Sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent Year C

What are you afraid of?

2 Lent C

Transcribed from a sermon given on

February 28, 2010

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

By the Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

Psalm 27

Luke 13:31-35

What are you afraid of?  We’re all afraid of something.  What are you afraid of?  Are you afraid of the dark?  Are you afraid of spiders?  Are you afraid of snakes?  Maybe you’re afraid of earthquakes.  No, you probably wouldn’t be living here if you were afraid of earthquakes, but you might be afraid of hurricanes, which is why you’re not living in Florida. And your friends in Florida probably can’t understand how you can live in California with all those earthquakes.  We’re all afraid of something. 

Abram, who is later named Abraham, was afraid.  He was afraid that he was going to die and have no one to carry on.  He had worked hard.  He was rich and powerful.  And his wife had had no children.  All that he had was going to go either to a slave or to some relative that lived in a far off city, and his name and his tradition and his life would die away and no one would remember.  It was all for naught.  That was his fear.  That’s what he was afraid of. 

He had a vision and that vision starts as many visions and visits by angels begin, “Do not be afraid.”  “Do not be afraid.”  That’s the phrase that comes up more than any other phrase in all of scripture.  If you read the bible you’re going to find lots of places where an angel or someone says, “Do not be afraid,” and yet we are afraid.  We’re all afraid of something.  We all live in some fear, but God says to us, “Do not be afraid.”

What are you afraid of?  Are you afraid you’re going to lose your job or maybe afraid you’ll never find one if you’re looking right now?  Or maybe you’re afraid you’re going to be stuck in the job you have forever.  Are you afraid that you’re not going to have enough money to retire or are you retired and afraid you’re not going to have enough money to last?  If you’re a youth, are you afraid that your parents are going to embarrass you?  If you’re a parent, are you afraid that your youth is going to embarrass you?  We all have our fears.  We’re all afraid of something. 

Herod was afraid.  Herod was afraid of Jesus.  Herod was afraid because he was a puppet king; he didn’t have any real power.  He was a king just because he was serving the Romans.  He knew that if someone inspired the people, there could easily be a rebellion because the people didn’t like him very much. He didn’t have any power from the support of the people.  He was afraid.  He was afraid that he would lose his authority.  He was afraid he would lose his palace.  He was afraid he would lose all the perks that came from power and he knew that he wasn’t standing on a solid foundation. 

What he was afraid of is what leaders in Jerusalem and all over the world are really afraid of - he was afraid of the truth.  You see, Jerusalem killed its prophets because Jerusalem represented not just where the temple was, but also it was the temporal material power center, the political power center.  And those who have power, most of the time, are afraid of one thing and that’s the truth. And prophets, they don’t predict the future, they tell the truth.  Usually people who are comfortable and in positions of power and authority don’t particularly like the truth.  There are things they would rather not have said, and we know that today. 

Look what happens to the people we call “whistleblowers” –  the ones who speak the truth about a company, or an agency in the government, or what’s happening in Congress, or what’s happening at a school.  What happens to the one that speaks out and says the truth that everybody else can see but won’t speak?  They usually end up, maybe not being physically killed, but they certainly are feared and an attempt is made to silence them. 

The prophets spoke the truth to Jerusalem.  A prophet speaks the truth to power and authority, so that’s why the prophets were killed in Jerusalem.  Jesus was speaking the truth to people.  Jesus was telling them about God’s love.  Jesus was teaching them to care for one another.  Jesus was teaching them that the people in the temple were leading them astray. And Herod was afraid, but Jesus wasn’t afraid of Herod. 

When we read that the Pharisees come and tell Jesus, “Herod’s out to get you,” we need to remember that first of all the Pharisees were not Jesus’ friends so they probably had another agenda to be saying that.  Secondly, Jesus already knew Herod wanted him dead.  Herod had killed John the Baptist, and Jesus at this point in Luke’s Gospel, is on His journey to Jerusalem.  He’s made it very clear to the people around him that He’s on His way to Jerusalem and that He’s going to die there.  What the Pharisees are doing is presenting a temptation.  They say, “Be afraid and respond to your fear.  Live out of your fear.”  But Jesus wasn’t afraid.  Jesus looked at this artificial power of Herod’s and said, “That fox.”

Fox, huh.  A fox can be annoying.  A fox might even grab one of your chickens and kill it, but a fox is not really dangerous to a human being.  They might be wily and clever, but they’re not really to be feared.  Jesus knew that Herod had no power and when the time came for Jesus to be arrested and He was brought before Herod, He wouldn’t even respond to him.  He said nothing.  And Herod could do nothing to Jesus and had to pass Him on to Pilate.  But even to Pilate who looked at Jesus and said, “I have the power to have you killed,” Jesus responded, “You have no power unless God is giving it to you.” 

Now we do know that in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus had fear.  Jesus knew what fear was, but that didn’t keep Him from doing what God called Him to do.  And when we read about the saints and when we hear about great heroes who have risked or given their lives, we have to know that they had fear, but the fear did not keep them from following God’s call.  The fear did not keep them from telling the truth.

Are you afraid of telling the truth?  Is there some truth that you need to say that you’re afraid to say because of how the person might respond?  Perhaps there’s a friend that you might want to tell about God’s love, but you’re afraid that they’ll think that you’re one of those.  What would they think of you?  Or perhaps there’s a family member that you know who needs to be told they’re going in the wrong direction, but you don’t want to cause any problems in the family?  Perhaps there’s a friend who needs that kind of truth?  Perhaps you need to tell the truth at your work or your school or your neighborhood.  Are you afraid?  I know I get afraid.  We all get afraid. 

I’ve just been watching the Winter Olympics, every one of those sports terrifies me.  I can’t imagine being at the top of a hill and going down and then up over a ramp at 30 feet up in the air, and twisting around with my head down and crash into the bottom, because I know I would crash into the bottom if I try that.  Or going down the bobsled run after someone has already died on that whistler course, flying down at 90 miles an hour head first, I’d be terrified.  I’d be terrified to get on that fast track if I actually could skate.  I’d still be terrified to be out there.  And I’d be terrified to be skating up in front of thousands of people who are watching your every move and just waiting for you to fall down.  But the Olympic athlete, I’m sure they’re afraid sometimes, but that doesn’t keep them from doing what they feel they need to do.

So how is it that we’re to get over our fear and not give in to the very real fears that we have?  And that’s where this wonderful psalm comes in.  And if you memorize one verse in scripture to hold onto in your life make it this one. The first verse of Psalm 27, “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom then shall I fear.”  “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom then shall I fear.”  Remember that.  Hold on to that.  And when you feel afraid and when you feel there’s some truth you need to speak or some action that God is calling you take, and you feel that fear come up in you, remember, “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom then shall I fear.”  Amen.

Even small acts of hospitality, like giving someone a cup of cold water, can make all the difference. The readings for this Sunday are very rich. In this sermon I reflect on the generous hospitality I saw at a wedding, and weave together the Gospel, the story of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, and Paul's letter to the Romans.

Proper 8 Year A

Transcription of a sermon given on

June 26, 2011

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church Arroyo Grande

By Rev. Valerie Hart

In the Gospel reading today Jesus talks about hospitality, and that even small acts of hospitality, like giving someone a cup of cold water, can make a great deal of difference. I had a chance to see that at work this past weekend at a wedding. I didn’t know the bride’s family very well. I had met a few them but I didn’t know the whole family. Something happened that told me a lot about this family.  There was a man at the wedding who had never met anyone else who was attending. He was a stranger. He had been invited to the wedding, but he came having never met in person anyone there. You see the bride was adopted. Her birth dad had given permission for her to find him, so when she became an adult she looked him up. She had contacted him over email and they had communicated a little bit on Facebook and through email, but it never worked for them to meet in person. And then she invited him to her wedding.

Now you can try to imagine what it would be like to be a man meeting your biological daughter for the first time at her wedding. What would it be like walking into a wedding where you didn’t know anyone at all? That takes a lot of courage. What impressed me was that he was made 100% welcome. Everyone from her family, the whole wedding, treated him like family. He was seated at a table with other family members. Many people spoke to him and made him feel comfortable and welcome. To me this said a great deal about bride’s family - about her parents, about their love for one another, about their love for their daughter, and about their love for all people. A little bit of hospitality made all the difference.

Of course it can work the other way as well. As I was reading background material and ideas for the sermon today I read the story of a pastor who spoke about a man in his town that he knew well. A respected businessman, a good man who lived a good and generous life, but he never came to church. So this pastor would keep inviting him to come to church and he would say “nope, not comin’.” So finally the pastor asked him why. This time the man was in a place where he was ready to tell him. He said that when he was eleven years old his family had decided that it would be good for he and his brothers and sisters if they had some religious training. So they took him to Sunday School. He got to Sunday School and he loved it. He loved hearing the great stories of the Bible. He loved the music. He loved coloring. He loved everything about Sunday School and he was all ready to come back. But at the end of the Sunday School class the Sunday School teacher pulled him aside and said to him - in a very nice way I suppose - “You know son when we come to church we always dress in our best. I don’t want to see you coming back to church dressed the way you are today.” And he looked down at his handed down overalls with holes in them, which were his best clothes, and he never came back to church dressed that way. Well he never came back to church until he was dressed in a brand new suit and laid out in a box for his funeral.

I’m sure that that Sunday School teacher meant well. But it wasn’t being hospitable. It wasn’t being welcoming. It wasn’t seeing the need of the child.

Little acts of hospitality can make a huge difference. Even giving a cup of cold water. It is interesting when you read the Gospel that Jesus doesn’t give many “Thou Shalt Nots”. Oh, occasionally he does, but usually he is telling us what he wants us to do. He wants us to love one another as he loves us, to be hospitable to one another, to see the poor, to give a cup of water to the thirsty. He doesn’t dwell on rules and regulations, but on compassion and love.

If we look at the reading from Roman’s that Paul wrote we find that Paul teaches that we are free from the Law through grace. Things have changed. With the resurrection of Christ everything has changed. We no longer are slaves to a bunch of rules. We are not controlled by the “Thou Shalt Nots”. But Paul had a dilemma because there were some people that when he told them that they were free from the law said, “Okay good, I can do whatever I want.” And they were doing things that weren’t good for them or weren’t good for the people around them. Things that weren’t even respectful of their own bodies. And Paul said, “No, no, no, you don’t quite get it. We are free from the arbitrary laws, but we are slaves to Christ and therefore we want to serve Christ.” There are places in Paul’s letters where he delineates what that looks like, especially in the letters to the Corinthians, because it appears that the Corinthians didn’t quite understand the concept of freedom. So he had to delineate some “Thou Shalt Nots”. But what is most important about what Paul says is that we are a new creation. We are a new creation in Christ. Everything changed with the resurrection. Our relationship with God and our relationship with one another have changed, just as everything changed with Abraham. Before Abraham, and even after in some places, human sacrifice was common.  At the beginning of this story Abraham believes he needs to sacrifice his son to God. Because that is what you did. You made sacrifices to your God. You sacrificed that which was most valuable to you and often it was your own child because you wanted to appease God. You wanted to appease the anger of God. It was as if human beings could do something to take care of God. And then God would owe you something. But things changed with Abraham. Abraham was willing to offer his son. He loved God that much, but God said that is not what it is about. I will provide the sacrifice. God doesn’t need anything from human beings. God has everything that God needs. God wants relationship with human beings and with Abraham the relationship with God became one of friendship rather than one of duty and fear.

Then God provided the sacrifice in Christ to take another step in the relationship between God and human beings. This was a new creation, a new way of being with God, an opportunity to live in grace.

Every day we say the Lord’s prayer. “Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name.” Then we say, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Right there, central in that prayer, is the coming of God’ reign, the time when God will truly rule the earth. When the earth, all of the earth, all of creation will be as God intended for it to be. God will be in charge, a time when God’s will is how people will respond. The resurrection of Christ opened a window to that new world. That is the new creation, where this earth will become what God intended. Where human beings will treat one another the way we are supposed to - with love and compassion.

We are called to be part of the transformation. We are called to bring on the new kingdom.

If you look at history it is pretty amazing that a small band of followers of Jesus in less then 300 years expanded to cover the entire Roman Empire and become a force to be reckoned with, even though they were illegal. Even though they were persecuted. But Christianity spread like crazy. What was it, what was it that made the church grow so much then? It had to do with how the Christians lived their lives. They lived their lives bringing in the new creation. They lived their lives to be the new kingdom. They treated each other with compassion and love. They brought in and welcomed everyone. Hospitality for everyone - male, female, free, slave, rich, poor, gentile, Jew - anywhere, any language.  This was a community that fed one another; it was not like the rest of the Roman Empire. When plague came people were left because their family didn’t want to catch it. They left people to die alone. The Christians, however, took care of one another, nursed one another back to health. When people were hungry they fed one another. When they were alone they were invited into community. They shared what they had. They had a little taste of what the kingdom of God looks like. Where people love one another as Christ loved us. By the way they lived in their communities they taught people about what love looked like. They didn’t have an army. They didn’t have much money. Most of the early Christians were poor. But they had something more powerful. And when you look at the history of the Christian church that goes into different areas, the missions that were often most successful were ones where it was a doctor who brought healing, or they brought food, or in some other way were being hospitable and caring for people.

We are called, each and every one of us, to help bring on the kingdom of God. When we pray the Lord’s prayer it is our responsibility to do what we can to make this world what God intended - to let the reign of God come through us. It comes through those small acts of hospitality. Those times of charity and love when we feed people, when we welcome people, when we comfort people, when we give them even a cup of cold water.