· CHILDREN'S EDUCATION

· ADULT EDUCATION

· EFM

· JOURNEY TO
   ADULTHOOD
      RITE 13
      J2A
      YAC

· VACATION BIBLE
   SCHOOL

· SERMONS

· CURSILLO

· HAPPENING

· RESOURCE LIST
      Chapel Library
      Recommendations

SERMONS

Second Sunday of Lent
Luke 13.31-35
February 28, 2010

By The Rev. Alston Johnson

A number of years ago in the consulting and human potential movements, in the Church it came under the heading, "Affirmative Inquiry," there was a question often asked to individuals and to groups: if money were no object, what might your vision be?

Generally I found myself flaring off of that question a bit; something skipping in my head like the needle skipping on a CD or a record. "Well, yeah, that’s a great question, as though I have not ever asked myself THAT question before." Who hasn’t imagined living life with that golden lottery ticket in our hand. There is another question – similar – that is not so much like following Mr. Rogers into the land of make believe: If fear were no object, what sort of life might you be living?

How might we live if we were to live without fear?

Jesus spends time with his disciples trying to teach them so many things. In Luke’s Gospel Jesus is teaching his disciples who their neighbor truly is, as He taught the young lawyer. Jesus is teaching them about what is needful to have a meaningful life, as he taught Martha. Jesus is teaching them about what makes someone clean and pure, as He taught the Pharisee about the cleaning of cups and dishes. Jesus teaches his disciples many things with words, stories, questions.

In my mind, there is only one thing that Jesus can do to teach his friends and followers about fear - He teaches them by how He lives. "Get away from here – Herod wants to kill you." It was Herod who took John the Baptist’s head – put it on a platter. When these Pharisees warn Jesus that his life is hanging in the balance, Jesus essentially says in word and deed that He plans to continue undeterred.

"Go and tell that fox, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow . . . but I am on my way . . . it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem."

Jesus is telling them that he knows. He knows that the life he is living is being poured out to the glory of God, but to the detriment of his own longevity, security, and safety. Jesus is showing them that He is unafraid. Jesus is answering their fears with His life, and not simply his words. Fear and anxiety are the paralysis of our age, the paralysis of every age. The ancients knew this. That is why in the oldest of old philosophy, Courage is the root, the heartbeat, of all virtue. The root and the heartbeat of all kindness, of all patience, of all temperance, of all compassion.

More often than not, the opposite of these virtues exist where fear simmers in our own lives. More often than not we are apt to mean, unkind, angry, and aggressive in precisely those parts of our lives where fear and insecurity remain. When frightened, we spend our best energy protecting ourselves, often to our own detriment, and the detriment of others.

Each of us takes a daily walk with our fear. Every day, each of leaves a bit of wreckage behind us because of our fear; a fear of dying, a fear of not having enough . . . a fear of not being enough. A bit of wreckage in our own lives, a bit of wreckage in other’s lives.

There was a man in the 1950’s named Jim Elliot. He was a missionary to the Auca Indians of Ecuador, and was killed while trying to establish contact with them. His wife Elisabeth was commenting on his death, and though sad and grieving, she said, Jim wrote in a letter.

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep . . . to gain what he cannot lose."

What are we so afraid of that we would keep ourselves from the life that God would give us? What sort of life might we be living if fear we no object?

That is perhaps why Jesus wants us to walk with him to Jerusalem. Perhaps that is what Jesus is trying to show us as He makes his own way into jaws of the beast that waits for him in Jerusalem. That there is a path through the fear that paralyses, through the fear that demands we compromise our conscience and our compassion. There is a pathway from the wreckage we inflict upon ourselves and others, into a peace which passes all of our understanding and fear, with God. Every day, every day, Jesus invites us to fall forward, fall forward in faith; away from our fear, and into the courage that comes with true love.

What sort of life might you live if fear were no object?

A man came to Saint Tertullian with a problem. His problem was the difficulty of earning a living in a heathen world. What if the mason was asked to build a heathen temple? What if the tailor was asked to make clothes for a heathen priest? What if the soldier must daily burn his pinch of incense on the altar of the army camp?

The man finished up by saying – "I must live. I must make a living?" Saint Tertullian was quiet, and answered him with one immortal question, "Must you?"