Sermon
Search
There
is a story about a gospel event that does not appear in the Gospels.
A man who was present when Jesus fed a multitude with five loaves
of bread and two fish came up to Jesus the next day and asked, "Lord,
after everyone ate their fill of bread and fish, you told your disciples,
'Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.'
What are the fragments that must be gathered up so that nothing will
be lost?" Jesus replied, "The fragments are your fears,
which multiply like the loaves and fishes and fill more baskets than
you can carry by yourself. These must not be lost. Instead, they must
be brought to me, so that I may bear them with you. In this way, nothing
that is part of you will be left unfound."
Fear is not
the emotion we associate with Christmas, unless it's the fear of
not finding a present for everyone on your list, or the fear not
getting the house cleaned before the family throng arrives on Christmas
day. Christmas is a refuge where we hide from the fears that hound
us, if only for a little while. But the irony is that the birth,
which released us from our sins and fears, was itself the cause
of great fear.
Zechariah was
afraid when an angel appeared to him and said that his wife Elizabeth
would bear a son named John, even though they were both members
of the AARP. Mary was afraid when an angel Gabriel told her that
she would give birth to "the Son of the Most High." Mary
was afraid to tell Joseph she was pregnant, and that God was the
father. Joseph contemplated divorcing Mary, but he feared what would
happen to her. Out of love for Mary and a dream telling him not
to fear taking her for his wife, Joseph remained with her. When
King Herod heard that a new king was born, he and all of Jerusalem
was afraid, and steps were taken to dispatch the little king that
Herod saw as a threat to his throne.
Christmas is
not a refuge from fear. The child born in Bethlehem is the Lord
who takes our fears from us and bears them for us. But before we
celebrate the birth that met our hopes and fears, we must listen
to a man and his fearful message.
"You
sack of snakes! Who warned you to run for your lives from the judgment?"
It was obvious that John the Baptist didn't learn to preach at an
accredited seminary. He didn't try to build rapport and identify
with them before engaging them with the message. He went right for
their throats.
"It looks
like we've got some worthless trees in this orchard, siphoning nutrients
from the soil and not producing fruit. Look at those scraggly Christmas
trees. Most of their needles are gone and the branches couldn't
hold up an ornament. Chop them down and throw them into the fire-every
one of them. And the winnowing fork will separate the wheat from
the chaff, and the chaff will burn in an unquenchable fire."
John sounds
more like a lowbrow, Bible-belt Baptist radio preacher than an educated,
cultured preacher who would appeal to people's intellects instead
of exploiting their fears. Here, Luke inserts a comment here that
sounds odd. "With many other exhortations, he preached good
news to the people." Good news? The prospects of getting pitched
into unquenchable fire does not strike me as particularly good news.
I guess it depends
on where you stand. If you were a Jew listening to John, you would
have relished the thought your Roman oppressors roasting in hell.
Read it to people in the Darfur region of Sudan who suffer from
the war of genocide perpetrated against them. The thought of the
divine justice awaiting their oppressors would be good news. If
we were honest, we would admit wanting to see bad people burn with
the barren trees and chaff. Part of us likes it when Clint Eastwood
rides his horse into town to blow away the bad guys.
One summer when
I was home from college, a dozen or so of my buddies went to Angelo's
Pizza on Monday nights-after hours. A couple of our comrades worked
there, and we had an "arrangement" wherein we made our
own pizzas for one dollar a head, drinks included. A guy named Moe
Mozier owned Angelo's, and we asked our friend, "Soup"
if Moe knew what we were doing. Soup said, "Don't worry about
it," so we didn't. But the following Monday at around midnight
as we were enjoying ourselves immensely, Soup hollered, "Moe
just pulled in!! Out of the kitchen! Sit down and empty your wallets!"
Moe walked in
and saw our, "hand-in-the-cookie-jar looks." In a nervous
voice, someone said, "How's it goin', Moe?" Moe replied,
"I don't know… maybe you can tell me how it's goin.'"
That was the
end of Monday night at Angelo's. Soup didn't lose his job, and we
took up a voluntary collection to offset expenses. It happened thirty-three
years ago, but I can still feel it-standing scared before the judgment
throne with no defense, awaiting sentencing. Even now the axe is
laid to the root of the trees that don't produce. His winnowing
fork is in his hand to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Scary, isn't
it? It's not good news to our ears… or is it? When John the
Baptist was asked if he was the Christ, he said that he was paving
the way for someone mightier than he was. When Jesus came, he was
not what John expected. He sent his disciples to Jesus and asked,
as if he wasn't sure, "Are the one who was promised,
or should we be waiting for someone else?"
Jesus didn't
call his listeners, "a brood of vipers." He did not come
announcing the "kingdom of hell." He proclaimed the kingdom
of God that had love at the heart of it-- not terror. "God
so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. God so loved
the world that his will is not that anyone should perish."
A theologian
said, "The coming of the one whom John calls 'more mighty than
I,' calls into judgment every future that is projected apart from
the will and way of Jesus."
I learned things
about myself when I spent two weeks alone in the Ontario wilderness.
I learned about fear. The little cabin I stayed in was perched on
a beautiful point of land jutting out into a lake, but when the
sun set, and the darkness settled in, serenity went into hiding,
and anxiety crept in. The place that was so peaceful during the
day turned menacing after dark. The trees turned into silhouettes
of monsters. Sounds of the forests were haunting. I heard sticks
crack and was sure it was a bear that followed the smell of the
fish I was frying. What if there really was such a creature as a
Sawsqwatch and it was watching me through the window? What if cut
a gash in my leg while chopping wood? What if I get stranded on
the lake and I'm blown to the far side with no way to get back?
What if I have an aneurism or a heart attack? What if I'm struck
by lightening? The closest people are fifteen miles away.
The dark is
a canvass upon which we draw the fears that roam in our minds. If
there is nothing specific to fear, we will make something up. Sometimes
it's fear in general. Sometimes it is concise. What if I get a bad
report from the doctor tomorrow? What if I lose my job? What if
I don't have enough money to retire on? What if Iran gets the bomb?
What if an asteroid hits the earth? It could happen. What if? What
if?
Fear cripples
us and prevents us from living lives that God desires. Time spent
worrying about the future, our safety, our health, what might happen
to loved ones, what others think of us may do to us, is time we
steal from ourselves.
In the year
1360, Catherine of Siena warned against giving into fear of critics
and our real or perceived enemies. She said that such fear is characteristic
of those who hope only in themselves, and not in God. "The
coming of the one John calls 'more mighty than I,' calls into judgment
every future that is projected apart from the will and way of Jesus."
Advent reminds us to question every future that is apart from the
will of God-- the future that we want, the future the Administration
wants, or the future that Al Quida wants.
The judgment
that Jesus brought into the world does not have holy terror at the
heart of it. What is at its heart is holy fear. It is to bow before
God in absolute awe of his power and our frailty. It is being overwhelmed
by our sin in the light of God's mercy. It is the fear of the Lord
Catherine of
Siena said that when holy fear grasps us, problems and people and
powers can't jerk us around any more. (That's my paraphrase.) Holy
fear knows that God is love and that God's love isn't merely interesting
or nice. God is not our "buddy" whose love is a quaint
concept we play with in Sunday school. God's love is a fire that
burns away our impurities. It is an earthquake that shakes us silly.
Someone said, "Love is what banged out the big bang in the
beginning and love is what went to hell for us on the cross."
We could all
stand a big dose of holy fear for Christmas. It's not the fear that
makes you roll up in the fetal position. Holy fear sets us free
to love God and our neighbor. When the people heard John's warning,
they asked, "What then shall we do?" He didn't tell them
to catch the Christmas spirit, or make themselves feel good by giving
the deserving poor a food basket.
John told them
to put their fear to work. "If you have two coats, give on
the one who has none. Give food to those who don't have any. Do
justice and love kindness.
Let us pick
up the fragments that are the fears that multiply and fragment our
lives. Put the fragments into the baskets and carry them to Jesus
so he can bear them for us. Let's let go of the crippling terror
of the God of wrath that keeps us away from him. Let's approach
him with appropriate fear and trembling, trusting that God is good
and loving. It is only then that we can grow as Christians. Julian
of Norwich said it best:
"For
when we fear God reverently and love God meekly, our trust is
never in vain."
All of the sermons
that have appeared in text form on our Web Site since August 1996
are available here in the On-Line version. Use the search engine
below to find the sermon you want. You may search by date, sermon
title, or content. The sermons are full-text searchable.
|
