Sermon 020799,

"Proclaiming God In Fear and Trembling"

ISAIAH 58:1-12, I CORINTHIANS 2:12, MATTHEW 5:13-16

Last Wednesday, the front page of the Style Section of the Washington Post contained two articles that dramatized in stark contrast, the lives of two notable men. One article was an "appreciation" of philanthropist Paul Mellon who died last week at the age of ninety-one. The other was an update on the life of former presidential advisor and political strategist, the notorious Dick Morris.

Paul Mellon was the son of the fabulously wealthy financier Andrew W. Mellon. Paul Mellon could have lived the life of a rich playboy or devoted himself to amassing even more wealth in the style of his father. Paul Richard writes "Most rich Americans, then as now, saw it as their duty to grow richer. Mellon didn’t. When he found his inner compass, and abandoned thoughts of making more money, and said so to his father, he was 29 years old." After giving his father’s life in business a decent try, he sat down and wrote himself a letter.

‘The years of habit have encased me in a lump of ice, like the people in my dreams,’ he wrote. ‘When I get into any personal conversation with Father, I become congealed and afraid to speak.....Business. What does he really expect me to do, or to be? Does he want me to be a great financier...? The mass of accumulations, the responsibilities of great financial institutions, appall me. My mind is not attuned to it....I have some very important things to do still in my life, although I am not sure what they are...I want to do in the end things that I enjoy...What does he think life is for? Why is business...more important than the acceptance and digestion of ideas? Than the academic life, say, or the artistic? What does it really matter in the end what you do, as long as you are being true to yourself?"

So then Mellon moved from New York back to Virginia, raised horses, went to St. John’s in Annapolis and read the great books. He studied with Carl Jung. He befriended the mythologist Joseph Campbell. Washingtonians are acquainted with his fabled generosity to the arts, including the construction of the East Wing of the National Gallery and the donations of hundreds of paintings. Probably over his lifetime he gave away over a billion dollars. Here was a man who truly followed his bliss. If one is tempted to say that he could, after all, afford to, I would respond by saying, think how many people can afford to and don’t follow their bliss.

How did he do this? I think he did it by living with an attitude of fear and trembling before the invisible powers of life. In a sense, he never planned much, but just went for what felt right. He wrote: "Most of my decisions in every department of my life, whether philanthropy, business or human relations, and perhaps even racing and breeding, are the results of intuition....My father once described himself as a ‘slow thinker.’ It applies to me as well. The hunches or impulses that I act upon, whether good or bad, just seem to rise out of my head like one of those thought balloons in the comic strips." He was never a snob, his manners were impeccable, he joked easily and his eyes twinkled. His picture in the paper is of an elegant man, his hands lightly clasped together, smiling gently into the camera.

To the left of this article is a story entitled "Dick Morris, Burning His Bridges." The picture of Mr. Morris, itself is worth a thousand words. His expression is one of grim if slightly disheveled intensity. His eyes are piercing and feral. And his hands are extended before him like he is ready to pounce on some unsuspecting little animal and crush it, or maybe like he wants the whole world in his hands. The story is about his current vendetta against the Clintons. After riding high as the architect of the President’s mid-term political recovery, he fell in scandal and disgrace. Morris is now back as a political commentator. The article’s author writes "Morris’s finger in the eye approach is that of a political operative, not a journalist, since he often hurls charges without proof." Leon Panetta, Clinton’s former chief of staff, says "He is the consummate mutation of a political consultant. He’s a bright guy, lot of talents - but has this fundamental sense that almost everything is determined by the latest poll, as opposed to conscience...In his own way, he represents the dark side of politics." Maybe Mr. Morris is, in turn, following his bliss, but it seems more like the bliss of the Terminator.

Well, most, if not all I know is what I read in the papers, and I recognize that maybe this isn’t the whole story on either of these two men. But, for me, the contrast is really striking. One could almost say that what we are presented with is two styles of living, two ways of being in the world. How really do they differ?

The noted Shakespearean critic, Harold C. Goddard, makes an interesting distinction between "intellect" and "imagination." He writes:

Goddard is saying is that the intellect invents, while the imagination creates. I find that a fascinating distinction. We can live our lives, can we not, in one of two ways. We can devote ourselves to figuring out, calculating, analyzing, polling, marketing, strategizing, and so forth. All the fulfill the plan. Or, on the other hand, we can create our future, which is a process of discovery: listening, recognizing, responding. The first style is characterized by the struggle for mastery and control. The second style is characterized by letting go of control, experiencing our emptiness, our weakness, and appreciating what can come to us as a gift. When a person says "I am going to have to figure out what I want to have happen," that effort is doomed at the outset. How different that is from Paul Mellon saying at the age of 29 "I have some very important things to do still in my life, although I am not sure what they are...I want to do in the end things that I enjoy...What does it really matter in the end what you do, as long as you are being true to yourself?" In the first style of living, you try and seize life in an iron grip of control. In the second, you simply stand in awe of life’s mystery and power and ultimate goodness. And you trust your own bliss. You don’t try and figure out how to control the world. Instead, in the words of Jesus, you let your light shine. In Christian terms, you wait for Jesus. And he will come, even if he has to come walking on the water.

In the Epistle Lesson this morning, St. Paul talks about the time he first came to town in Corinth. And he is at pains to point out that his entry was anything but auspicious. He didn’t come there because polling data and focus group research pointed him in the direction of Greece. Paul didn’t hit the ground running, as they say. There was nothing about him, including his looks, his dress, his eloquence, his overall style, that carried any particular power or authority. Instead he says that "in weakness and in much fear and trembling" he proclaimed the very simple message of "Jesus Christ and him crucified." In other words the content of his message was the proclamation that Jesus, the man of Nazareth who was crucified, is the Risen Christ. Such was Paul’s weakness, such was his attitude of fear and trembling, that there can be no doubt that this message took hold in the hearts of the Corinthians, not by means of the gifts of the bearer of the message, but by its own power alone.

The biblical phrase, "fear and trembling" is a common one. One can be in fear and trembling before the dangers of this world. One can be in fear and trembling before earthly power, and one can be in fear and trembling before the majesty of God. The woman whom Jesus healed of her hemorrhaging then "came in fear and trembling and fell down before him..." in thankfulness. Paul is in fear and trembling before the power and mystery of the Gospel of the Risen Christ. We are not, incidentally, here talking about fear as immobilizing and terrifying, that is, fear as the opposite of faith. No, here we mean fear as the very understandable and even wonderful attitude of awe and respect before powers and mysteries that are unfathomable. Fear and trembling is really a daily way of living. Instead of King Canute arrogantly commanding the waves to cease, it is like a seasoned sailor’s perpetual awe before the mysteries of the boundless sea.

It is the fear and trembling we experience when we let go of control and live into the second lifestyle I tried to describe. The lifestyle of imagination and creativity. I am convinced that when people fail in life, at whatever level, but especially failures in leadership, it is nearly always not a failure of intellect or ability. It is more often a failure of the imagination. A failure in creativity.

Living the life of imagination and creativity, starts with letting go of control, and owning and accepting our weakness. There is wonderful authority and a special kind of power that comes when a person says they don’t have the answer. But accepting our weakness and letting go in fear and trembling, opens us up to hearing the answer. And it opens us up to each other in new ways.

The Rev. Tilden Edwards, the Executive Director of the Shalem Institute, writes of having his flight diverted from Atlanta to Greenville. Atlanta was shut-down because of a storm.

We could forget our connecting flight. The Atlanta airport, one of the busiest in the country, was shut down and the control tower had no idea when the storm would abate enough to let it re-open. I sensed the shock and anxiety on people’s faces. Everybody’s plans were out the window. This trip wasn’t going to be a mindless interlude on the way to somewhere else. What would happen in the hours ahead was out of anyone’s control.

It was so out of anyone’s control that eventually many people realized there was nothing to do but let go of their normal future-oriented plans and relax into the moment. You could hear people begin to talk to the strangers next to them. You could hear laughter. One person got up and led the whole plane in a rendition of "Row, Row, Row your boat," complete with body movements. The inability to be in control and carry out our predetermined plans left us more spontaneous, childlike and connected. I almost sensed an unconscious sigh of relief: we didn’t have to be in charge. We could just let the moment unfold spontaneously: we were free to play together.

People connected with one another in new ways. But such "blessed loss of control" also opens us up to God.

Gandhi once said that for the poor God needs to appear as bread. We could say that for the driven middle class, God needs to appear as disruption of plans, a disruption that opens the way for freedom from the moment-killing drive to control the future - freedom to appreciate the gift of the present moment. From that appreciated living moment the future unfolds more gracefully, more attuned to the gracious divine will than to our over-controlling plans, more aware of our mutual belonging in God, and in that awareness, more willing to share God’s bread with the poor.

The two ways of living I have described really present us each with a choice, each moment of our lives. It is a daily choice between life and death. Choose life, in fear and trembling, in all its stormy turmoil, and you may discover Jesus striding over the waves, and through the wind and rain to you. Amen.