Sermon Text: Isaiah 43 1-7 & Matthew 6:25-34
26 Feb 6
I had a crazy dream about the end of December. One of those crazy dreams -- more of a nightmare really -- that seemed so wild and so real. It was about this church.
It was a Sunday a.m. here at church. But it was like no Sunday morning we've ever seen. First of all, I arrived late -- about 11 o'clock from I don't even know where. Totally skipped the first worship service at 9 o'clock. I tried to get in my office but there were 20 or more people crowded in front of my door, just talking and I couldn't even push through. So worship started late. I kept looking at my watch in this dream. The only reason worship started at all was because Bill Thompson just went ahead with the opening hymn and forget about the welcome -- nobody showed up to do it. After I got my robe, then I couldn't find a mic or Joey, or Walter. Nobody was on the sound board.
I looked up and noticed we had a guest preacher and I had no idea who it was. But I kept going. By the time I got into the sanctuary, there was some children's drama going on with adults -- several women in this church were in my dream and I could name them for you but I won't because they were doing this strange dance on the communion table and I don't want to embarrass them! I looked over at Tim Spraggins -- I am not making this up -- and he was white as a sheet. Mortified. I remember thinking "what is going on??"
But I had other problems. It was time for the sermon and I couldn't find my notes. I don't know what happened to the guest preacher. So I started looking around the pulpit, everywhere. Meanwhile, the dance was over and there was this big time gap in the service, so somebody got up and started talking about something. About then, I left the building -- I was probably running at this point -- to look for my notes. At that point I woke up relieved that this was all a dream! You don't need to have a degree in psychology to see the fear in that dream. We humans -- me included -- are fearful creatures.
God knows this about us. "Fear not" or some variation of this phrase appears over and over in the scriptures - more than 50 times, in fact, we read these words and they almost always come as a reassuring word from God. God knows us well. God knows that we have a tendency to let fear paralyze us. In the first passage we heard today from the book of Isaiah, the Hebrews were living in exile in Babylon. They were far away from their homes, their temple, and the promised land. They weren't exactly slaves, but they were far from free.
Then things began to change. A Persian king named Cyrus emerged and it looked like Persia would put Babylon in its place. The Hebrews would be able to return home. But after decades of exile, the Hebrews had grown fearful. The fear that prevents people from moving forward threatened the very existence of the Hebrews. The danger for the Hebrews is that they would let their fears paralyze them. They wouldn't return home and rebuild Jerusalem.
The second passage we heard from Matthew's Gospel also teaches us about fear. Matthew tells us that the fears we have, the anxieties over everything, including our physical well-being, are grounded in faithlessness. Faithlessness. For one thing, the most important thing in life is bigger than our worries about what we will eat or what we will wear. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord, Jesus said to Satan in the desert when he faced his own temptation to wonder about his next meal. Besides, this passage emphasizes, God can be trusted to be generous -- the same God who takes care of the birds and the flowers, will most certainly take care of us. God always sends us manna every day and in the right amounts. Have faith, this passage teaches.
What is faith? Faith is the opposite of fear. Faith is trust. Faith is difficult. According to one of my favorite authors, Jan Lin, who is a Disciple minister, we have to accept some level of mystery when we have faith. We must accept not only some things that are unknown, but some things that are unknowable (Jan Lin, The Jesus Connection, St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 1997), p. 82).
This is not popular and hasn't been for a very long time. We modern humans want to be able to fully grasp everything. So that we can control everything. It comes from our 200-plus years of scientific training. But oddly enough, despite how much knowledge we master, we still are afraid. Just look how fearful this generation is of terrorists. In the 60s we were afraid of nuclear holocaust. We have more scientific knowledge than ever and it hasn't cured our fears. That's because only faith cures fear. Faith in something that is bigger than what we can create or do or be on our own. We human beings were created to be in relationship with God. We have this God-shaped hole in our hearts -- an emptiness in every one of us -- and we think we can fill that gap with something besides God. Like more knowledge, or control, or money, or success, or the right job. It's not possible. We were made for God. In this passage from Isaiah we are reminded in the most intimate of terms: "I have called you by name, you are mine." "You are precious in my sight and I love you."
If we are living in fear, we can't trust God. Fear is this huge challenge to God's divine rule. We think we have to manage things on our own -- without God. Not only do we think we have to manage things on our own, we think we can.
Fear is also bad because it paralyzes us. It keeps us from change -- sometimes changes that God is ordaining. Fear keeps us thinking in human-size terms in stead of God-sized possibilities.
What is God calling us to change here? What are the possibilities that God has for us at First Christian Atlanta?
We are already in the midst of change. I saw a bumper sticker this week that fits our situation. "Change is inevitable. Struggle is an option." We can resist change or we can embrace change.
The temptation for us at First Christian at this time is going to be to get back to normal as soon as we can. Whatever "normal" is. But the challenge -- and God's call to us -- may be something else entirely. Our temptation may be for us to go back to the familiar. The way things used to be. Our temptation may be to stick with the known entity -- like the Hebrews wanted to stay stuck in Babylon instead of trying to build something new and different in Zion. God may be calling us to expend some real time and effort and thinking about change.
Why would we want to change? Don't we like things the way they are? Or even the way they used to be? Here are a couple of reasons that come from our mission and vision statements:
Reach out in love and service.
Are we doing this to the best of our ability,
or are we just waiting for people to show up on our front door?
What can we change here to spread the word that Jesus Christ
offers life and a way of life? You know, Evangelize. The E-Word.
Worship with open hearts.
Is worship a time that we yearn for because it opens our hearts to God and each other? Are we really committed to worship --
with our attendance, our singing, our participation?
Or do we just go when we feel like it? Or sing when we want to?
Would you actually be willing to participate in worship in some way?
If you are, let me know.
We are worshiping God here with open hearts
and there is no better way to do that than to participate in some way in worship.
Grow deeply as disciples.
Are we willing to put the time and energy into this church
to help us grow and to help it grow?
Or is church just one of those things we think we ought to do.
Because we've always done it.
Or it's good for our kids --
kind of on the same scale as belonging to boy scouts or girl scouts?
God deserves a deeper commitment than that.
Change is the only way this church will be able to not just survive but to thrive. Even in this church, we have done some things differently in the last 3 months. There has been some kind of change. Something that seems more faithful. We have negotiated fires and rivers. We have faced challenges without divisive conflict. We have remained an intact church -- a whole Body of Christ that is looking to the future and to what God is calling us to be and do. How did we do that? That's something we need to know -- a kind of road map for our future.
We prayed.
Small groups, individuals, and we as a church have been praying intensively
for this church since December.
I cannot tell you how prayer works. I can tell you that prayer works.
Hundreds of people have been praying for this church in the last 3 months.
People you don't even know.
We kept God in the front.
I saw leaders frankly admit the complexity of the problems we faced
and publicly express our need to seek God's will not, our own will.
This is faith. This is trusting God.
We cared for each other.
The dialogue sessions were practice in listening, agreeing to disagree,
respecting each other. Staying engaged even when we disagreed.
Realizing our relationships with each other were more important than convincing somebody else that we're right and they're wrong.
We persevered. With patience and grace.
We never gave up.
You need that kind of persistence, perseverance to cross raging rivers.
We have been through fires and floods, rivers and flames. There will be more ahead. If this church is going to not just survive but THRIVE we need to learn and practice our trust of God in the face of all these challenges. In the face of change.
I know some of you are having dreams about First Christian Church of Atlanta. I hope you are dreaming big dreams -- dreams about God-sized possibilities. About ways to reach more children and families. About how to go out and make disciples in the Tucker Northlake area. About ways to encourage each other to follow through on their commitments here. About how to be servants of Jesus Christ to those who need that witness. What is your dream for this church?
As you dream, remember we are not alone. We are not on our own. Remember the words of the prophet Isaiah. "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. Do not fear, for I am with you."
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