Be and Be Not Afraid November 19, 2017

Matthew 25: 14-30 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 24th Sunday after Pentecost Reverend Deb Davis, First Congregational UCC

The American singer and songwriter Tracy Chapman ... probably best known for her song “Give Me One Reason” ... included a song in her 2005 album “Where You Live” ... that includes the lyrics on our bulletin cover this morning ... the words “Be and be not afraid.” The song goes, “Be and be not afraid. Be and be not afraid ... to reach for heaven.”

Now of course ... as far as we know ... Jesus never said those exact words ...... but I wonder if he might have said them ... I wonder if he sort of did say them ... in this parable he tells this morning.

Here he is in this 25th chapter of Matthew’s gospel ... just days from his own death ... a death which he almost certainly knew was going to happen if he remained in Jerusalem ... and he is talking to his disciples knowing his time is short.

And he chooses to tell them this parable about talents ... a unit of money in first century Palestine. It was a very large amount of money ... millions we might say now. So it’s a parable about a man who goes on a journey ... and leaves his servants in charge of a whole lot of money.

Now the man eventually returns to see what the servants have done with his money. He is very happy with the first two ... they did great because they increased his money ... while the third servant not so much.

The text tells us the third servant was afraid ... and so he buried the money ... which makes the man angry ... so angry that he has this worthless servant thrown into the outer darkness where ... as the author of Matthew’s gospel is so fond of saying ... there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Now biblical scholars don’t agree on what this parable is about ... they have various thoughts on what Jesus meant when he told it. Is it a story about the wise use of gifts God has given us? Perhaps. Is it a story about God’s generosity? Maybe. Is it a story told against the rich getting richer ... with that third servant’s decision a stick in the spoke of the wheel of capitalism? Knowing Jesus ... that could certainly be as well. All of these scenarios make sense ... all our possibilities.

But I have to wonder ... if these are some of Jesus’ last words to his friends ... to those he hoped would carry on his message after his death ... if he knows time is short ... maybe we should look more closely at that third servant ... look more closely when he says he is afraid ... that he was afraid to take any kind of risk with the money he was given ... maybe we should take a look at the way his life was ruled by fear.

Because after all ... Jesus talked about fear a lot throughout the gospels. Recall that he said: “Perfect love casts out fear” … He spoke to his disciples when they were faced with persecution and said … “Do not fear them.” And it was Jesus’ ongoing conflict with the religious leaders of his day … their fear of change and the new thing God was doing in their midst.

Fear is expressed as a major problem in the New Testament from the beginning … that’s why all those Christmas angels … appearing to shepherds in their fields and to Mary in her room … said, “Fear not.” Fear it would seem … was right up there with greed … when it came to getting in the way of what Jesus was trying to do … when it comes to getting in the way of the world God’s wants to create.

So what if Jesus was trying to make a point about that ... what if he was saying with this parable ... Be and be not afraid.... Be and be not afraid ... to reach for heaven?

So let’s consider for a moment ... what fear does to us. How fear can keep us so very small that we go into hiding ... never believing we have very much to offer the world. Our fear keeps us from living a faithful life. The ancients called it sloth ... one of the seven deadly sins.

Fear can also paralyze us ... and keep us from taking action. We are good at knowing all the right things to do ... but we just never do them. We forego doing good ... and giving of our time ... and loving others. As the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “The sin of respectable people is running from responsibility.”

Fear also takes away our choices and our power ... so that we begin to forge our own chains ... chains that keep us forever locked up and stuck in the same place. Fear keeps us from doing the healing work we need to do ... when we fear touching those raw places in our souls ... because it will hurt too much. And so we are not authentic people ... not in our relationship with God or our neighbor.

And perhaps the worst fear of all ... is that fear that keeps us from knowing the living God ... because we have come to understand the God of goodness and compassion and love ... as a God of vengeance and wrath and judgement instead.

I hadn’t been here very long when I preached a sermon where I said I did not believe in hell ... if hell is defined as a place we go when we die where there is eternal damnation ... in other words ... we are separated from God forever.

And a woman came up to me after the sermon and asked me, “If there is no hell, why be good?” Her fear of God’s judgment ... it seems ... was the only thing bringing her to church. There was no joy ... no gratitude ... just fear.

Let me be clear this morning ... there is judgement in God ... God expects certain things of us ... and so God’s judgement and grace have to be held together ... because taken alone ... either one can become distorted.

But I don’t believe anything can separate us from God’s love forever ... I don’t believe the door to heaven ever closes on anyone ... and it breaks my heart that people live ... and die ... so afraid ... instead of knowing that their lives are held in God’s eternal love.

In my sermon two weeks ago ... I talked about the burdens the church has laid on the shoulders of many people ... and this fear of God has to be one of the worst burdens the church has ever come up with ... giving people a misconception about God ... as a means of control ... or as a way to have power over people’s lives.

And so when we have a conversation with someone who says they don’t believe in God ... it is essential that we ask them to tell us about the God they don’t believe in ... as the late biblical scholar Marcus Borg urged us to do.

Because very often we discover that the God they don’t believe in ... is a God we don’t believe in either ... we discover that they have never heard of the still-speaking God of love and radical inclusion that offers us grace upon grace ... that God we know through the life and teachings of Jesus.

And if that was the God you believed in ... a God that arranged your life and was the cause of every bad thing that happened to you ... and then judged you with a desire for vengeance ... if that was the God you had been taught to believe in ...... would you believe in that God?

I doubt if many of us would.

Today we start our Stewardship effort ... where for three weeks we will talk about the money that is needed to continue the ministries of our church for the coming year ... and that’s an important part of stewardship in the church.

But what if we as church have an even more important stewardship effort we need to be about? What is the greatest treasure we have been given to steward in our life together? Surely it is this relationship with the living God we know through Jesus ... this God Jesus called Abba ... papa ... surely it is that good news.

Friends ... people are literally dying because they do not know that God ... because their churches ... supported by a very loud segment of our society ... has burdened them with a wrathful God ... to the point that they have given up on God and God’s presence with them ... their hope has run out.

We need to remember ... so we can tell them ... that the God we know through Jesus seeks and saves the lost ... defends the widow and the orphans ... welcomes strangers ... puts right the wrongdoings of others ... cares like a mother hen ... lifts people up on eagles’ wings ... holds tenderly in the palm of the hand ... and is a shepherd who loves the sheep and knows each one by name.

Our faith is not about creating a personal comfort zone ... it is not about playing it safe by burying what we have been given and cowering in fear ... rather Jesus may well be challenging us this morning to be risk-takers ... because even if we fail ... it is better than refusing to try.

Maybe Jesus is saying ... one last time this morning ... be not afraid ... faith and ministry are all about taking risks ... all about imagining new possibilities ... all about going for it ... all about living fully ... all about investing all of who we are in what is most important.

We are called to take risks for the gospel ... we are called to be good stewards of his message ... we are called to spread the word ... about a God who loves us.

And that cannot be done if we are full of fear ... if we bury Jesus’ message in the ground ... if we live as if we have never heard the message ... if we are afraid we might fail ... and so we never try.

A life of faith should always be on a collision course with fear … because our faith always asks us to take risks … a risk to follow Jesus into kingdom living …a risk to stand with him against injustice … a risk to believe that God’s promises are rock solid … a risk to believe that even if we fail … we are held by God … and that there really is no outer darkness and gnashing of teeth awaiting us.

And it is because of our faith … that fear doesn’t have to be our response to an unknown future … it is because of our faith … that fear is not our only choice.

In his book, A New Earth, the author Eckhart Tolle makes use of the teachings of Jesus and others … as he encourages us to live out of a place of abundance and not scarcity … out of a place of hope … and not fear.

And he says of that line near the end of this parable … that seemingly harsh line which reads, “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away,” … he says that line is about our inner lives and not our external lives … not about our money and our possessions.

In other words Jesus isn’t telling the economically poor that even the little they have will be taken away … not saying to the economically well-off that they will be given more. Rather Tolle believes Jesus is saying here that when we live out of an inner place of peace and abundance and therefore hope … that will bring even more peace and abundance into our lives.

Likewise … if we live out of a place of fear and digging holes to hide in … after a while … we will lose even that little peace and abundance that we still have.

So I invite you to look at this text in this way this morning … use it as a doorway into your own interior life. When you look inside yourself … do you find a place of peace and abundance and hope … or do you find a place where you have dug a hole so deep … a place where you are so well hidden because of your fear … that the whole world seems like a scary place?

You might ask yourself this morning …Where in my life is fear keeping me from hope? What dream is life asking me to dream … that I am just too afraid to embrace? How is fear limiting my life?

And perhaps most important of all ... when is the last time you have taken a risk for the sake of the gospel?

Be ... and be not afraid ... to reach for heaven. Amen.