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Sunday "God's Good Pleasure" 1 Timothy 1:12-17 Luke 12:29-34 |
He was a young boy visiting on a farm. He started to go across the barnyard when there loomed up in front of him the biggest turkey gobbler ever seen. The turkey fanned out his tail and gobbled loudly as a challenge. The city boy froze, then turned and ran as fast as he could toward the house, with the gobbler chasing him like a demon. He got away, but it was a scary time. - - I can still remember it very clearly.
Are you ever afraid? Likely most of us would answer, “Sometimes, but not often.” Yet, whatever our attained age, all of us still have within that very small child we once were who felt helpless in the face of turkey gobblers, and was dependent upon the moods or whims of the adults in our lives. And that inner child grows up to tap into more sophisticated fears, such as fear of global warming, terrorist attacks, illness, or having enough money in our retirement years. Even worse, we can add the fear of God’s displeasure, saying to ourselves, “If I only had more faith, I wouldn’t be so afraid!”
But I’m here this morning to tell you that fear of God’s rejecting us for being afraid is unhealthy and it’s also poor religion. The reason I say this is found in one of my favorite scripture verses, part of today’s gospel lesson: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” In the Weymouth translation, the opening of this verse is, “Dismiss your fears, little flock.“ I like this wording because it tells us that we are in charge of our fears, as we would be in charge of an unsatisfactory employee, whom we could dismiss.
Of course, some fears are necessary and useful, such as fear of fire, electric shock, contagious disease, or a hurricane. Other fears just get in our way, and keep us from living to our fullest, such as fear of criticism or rejection, fear of taking a stand, or fear of change. These are fears to dismiss.
I’m sure we can agree that talking about dismissing our fear is far easier than doing it. If, as children, our parents or others scared us and used our fear to control us, or if we were shamed for certain behavior and feared being found out, then our fear has been built into our lives at a deep level. In a way, such fear can be seductive because it offers a familiar way to control ourselves and others, especially children. Hence we can learn to cling to our fears, which may seem like needed crutches. However, we can also take courage to face our fears and do what serves our best interest. In the case of the scary gobbler, Grandma Anderson said, “Don’t let that gobbler chase you. Pick up a stick and throw it at him.” Next time out, I did that, and it was the turkey who ran away.
Jesus gave us a helpful clue when he said, “Dismiss your fears LITTLE FLOCK.” Especially when we are alone and feel isolated from others, our fears can take over our minds and leave us feeling confused and stuck. But, when we are part of a flock, a covenant community, a group, or even a family, we can feel that we belong, and can take courage to deal with our fears. When sharing in a caring fellowship we are often amazed by how many fears and foibles we and others have in common, and we can learn the many ways others have found to cope. This is a major meaning of “The Church”. As a flock, a gathered community of persons who accept our kinship to every other person as a child of God, we can turn to one another for strength, can learn to take charge of our lives, and can dismiss our fears from the center of our living.
Yet, as valuable as our church community is, we aren’t limited to the help we receive from one another. Our basic help is from our God, whose pleasure it is to give us the Kingdom. Give??? What must I do to deserve it? --Ah - that word! Those of us who were taught fear and shame do, automatically it seems, believe that God’s gifts are rewards for our obedience. We may have learned as children that we won’t be accepted, or liked unless we please others, especially adults. And we tend to transfer this notion to our relationship with God, and God’s Spirit. But I believe God wants real love from us, not a pretend love based on our fear of punishment. While I was in seminary in Illinois, my roommate served a church in Indiana on weekends. His wife and son lived at the church, in a farm area. One Monday morning, as Prentice was leaving for school, his son asked him to bring him a horse when he returned. Prentice dutifully went to Woolworth’s during the week and bought a little wooden horse. The surprise came when he got home with the toy. His son took one look at the toy and rejected it, saying, “I didn’t want that kind of horse! I want a horse made out of HORSE!” And, I believe that God doesn’t want pretend love from us, but a love which is REAL!
Still, the idea that we must earn God’s love, and earn our own salvation, dies slowly. Maybe the truth that God’s grace is freely given to us is the scariest thing of all. We may say, cynically, “You don’t get something for nothing, and there is no free lunch.” But the fact is that life and civilization are full of something for nothing. Language, modern medicine, science and technology are all gifts to me that I didn’t earn. Even more, friendship, affection, love and caring are all gifts given freely, or they are nothing.
Just remember, God’s unconditional love means we are loved by God when we are destructive, hateful, uncommitted, or even when we are afraid to trust God. God also loves us too much to force God’s self upon us. Again, it is God’s pleasure to give us the Kingdom. It’s ours for the taking. I’m reminded of the story told by an elderly Methodist preacher about his first sermon when he started out in the ministry at a small rural church. After church he was invited to dinner at the farmhouse of a church family, which was really a part of his pay. The men sat around on the porch while the women set the dinner on the table. They were called to eat, and he said the blessing. But he noticed nobody passed him any food. He decided his sermon must have been worse than he had thought. Then he realized that everything on the table was his for the taking. He took his fork and speared a piece of chicken, he spooned himself some mashed potatoes and gravy, he took some green beans and some bread, and he thoroughly enjoyed all that was his for the taking.
Now some may question all this emphasis on God’s grace and God’s pleasure in giving us the Kingdom, and ask, “Isn’t this too Pollyanna? Doesn’t all this ignore God’s law and God’s judgment?” The answer is NO! Faith in God’s love is not weakening, but empowering. The story is told of Dr. Henry Kramer, a Protestant pastor in Holland during WW-II, under the Nazi occupation. His people said, “Dr. Kramer, tell us what to do.” He replied, “I’ll not tell you what to do. I’ll tell you who you are, and when you know who you are, you’ll know what to do.” And he read to them from I Peter 2:9, a verse which begins, “You are God’s chosen generation.” Knowing they were God’s, these people became the core of the resistance movement which saved the lives of many Jews by smuggling them out of the country.
You see, our fear can be like a skull and crossbones, or a large danger sign. As long as we are preoccupied with the warning, we can’t even notice anything else. We can’t notice our neighbor, let alone show God’s love to another person. It is in dismissing our fears because God loves us that we open ourselves to receiving God’s Kingdom and sharing God’s love. We can give our hearts and our love to God’s children because we have first opened our hearts to God, and to God’s Spirit within.
What are some ways we can show forth God’s love in this day, in our world, in our community? Let me mention a few, briefly.
On a national level, we can be among the 100,000 persons signing a UCC petition to be delivered to the White House to end the war in Iraq.
On an international level, I feel we MUST be informed and do our part as a church and denomination to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS. The UN Population Fund says, “Five million new HIV infections occur worldwide each year, 6,000 youths are infected daily - one every fourteen seconds.” I hope our social action committee, and our leaders, will check out the www.ucc.org/health/hivaids/ website, and help us as a congregation be prepared to do all we can to contribute our prayers and resources in this cause.
On a personal level, consider this list of ways we can show forth God’s love, as written by an unknown author:
Mend a quarrel. Search out a forgotten friend. Replace suspicion with trust. Write a love letter. Share some treasure. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Keep a promise. Find the time. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Listen. Apologize if you were wrong. Try to understand. Reject envy. Think first of someone else. Laugh a little more.
Deserve confidence. Decry complacency. Express your gratitude. Worship your God. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love. Speak it again. Speak it again. Speak it still once again.
May it be so for each one of us that we can take courage to face our fears, and dismiss them, in the strength we gain from one another, and because of the great hope that is ours in a God who loves us completely and freely. As someone has said, “Hope is to believe that God has not forgotten the recipe for manna.” May that hope be ours today.
