Rev. Tom Warren

Sermon 2-28-10

“Whom Shall We Fear?”

Luke 13:31-35

 

Growing up in the midst of cold, central New York winters, there was always a point when you simply had to go back inside. No matter how much fun the sledding was or how great the skating was or how cool the snow forts were, sooner or later you just had to find some warmth. On Saturdays during the months of January, February, and March all of the kids in our neighborhood anxiously went inside, but not simply to get warmed up; not only to get some hot chocolate with those teeny weenie marshmallows in it; but all the kids in my neighborhood went inside on Saturdays in order to get scared.

 

Every Saturday at 1:00 pm on a tv channel emanating from that huge, scary metropolis of Syracuse, New York, came the weekly edition of Monster Movie Matinee. It was hosted by these two ghoulish looking fellows who would introduce the movie of the week with the usual creepy cackling and demonic laughter. For us kids, it was ritual time. Get the hot cocoa and snacks and get under that warm blanket - that was also good for covering the eyes - and sit down on the floor on that hip 1970's shag carpeting right next to the heat register so that your legs would burn a little in the midst of all that terror. In those days my buddies and I grew up with such wholesome images swimming around our brains: images such as Count Dracula and the Wolfman, the original Frankenstein, and of course the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I am still scared of him.

 

Monster Movie Matinee was scary, but it was fun scary. We knew most of the time, that these movies were not real but we enjoyed being scared. Fear was an adrenaline rush. Fear was a strong, yet temporary emotion; an emotion which we shared in the safe confines of our living rooms among friends. 

    

Now fear, as we all know, can be a healthy and appropriate response to certain situations. And we all live day in and day out with a certain level of fear. Fear can be a healthy motivator which moves us to get new tires put on our car. Fear might move us to finally go see the doctor about that nagging, yet subtle pain in our stomach. Fear can be appropriate, and as I read over the passage from Luke this morning I wondered what fear Jesus felt?

 

Certainly Jesus must have been a little bit fearful. His whole life and ministry is now moving toward Jerusalem and the Pharisees are warning him about Herods's intent to kill him. Jerusalem, Jesus obviously knows, is the place where prophets are killed and troublemakers of all sorts are stoned to death. The implication of the gospel is that Jesus sort of knows what's coming but he has got to go there. At this point fear could screw the whole thing up.  Jesus, the human one, could give in to his fear and he could stop listening to God because the fear could confuse him. Jesus, the divine one, could crumble in the face of his human emotion and in the process he could miss what God would intend for his life and for the world. Jesus, like us, I believe got scared.

 

In the March/April issue of Mother Jones magazine there is an article entitled “Age of Treason.” It's an article about a new group in America called the Oath Keepers. The Oath Keepers is a group, a growing group, of active and retired military personnel and police officers, who are preparing to take on the US government when it declares martial law. Founded last April by Yale-educated lawyer Stuart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers pledge  to protect the Constitution and more importantly, they pledge to disobey unconstitutional orders from what they view as an increasingly tyrannical government.

 

Reading through this article it becomes abundantly clear that the main organizing ingredient for the Oath Keepers and for many groups in our country today, on both the left and the right, is the powerful ingredient of fear. This is not Monster Movie Matinee fear but an irrational, almost paranoid fear; fear which clouds judgement. In his public speaking engagements, Stuart Rhodes’ rhetoric often includes this statement: "Do you want them,” meaning the government, “do you want them to kick down your door in body armour?” David Neiworths, an author and researcher who keeps tabs on the Oath Keepers, says that “statements like these have an unhinging effect on people who are already inclined toward violent action. It puts them in a state of mind of fearfulness and paranoia creating so much anger and hatred that eventually that stuff boils over.”

 

Now if the levels of fear in the Oath Keepers seems perhaps foreign to us or just an exceptional example of fear taking shape in a fringe group, think for a moment about all the video cameras that document our movements now throughout the American marketplace. Think about the home security industry that has taken off in the last 30 years in our country; think about the exponential growth of gated communities in America whose primary selling point is security. At this point in American history, fear is a critical component of our economy. Fear, today, informs everything from our foreign policy to our right to bear arms in restaurants.

 

And yet here we are, the church; the church which is called to go to Jerusalem and called to go to the neighbourhood; the church which is called to witness to the peace of Christ in the midst of a world which lives in bondage to the fear of Pharaoh. And one of the great gifts of our church, one of the great gifts of our community, one of the great gifts of Uplands is that we are not gated. Our neighborhoods are not gated, our church is not gated, our communion table is not gated. Everyone is welcome here. We don't retire here; we don't join the community church; we don't come to worship here because we are looking for some absolute physical or theological security. We retire here; we join here; we worship here because our faith in God and our faith in the community is so strong that fear never gets the upper hand.

 

As the Psalmist puts it this morning,

 

“The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?

 

Shall I be afraid of Jerusalem? Shall I be afraid of Washington? Shall I be afraid of Herod or Bush or Obama? Shall I be afraid of my neighborhood or my neighbor two doors down? Fear causes us to either stick our heads in the sand or organize against. Faith causes us to directly and honestly engage and dialogue with.

 

So as people of faith, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ, as people who live not in fear but are always tempted by its power, we go forward toward Jerusalem. We go forward knowing that in our lives there are forces allied against us. There are people and powers in the world that are hostile, but that is why we gather together.

 

When we gather together we realize that we are not alone. The body of Christ which we are a part of comes together for many reasons, one of which is simply to protect each other. We gather together to protect each other; to protect each other's dignity; to protect each other from the struggles that we are going thru and struggling with; to embrace one another in our suffering; to nurture one another and love one another unconditionally. We are not a fear-based community. We are not drawing into ourselves. We are building bridges to the community, reaching out to those who need our care and it is up to us to preserve and strengthen our community; to preserve and strengthen our community; to preserve and strengthen our values because our values are different and we can lose these values if we don't work intentionally to strengthen them.

 

It is a different set of values out there. In here we are doing something different. We are doing love. So let us keep the upper hand on fear. Let us keep the upper hand on fear so that it will never take hold in our midst and so that we as a body, as the body of Christ can affirm along with the Psalmist that we are not afraid. We are not afraid because we are God's people of faith.

 

Thanks be to God. Amen.