Lectionary 12 June 22, 2014
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Jeremiah 20: 7-13 + Psalm 69: 7-10, 16-18 + Romans 6: 1b-11 Matthew 10: 24-39
Come Holy Spirit, renew the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in us the fire of your love. Amen.
FDR famously said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Of course, he couldn’t have known about the vampire that slept under my bed when I was about seven years old. Or of the countless other fears I would encounter in my life. Fear of big snakes, fear of bullies, fear of failure, fear of something happening to my children….well, it’s a bit of a long list.
Mark Ramseth, who was the President of Trinity Seminary when I was a student, often quoted Hebrews 10:31 to the seminary students: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Finally one day, a student responded: “you know, what we need is encouragement; we’ve got this fear thing pretty much down.”
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is preparing his followers to go out into the world. In the course of our reading he tells them three times not to be afraid. And in between that, he reminds them of all of the reasons their fears are justified. It wasn’t an easy thing to be a follower of Jesus; his persecutors were plentiful. To teach as Jesus taught, to heal as he healed, to serve as he served….all of these were grounds for punishment, imprisonment, even death. Still Jesus says, what you have to say, say it in the light….even shout it from the housetops. As further encouragement, I suppose, Jesus tells them that although they might die in service to the Gospel, they shouldn’t be afraid of those who could kill their bodies but not their souls. And, finally, by the way, he finishes, your work for the Kingdom will very likely mean that your family will despise you. The very people whom you count on and depend on to love you without condition will turn on you.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
In the Old Testament reading the prophet Jeremiah is having a few words with God, because, as it turns out being a prophet wasn’t any easier than it was to be a disciple. You see, Jeremiah had been sent to Judah to proclaim a message of violence and destruction. That was what he was to tell them…this was their fate if they didn’t turn back to God. But the people of Judah didn’t listen to Jeremiah! They laughed at him. They had him put in jail and beaten. After all, he was telling them to turn back or be destroyed and they were in the prime of their history! They were prosperous, they had a strong army, their economy was strong…life was good. Why listen to this crazy prophet claiming to bring a word from God? He became a laughing stock.
And Jeremiah had something to say to God about it. In fact, this is exactly what he said “I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, ‘Violence and destruction!’ For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long.”
When those earliest followers of Jesus determined that they would follow him, they knew that it would not be easy. And Jesus wanted them to remember that. And likely Jeremiah had some clue early on that the job of a prophet was hard. But for us, in 21st century America, the odds that we will be physically harmed for our faith, as Christians, are pretty slim. Oh certainly, religious based hate crimes still exist, but they are seldom carried out on Christians, so much as they are carried out by misguided folks claiming to be Christians.
So, what do we have to learn from our readings today about fear?
Because all of us live with fear. We are afraid of losing our jobs or our relationships or our health. Some people live in fear of other people, for reasons both good and bad. We are afraid of change or an inability to change. We are afraid of death or of never really living.
And if isn’t enough to hold fear of our own, we often manage to be afraid for others. We are afraid for our children or our friends. We are afraid for those we love whose lives get wound up in terrible habits that have the power to hurt them.
Some of the folks we meet here in our neighborhood are afraid too. They are afraid they won’t have enough food, or a place to sleep when the weather is rainy or cold. They are afraid that they can’t find good child care for their children so they can go to work. They are afraid that someone will take advantage of them because they don’t understand English very well. They are afraid that if they get sick they can’t afford to go to the doctor.
We are all afraid of something more than vampires under our beds, but most days it does not occur to us that we should be afraid to follow Jesus. Yet if Scripture is telling the truth, maybe we ought to re-think that.
When I was on internship my supervisor used get so frustrated with parents who would bring their children to be baptized with no intention of seeing to it that their lives were linked to a faith community. “Fire insurance” he called it. As though somehow the sacrament of baptism was a magic spell cast over their children to prevent them from harm. But Paul, writing to the church at Rome in our second reading today, reminds us that we were baptized into Christ’s death. Luther said that because of baptism we daily die to sin and self. Daily. That what we want, what we desire, what we think we need in order to not be afraid, is not important. What will ultimately give us new life is this daily dying.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Those early Jesus lovers believed enough to step out in faith in spite of their fear. Jesus wanted to name it for them, and even when he did, they went anyway. They built radical new communities of love that threatened the status quo. The Empire was not pleased. Their neighbors were not pleased. Even their families were not pleased. But what they knew was that the wide love of Christ would have the final word. No longer would rules and regulations and laws carry authority, but the voice of one who said Judge Not. Love one Another. Be my witnesses.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
In Matthew’s Gospel, what the believers need to remember when they are afraid is one simple thing. It’s not rhetoric to spout when they are dragged before their accusers. It’s not how to make a compelling case to their families or the friends who disagree with them or even to a government who might imprison them. What Matthew wants them to remember is how valuable they are to God and how much God loves them.
And that is the message for us as well. For some of us, even before we could speak or think for ourselves, water was poured over us and the sign of the cross was made upon our foreheads because God loved us first. Before we could love God back. Before we knew enough to be afraid. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But the love of God in Christ Jesus, poured out for us, means that we are never alone with our fears, they were carried to the cross, and on that cross they lost their power over us. And that is the Good news, the Gospel, for this and every day. Thanks be to God. Amen.