust or that are not subject to theft…Things that are riches stored up with God in an eternal Kingdom. III. So if fear is desperately trying to cover your backside against every danger and threat…then what is the alternative to fear that Jesus urges upon us? A) The lesson from the letter to the Hebrews is an extensive treatment of the idea of faith… but I do not think that faith is the opposite of fear…Luther wisely instructed that it is natural for humans to have faith… 3) faith is nothing more than to trust in something… and that which we trust ultimately to “save” us then becomes our God…whether health, or wealth, or politics…whatever we trust ultimately is our ultimate good. But, as we have so often seen… this often turns out to be a misplaced faith in impotent “gods”. When we feel out of control... we “grab” on to things that make us feel less anxious, or more in control. Some of these things do not help... they actually cause us harm. So, faith can be misplaced....it can sometimes feed our sense of insecurity and fear when betrayed. Arms will fail us...money can fail us...drugs and other self-medication will certainly fail us. No, I would rather say that “hope” is the thing which casts out fear. B) What is this hope…and how does it fit in? Remember where we began? “Have no fear, little flock…for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” Jesus says that fear need not have power over us…even when we feel fearful.. and why? “It is the Father’s pleasure to give us the Kingdom”. Jesus enjoins us to banish fear.. because we have the promise of our Father God that our destiny is safe in Him…now and into all realms of the future. God first gives us a promise…we put trust in Him, that His promises are true and not some cruel joke…and this trust, or faith, should we say…produces hope. 4) IV. The author of Hebrews uses many examples to spell out how this works. He talks about Abraham and Sarah…and how a son, Isaac, is finally given in fulfillment of God’s promises… yet, even though Abraham and Sarah have the gift of a son, they still do not have the land they were promised when they left Haran…in fact this promise remains unfulfilled in large part for two generations…and the patriarchs of God’s promises live in tents like resident aliens with no green card. Some might call this no hope at all. A) So, what does this tell us? In an instant gratification culture, it may tell us that God does not deliver quickly enough to hold his market share… but to Abraham and Sarah, who receive the promises of God, it was an opportunity to trust those promises, and to continue in hope that God’s good purposes for us are secure in God’s own good time. That is a tough kind of faith to have…and it is hope that has to look down the road a long way…and we might confess, yes, it is a hope that must hope against hope. There is never a resting place...and always an opportunity for worry and care to gobble up our hope. To be human seems to always be just facing trouble...or being in the middle of trouble...or just coming out of some trouble. B) It takes a lifetime…maybe more to get this hope/ faith thing right if we ever do. Methodist preacher William Willimon confessed as he reflected on today’s lessons that he was sure he 5) was not able to fully trust God’s promises. He felt his heart sink as so close to retirement, he watched his investment dollars evaporate in the roller coaster of what we today call the market. It is so hard to trust in God whom we do not see as clearly as a spreadsheet which we can definitely see and quantify. V. Perhaps we only realize how sure the promises of God are when we are going through the fires of testing. I would say that Willimon was running into a situation that betrayed some of the common idolatry to physical security that we all share…but when the chips are really down…then we seem to see that those big three that Paul spoke of: “faith, hope, and love” are really our anchors. A) I think a lot these days about my chaplaincy experiences with members in the hospital, at hospice, elsewhere. Maybe it is because I have recently been on the other side of the hospital bed myself…maybe it is because of my mother’s rapid decline as we have had to transition her to skilled care…but I have thought a lot about how faith, hope, and love are burnished in these places. A family from Memorial Lutheran Church, Nevada, Iowa, my second parish, had gone through the tragic loss of their 3 year old son just before I had become their pastor. It seems the little guy had gotten into some of his mother’s medication which had caused him to slip into a comatose state. He was revived, but had experienced enough oxygen deprivation that he would have to rebuild some of his brain function, including 6) breathing without a respirator. He actually had fought his way back.... But, one night in Methodist hospital in Des Moines, he pulled out the respirator tube. For some reason, the alarm did not sound, and so he slipped back into coma…all that therapy, progress…and hope….lost. On the last night of the little boy’s life, his father remembered looking out and seeing the lighted cross on the dome of 1st Methodist Church. He turned to his son’s bed and said: “Adam…you just rest with God and Jesus…and everything will be all right.” This angered his grieving wife who partly blamed herself for the boy’s condition. “How, she screamed,…”can everything be all right? How can you say that?” I’ll never forget her husband’s reply: “I can, because God said so…and I believe him.” It took some years for them to heal…well…you never heal completely…but they picked up their brittle marriage…they had another child…and they each year helped lead a retreat for middle school kids of our church on death, dying, loss, and hope. They told Adam’s story…and shared how faith is the assure of things hoped for…the conviction of things not seen. B) This last week, our children were here with us for a couple of days. There is not exactly trouble in the family...but just enough issues to keep us a little ill at ease around each other for a long period of time. Our daughter is making her way and trying to figure out the future... 7) It is sometimes difficult to reach my son who seems to my heartbreak to be off in his far country somewhere where I cannot really find him. We spent a significant amount of time with my mother who now barely recognizes these grown “water babies” whom she so lovingly tended every summer here at their lake place. How sad as frail humans to think of all we have lost...and to so fear the future! And yet, how wonderful to share the faith that God’s promises are true… that he has indeed in God’s own good pleasure given us the blessed Kingdom now and in the future, and that this faith and hope makes it possible for us to do what fear can never do…to truly see each other…truly reach out to each other…in love. Some people think that the marital bed is a place for great and deep expressions of God’s love embodied in humans….no, sometimes I think it is around the hospital bed, and other places of crisis, loss, or pain, that this otherworldly gift of love comes through. I saw a moment of recognition pass between the large goth-ringed hand that held the delicate hand of grandma... and her other hand that stroked gently the face of the hulking grandson. Love so amazing...so divine...casts out fretting and fear and brings us peace! So…no matter what comes…remember have no fear, little flock for in His good pleasure, the Father continues to give you the Kingdom! AMEN. |