“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your
Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)
I
will always remember the sound of my brother-in-law Bruce’s voice on the
afternoon of February 17, 1989. I had just taught my last period at Stephen M.
Wright Junior High in Los Angeles. I was summoned to the school office for a
phone call. Bruce phoned the school (there being no cell phones in those
pre-historic days) to tell me that my sister had just given birth to their
first child, a little girl. The new daddy’s voice pulsated with excitement and
love for his new infant daughter. “There’s a new little girl in the world,” he
said. “She’s beautiful!”
A
year later, when he informed me my sis was pregnant again, he didn’t sound
quite so excited. In fact, he had the look of a hedge fund manager whose office
was just raided by the FBI. “I don’t know,” he said. “Two babies..? I
don’t know how we’ll manage.”
They managed just fine. But that’s the thing
about babies. Like a lot of things in this world, they tend to come around when
you’re not expecting them or haven’t planned for them. But God provides. You
just have to have a little faith.
I’m
not saying there isn’t plenty to worry about these days. In the First Lesson
from the RCL for Pentecost 9, Year C (Genesis 15:1-6) Abram is worrying that
God won’t ever come through on his promise. He and his missus Sarai have been
planning for and expecting a baby, but one just isn’t forthcoming. Abe’s
getting discouraged, and his big fear is he will never achieve the desire of
his heart—a son and heir. God reassures the old boy that he’ll get what he
wants. It’s just not going to be right away. So Abe says, “Okay,” and the Lord
reckons it to him as righteousness.
If
you’re ever wondering what righteousness looks like, there it is. It’s faith.
Not mere assent to a doctrine, but the living belief that it’s the Father’s
good pleasure to give us what we need (although not always what we want!).
Our baptism is a reminder of God’s grace and goodness. It’s the reminder that
we matter to God so we can operate out of faith and not out of fear.
After
all, there are really only two ways to live: by faith or by fear. Some may
suggest there’s a third way—manly self-reliance. I’m not so sure that’s going
to work when your company downsizes you or you or your family member gets a
life-changing diagnosis. You’ll be looking to rely on something more than yourself. No. It’s pretty much
faith or fear. And we have to decide how we’re going to live and how we want
our children to live. Remember, there’s nothing scarier to a kid than fear in
an adult.
In our Gospel lesson for Pentecost 9, Year C (Luke 12:32-40) Jesus’ admonition to live fearlessly comes with a pretty scary suggestion. Who wants to sell everything they have and give the money to the poor? Shouldn’t you be saving a little something in case of a stock market collapse or a hurricane or the zombie apocalypse? I think what the Lord is really challenging us to do here is get outside of ourselves. Fear is the result of self-preoccupation. Martin Luther always described sin as the soul curved in on itself. Jesus is urging us to pull our heads out and be part of the world around us. His suggestion about selling our possessions and giving to the poor is a recipe for faithful living. When we transfer some of the blessings God gave us to others—be it through donation of our cash or the donation of our time as volunteers—we’re making two statements of faith. First, we’re saying that we’re going to get along just fine on what’s left over. If we give ten bucks to the March of Dimes, we won’t be ten bucks short at the end of the pay period. We made a choice to trust in God for our own preservation. Second, we’ve said through our gift or volunteering that what we’ve done will matter. We believe someone’s life is going to be just that much better because we’ve reallocated some of our own blessings for the benefit of others.
Another
part of this Gospel lesson is a parable Jesus teaches about servants (that could
be us) staying alert for the return of their master (that could be Jesus).
There are two ways I think you could look at this. You could go the “end-of-the-world-is-coming-soon”
rout and start interpreting every story you hear on the news as a harbinger of the
Apocalypse, the Second Coming, the End Times, or whatever. Don’t even get me
started on that jawn. That’s a sure-fire way to live in fear. It’s also an
exercise in heresy since all the nitwits who’ve claimed to have deciphered eschatological
Biblical prophecy have really just pulled their interpretations out of their lower
GI tract (metaphorically speaking, of course).
The
other way to look at this is the Matthew 25 rout where Jesus tells us, “Truly I
tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters
of mine, you did for me.”[i] What I mean is we should always
be on the lookout for meeting Jesus. He could be present in a neighbor, a
family member, someone in need, a panhandler on the street, or an immigrant
behind the counter at Dunkin Donuts. Any chance encounter might be an
opportunity to draw closer to God by drawing closer to the ones around us.
Finally,
the last part of this Gospel lesson is a weird kind of warning. Yes, if the homeowner
knew what hour the thief was coming, he’d have met the guy at the window with a
loaded Smith & Wesson. The problem is, we don’t know when stuff is going to
happen. Like the arrival of a baby, life-changing moments occur, and we can’t always
control them. So, it’s not about what happens, but about how we react. You can
live in fear and sit at home all night with your Smith & Wesson on your lap
just in case a burglar should try to break in, or you can go out among fellow
human beings, risk loving them, and find your purpose.
Fear?
Faith? Which one is it going to be?
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