Sermon June 21 2009

Sermon June 21 2009
1 Samuel 17:32-49
Psalm 9:9-20
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
Mark 4:35-41
“Protect and Save—Enduring in Love”
She called in the middle of the night—afraid and desperate. In her desperation and fear, she threatened to kill herself. I didn’t really know what to do, but since this wasn’t the first such phone call I’d gotten from her, I had gotten advice from someone more experienced who had said, “Make a deal. Make her promise to wait until morning. Maker her promise to wait for something—anything—so that this moment in time will have passed.”

Fear of the pain that she felt every day motivated her to take her life. Love of life—innate to humanity motivated her to call me first. Fear that I wasn’t the answer to her problems—true—made her continue to bargain with me. Some kind of affection made her keep her word until morning.

But I believe that she also feared loss of my friendship and she used threats of suicide to manipulate my friendship, too. I truly think that she wanted to be my friend—to love me in that friendship, but life’s circumstances and her mental health didn’t allow her to love authentically.

And when love is corrupted by fear, bad things happen—at least in my experience.

Poet, philosopher and cartoonist Michael Leunig wrote that:
There are only two feelings. Love and fear.
There are only two languages. Love and fear.
There are only two activities. Love and fear.
There are only
two motives, two procedures,
two frameworks, two results. Love and fear.
Love and fear.

Though I read this poem only this week—the more I experience people, the more truth I hear in its words. Love and fear are behind it almost all of the decisions we make.

When the Philistine Goliath walked onto the battlefield—he was there to promote the fear of the Israelites, and it seemed to be working. Or that’s the impression I’ve always had of this story. He shouted and insulted them, his size intimidated them. They were so effected by his actions that they did nothing in the face of his bluster. The bible says, “they were dismayed and greatly afraid.”

David, in his characteristic way, enthusiastically and—Saul argued—foolishly, decided he was the champion that God wanted. As a battle hardened shepherd, he wanted to take on the warrior himself. He took his inferior weapon, his inadequate and in reality nonexistent armor depended upon God to defend him—as he believed God had always done before. Saul was willing to let him because he was the only choice. He was motivated by his love for God and his belief that God loved him.

The reaction of the rest of Israel—as told by the writer of 1 Samuel—came out of fear. They worried, “dismayed,” and they were paralyzed. David’s interpretation was that their hearts were failing. To me—that’s a good definition of fear, failing hearts. Courage comes from the Latin for heart—so its opposite is lack of heart—it’s discouragement or fear. Lack of fear is love. Lack of love is fear.

I wonder if these two are a good way of describing opposing forces in the world—some are largely motivated by love; some are essentially motivated by fear. In the geopolitical world, those governed by unstable leadership without any real authority, who may use their volatile power to abuse rather than govern are full of people who live in fear. The authority of their leadership is corrupt or unreliable—so crime may be rampant. The authority of their leadership comes from the ability to threaten, torture or abuse those who disagree, so fear motivates adherence to law instead of a belief in God’s influence in a stable society and culture.

We can look around the world and see large nation states where the existence and results of love and fear are very clearly lived. And in most countries there is a combination of love and fear in the daily existence of its citizens—love of that particular culture and society may motivate somewhat and fear, too, of legal authority. In stable places and times, when concern of people for one another and the desire that all succeed and self-interest is in control then love is behind our actions.

We are also moved and provoked by love and fear in our individual lives—perhaps more so. We often behave toward one another because of love and fear. Our relationships with one another as human beings are certainly influenced by love and fear—as are our individual and communal relationships with God.

In our relationships with one another fear and love interact to guide us—from moment to moment we are moved by one or the other, but hopefully we have learned that we live in God’s love and really have no need to be ruled by fear. But what do we do when the people and events around us seem to be changing rapidly and we feel a lot of fear?

The letter we know as 2 Corinthians expresses the thoughts and feelings of early Christians who were surrounded by difficult personal and community situations. The world of the time was much different from the one we know. They had reason to fear their rulers because many were not protected by the laws of Rome, but were often persecuted by them. Many were slaves within that system and others—by serving Christ—were ostracized. They did not participate in some of the expected civic ceremonies because most were centered on worship of the Roman Republic in the form of the emperor and the gods that represented the values of that state.

These Christians lived hard lives described as afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger and they endured by sticking to the principles—the ethic—that guided their lives as God’s children: purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God. They were obvious not enduring because they were afraid and hid their principles—they did not act out of fear, but with genuine love, as they say.

They understood that the love of God was not expressed by the majority response to their identity as believers in Christ—that the hard times were not an indication that they should be something other than Christian, but that they endured the hard times through the love and salvation that God had already given them in those days and nights of hardship, pain and violence.

The Corinthians needed assurance that despite the hardships of the leaders who wrote to them—those leaders were still responding to them in love and not fear. They were encouraged to lived out of the love that they had as a gift of God and revealed to them in these leaders who wrote these words to them.

The Corinthian church was a group of people on the edge of learning how to be followers of Jesus. They were being led from a distance by a group of men and women who were learning about being disciples and teaching others all at the same time—as all Christians are called to do. The letters that their founders and leaders wrote were to reveal that despite pain and hardship, the love of God remained. The founders and leaders wrote that the love of God and the fruits of the Spirit that God gave them would carry them through. They had to be reassured that God had already saved them—the day they walked into God’s open arms; they simply needed to remember that love and not be ruled by the fear. They would endure through love—not by fighting or hiding or running in fear. They would endure because they remained with God—and their survival was not a matter of God’s presence or absence.

In our daily walk as disciples of Jesus Christ, we are probably not called to face the exact kinds of hardship that those early believers did—but we do face difficult times when what we rely on is changing. Sometimes those changes are good—but any kind of change may inspire fear in us. But it is important, when we face those changes that we don’t act out of the fear, but realize that love is more powerful in our lives.

Sometimes the changes that we face have nothing to do with a challenge to our faith—but the responses that we make to those changes will be the difference between revealing the love in our lives and showing how much fear rules us.

As Jesus walked among the disciples, he taught them about God in very different ways than they had been taught by others. As the disciples were in the boat with Jesus in the gospel lesson, they had learned that God wanted wholeness in the lives of those persecuted by sickness and fear because Jesus healed the sick and exorcised those plagued by spiritual and mental diseases. They had learned through Jesus’ teachings about the God’s household or kingdom through parables of reassurance—mustard seeds—for example, what looks insignificant is the most important. The light of the world cannot be denied or hidden. God’s kingdom grew without force of humanity—and would thrive beyond those who simple wanted the power and control of the law without the mercy and compassion that God had always offered human beings.

This day, the day of the story in the gospel, the disciples had to face the power of God that was in Jesus. As the wind whipped around and the waves rocked the boat, they wondered if they were going to die. They wondered if God really loved them. They were afraid and wondered if Jesus really cared because he was sleeping in this horrible time. They wanted commiseration, I guess, but what they got was the power of God in the voice of Jesus. And that was a little scary, too.

But in this moment, the power of God and the love of the household of God came together. They still had a long journey of discovery and discipleship before they were ready to reveal God in Jesus Christ—eventually that would happen. They had to hold onto the love that Jesus brought them. They couldn’t stand on the fear of the changes that Jesus was bringing into their lives. If they wanted what Jesus had to offer, they couldn’t run from all that Jesus said and did. They had to act out of the love of God that Jesus offered them in the kingdom of God. They had to learn not to act out of the fear that God was about punishment, not about justice.

When fear runs our lives, we tend to hate the things that make us fearful. When we fear change, we hate those who change or offer change. We may even hate what we perceive as change—we fear the implications of changes in others. We may even think we hate the person who changes for the good, because it makes us change our relationship with that person.

Jesus inspired love in those who followed him—but in this moment in the gospel of Mark, the disciples had to decide who it was that they were following and what it meant? Were they guided by fear—hating the changes that Jesus brought? Or were they guided by love—realizing that Jesus revealed God’s love for them?

What is your choice?