CUPC

August 11, 2013

Sermon – “Color Coded Fear”

Hebrews 11:1–3, 8–16 and Luke 12:32–40

This is the link to the audio file.
https://app.box.com/s/skiydr7a5ellfg5hla85

Back in 2007, Randy Newman wrote a song in which he pointed out:

A President once said,
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"
Now, we're supposed to be afraid
It's patriotic in fact and color-coded
And what are we supposed to be afraid of?
Why of being afraid
That's what terror means, doesn't it?
That's what it used to mean.

Sometimes it feels like we have made fear an institutionalized part of our national psyche.

So how do we respond when Jesus says: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

The word “fear” appears over 70 times in the New Testament and “afraid” almost 50 times. Usually they appear as “Do not be afraid” or “Fear not.”  They appear most often in the Gospels but an exception that I find notable is in in Hebrews 2:

“¹⁴Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, ¹⁵and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.”

That is, after all, what most of us fear the most.  The word “death” in this instance isn’t simply physical extinction:  the death that the devil controls is the death that would remove us from the presence of God – forever.  And that is the death from which Christ has delivered us.

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Is that an important promise for you?  Jesus is telling us that it brings pleasure to the Lord to receive us in His kingdom.  Is that what you want?  Is that all you want?  Is that everything you want?

I know:  we want something a little more concrete.  We want something that we can see and touch.  Nonetheless we tell ourselves repeatedly that we are saved by faith through grace.  What does our epistle lesson say:  “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” It points out to us that by his faith Abraham became the father of God’s chosen people, and through generations those people demonstrated their faith in God even though the promised kingdom was not seen in their lifetimes. 

They lived their lives seeking God’s kingdom because they knew that they didn’t belong to any of the kingdoms of this world.  They belonged to a kingdom promised to them by God.  They spent their lives searching for a better place than any this world had to offer. Once or twice they “settled” for what the world had to offer and the consequences were disastrous. But there were some whose faith never wavered and because of their faithful and continual pilgrimage we are told “God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.”

In the Gospel Jesus outlines precisely what the hope of Christian faith is all about.  He shall return.  We don’t know where; we don’t know when:  He shall return.

Today’s scriptures are all about how we live our lives.  Do we live our lives as full citizens of the world as we see it, or do we live our lives with the expectation that Jesus shall return and establish His kingdom here, for us?  Do we live our lives faithfully showing our expectation that He will be here one day, or do we live our lives thinking that we need to beat the world at its own game, settle for earthly defined successes, and someday God may have something more in store for us?

Jesus says: “You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

What does He mean to be ready?  I thought I was “saved.”  Do you mean there’s something else I have to do?

We are restored to God’s presence; we are invited to live within God’s kingdom through grace by faith.  Yes, we must have faith.  The reason that we must have faith is so that it is God, it is Christ, who is behind the total change in our lives that God wants for us.  In a manner consistent with the adult study that we just finished, faith is not an end: faith is only the beginning.  Faith is the underpinning of the life that God prescribes for us.

Even the business world uses the concept of faith in a very serious manner, perhaps more seriously than some of us do.  When two people agree to the specific terms of a covenant, there is additionally an implied promise that neither of them will undermine or destroy the rights and privileges granted in the agreement.  That implied promise is called “good faith.”  It underwrites the larger covenant.  So too in banking and finance, we talk about the “full faith and credit” of one party guaranteeing the authority of an agreement.  “Faith” is what underwrites the legal and business affairs of the secular world.  

No written contract, no matter how complicated or lengthy, is any more useful than the faith of the parties to carry out the terms of the contract.  The written contract is visible and touchable, but the faith that underwrites the validity of that contract is invisible.

God established a covenant with Abraham.  That covenant contained some promises that were hard to believe.  Abraham even tried to wiggle his way around some of the terms and conditions.  The God who established the universe set the terms and conditions of that covenant.  As it says in our epistle lesson: “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.” 

Our faith as Christians is in this same God, invisible to us but nonetheless the one who prepared the world.  In the life and ministry and triumph of Jesus, God’s covenant to Abraham was extended again to all who would believe in that invisible God.  In the triumph of Christ’s gift to us the kingdom of God has come into this world. 

In the same way that the sacrificial triumph of Normandy Beach signaled the coming end of World War II, so the sacrificial triumph of Jesus for us signals the in breaking of God’s kingdom here among us. Now it is we who are called upon to be those ground troops of the Lord, ambassadors of God’s kingdom, living our lives as fully as we can as citizens of God’s kingdom, and bringing the news of that kingdom to all who will listen.  It is still that invisible God who established the universe with whom we have made a deal, and the terms and conditions are the same as those outlined by all the prophets and realized as a human life in the life of Jesus.

We are called to make ready the world for the return of the bridegroom.  We are called to be faithfully awake when he returns.  We are the stewards of the restoration of God’s good creation so that when Jesus returns to complete his reign we shall be ready to sit down at his table and share the banquet that he has prepared for us. 

And then, God will not be ashamed to be called our God, and we shall live in the city that he has prepared for us.

In faith that’s what we are called to do.  God has made promises to us, has established a covenant with us.  We are made real through the faith that God has in us.  Shall we have sufficient faith in Him to insure the completion of that covenant?  Do we have the faith of Abraham who was called to leave everything that he knew as familiar as seek the completion of God’s promises?  Do we have the faith to live the life prescribed by God through the prophets and in the life of Jesus?

Without faith in that God who made the universe, it’s a pretty scary proposition.  That’s why Jesus says so many times “Don’t be afraid.”

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Amen.

https://app.box.com/s/skiydr7a5ellfg5hla85