This is the first sermon I ever preached before a live congregation. It was at the North Grafton United Methodist Church. Kim, my sister, is the pastor there.
Fear Not in Love
Thank you for inviting me to your pulpit today. You may already know that this is the first time I have ever preached in front of a live congregation. You are about to witness what, so far, has only ever been witnessed by my mirror and my shower. I am truly grateful for your generosity. It's not without some amount of fear that I stand here today. After all, I am a Unitarian-Universalist preaching for the first time ever, to Methodists. And, even though I draw my faith from the beliefs of 19th century Universalism, I would be hard-pressed to describe myself as a 21st century Christian.
But a little fear now and then is a good thing, don't you think. I mean, acknowledging fear is one of those signs of maturity, isn't it. After a childhood full of being told "Don't be afraid" one day we're told that "Well, fear is a natural thing and trying to hide it is just suppressing the natural emotions that the body uses to protect itself." Yeah, where were they between the ages of 6 and 16 when I was trying to keep the bold face?
Not that I ever really grew out of it. Like now, I'm standing behind the pulpit, walls on two sides, the organist over there, who I think I can trust. We all have our silly little fears, like whether our teeth are white enough for our friends to like us or if our car is good enough to get a date with that cute girl or buff guy. And usually we can confront those with a laugh and they'll go away - for a while.
Other fears are good motivators. The fear of becoming obsolete keeps many professionals learning throughout their lifetimes. Fearfulness for our children's lives makes us work harder to help provide them with a good education, and to find ways to help others in order to make the world a little better place for our children to live in. The fear of illness makes us eat a little healthier and exercise some. Of course, these fears can also be expressed as love. I love my work so I keep myself up to date. I love my children so I help prepare them for the world, and the world for them. I love my life so I take steps to preserve it.
But when we are confronted with real danger, we respond physically. The heart beats faster, adrenaline is pumped into the blood, muscles tense up almost instantaneously, and we don't have to think about it. In that condition there is but one thing to do, put as much distance as I can between me and the object of my fear. There are three choices: I can run away, I can try to make it run away, or I can try to force it to stop. Entire species have evolved around instinctively choosing one of these responses. Gazelles have developed fast legs, possums play dead, and badgers are vicious defenders of their dens.
When I was twelve, my family was visiting our cousins in Rhode Island one weekend. And while the barbecue was getting going I thought I'd take a bike ride down to the park. On the way I met two boys on bikes who stopped me and asked me where I was going. "To the park", I said. "No you're not", the larger boy said. "You're going to go back the way you came. I'm gonna count to ten and then we're coming after you. If we catch you we're going to beat you up." Well my fear was heightened to say the least. I rode back to my cousin's house as fast as I could. By the time I got there I was crying from fear. As I sat on the front steps so no one would see me crying (yet another fear), I got angry. And in my anger, I discovered hatred.
You see, the boys were African-American. And I had a whole culture's worth of hateful things I had learned to say about them.About them … When this continent was first settled, wealthy families in England owned one or two slaves and they were treated as servants. In North America slavery became industrial strength. It became so embedded in the agricultural economy of the south and the shipping economy of the north, that we could not afford to lose it. Later it became clear to some that the immorality of slavery would haunt us. Thomas Jefferson said "I tremble for our nation when I reflect that God is just."
Slavery ended and our fear turned to anger, and then to hatred. The south had Jim Crow laws and lynching, the north had ghettos and unspoken bigotry. In my youth, television showed us police dogs and fire hoses turned on black citizens who simply wanted to vote. Those who held power were determined to keep the races apart.
Fear turned to anger, anger turned to hatred, hatred drove us apart.
A more sinister fear is that used by governments to manipulate their populations. Nations go to war because they fear that their enemy will take away their wealth, their freedom, their lives. Hermann Goering, the commander of the Luftwaffe for Nazi Germany said,
"… whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
And with an extreme application of fear, Adolph Hitler was able to lead his people into one of the most tragic episodes of western civilization. When fear turned to anger, and anger turned to hatred, and hatred manifested atrocity.
But perhaps the most persistent, corrosive manifestation of fear is not anger and hatred, but simple indifference. Whether it's ignoring the homeless person on the street, or shutting out calls for international aid. We do nothing because we are afraid of interrupting our schedules, of deviating from the financial plan, of meeting unsavory characters, of being overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of the need. Elie Wiesel once said, "indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never its victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten."
You see our instincts respond to fear by trying to separate us from the source of our fear. We run, or play dead, or try to overpower our tormentors. In our humanity, we fester an anger or a hatred or an indifference that keeps us apart from our enemies. Left untended, we'll devise elaborate reasoning to justify the separation. The cumulative affect in a society is prejudice, bigotry, apartheid, or worse.
But there is good news. You knew there would be, right. The good news is that Jesus has given us an alternative. And the alternative is not instinctive, it is not intuitive, it is radical. Radical because it requires unusual action to achieve an unpredictable result. Jesus says, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you". Not so that our enemy will cease being our enemy, but so that we may become perfect in God's love. Jesus says that God "makes his sun rise on evil and good" and the God loves all that he has created. God does not choose who to love. He loves his entire creation, his entire universe. And if we do the same, love all without prejudice, love all without distinction, love all without fear, then we can be perfect here on earth as God is perfect in heaven. Jesus is indeed radical.
John writes that God is love and those who abide in love abide in God. That there is no fear in love, that love casts out fear. Because, as fear drives us apart, love brings us together. Physicists say that all systems seek their lowest level of energy. This means that it takes an regular input of energy to keep things moving, to keep things together. Like the sun evaporating water from the oceans so that rain can fall on the mountains and feed the rivers that flow back to the ocean. Love is the energy that we bring to the world to empower those who have no power, to enable those who have no ability, to enlighten those who live in dark places. We are constantly being shown opportunities to come together with others. If we accept just one or two more of those opportunities, what difference can it make? I wonder how my life might be different today if my response to those two boys in Rhode Island had been different. If instead of running away I had offered my hand. And would it have changed their lives too?
Now, does all this mean that we should invite the car bomber to dinner and a movie? Of course not. And though this bit of stage business may be contrived, it is meant to illustrate what we can do to love our enemies. We can step out from behind our pulpits, we can get up from behind our desks, we can get up from in front of our televisions, and take action that is love. We can speak to the homeless woman on the street and acknowledge her humanity; give time to the local food pantry and recognize that not all have enough to eat even in this wealthy nation; we can encourage our leaders to use our taxes in ways that bring people together, rather than push them apart.
And we can seek God's intervention. We are not perfect … yet. So we can pray for God to forgive our enemies, we can pray for God to help us forgive our enemies, we can pray for God to help our enemies forgive us. And with God's blessing, with each of us taking a small step closer to one another, we can realize perfect love here, in this time, in this place.
Amen, and blessed be.