Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
“Things Hoped For, Things Not See” – Rev. Brent Gundlah
First Reading (Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16/NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (Luke 12:32-40/NRSVUE)
“Do not be afraid,” is what Jesus says in the opening words of today’s gospel reading. Yeah, easy for you to say, Jesus.
There is, in fact, quite a lot to be afraid of in the world these days: climate change, wildfires, the economy, genocide, famine, war, discrimination of all kinds, the erosion of basic human and civil rights in our country and throughout the world — the list goes on and on (and on).
In fairness, though, there was a lot to fear back in Jesus’s day too, and it’ll become clear in a few chapters that Jesus himself had good reason to be afraid; so I take it back — this probably wasn’t all that easy for him to say, which kind of makes you wonder why he said it.
I mean, at some level, it was perfectly rational for Jesus’s disciples to be afraid (and as the New Testament unfolds, it’ll become clear that they, like Jesus, had good reason to be). And besides, how often does telling someone who’s afraid not to be afraid actually cause them to be less afraid? Probably about as often as telling someone who’s upset to calm down actually causes them to calm down (which is to say, not very often).
Of course, a little fear can be a good thing because, without it, us humans would likely get ourselves in a whole bunch of trouble. For example, being sufficiently afraid of getting burned keeps us from sticking our hands in a campfire; being rightfully afraid of drowning should stop us from jumping in a lake if we don’t know how to swim. Okay, but too much fear keeps us from living life to its fullest.
So when Jesus tells his disciples, “Do not be afraid,” I don’t think he’s making a general statement against fear of all kinds in all circumstances; he’s talking about a very specific type of fear here — one that we need to consider in light of both the context in which he’s speaking and the context in which we find ourselves today because, when you get right down to it, they aren’t all that different.
After Jesus tells his listeners not to fear because God will provide, he launches into one of the earliest stewardship sermons on record. He encourages them to sell their possessions and to use the cash to help those in need, he instructs them to make (metaphorical) purses that won’t ever wear out, to store a (metaphorical) treasure that they can’t ever lose. And then he lets fly a one-liner that has doubtlessly found it’s way onto many church pledge cards throughout the centuries: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Jesus’s words were incredibly challenging then and they’re incredibly challenging now. I mean, would Jesus be happy if his disciples chose to sell everything they owned and to share the proceeds to help others? I have to be honest with you, he probably would be happy. But does this mean that anyone in our day and age with a savings account or a 401(K) is hereby condemned to eternal damnation? Man, I sure as heck hope not. Honestly, it seems like Jesus is saying all of this here in order to make a bigger point.
Earlier in the chapter from which today’s reading is taken, Jesus gives his disciples and the crowd that’s gathered to hear him speak a stern and direct warning: “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Ok, I think most of us understand deep down inside that this is true, even if we don’t necessarily live into that truth at all times.
He then goes on to tell them not worry about what they are to eat or to drink or to wear, for God knows about such needs and will see to them. Now, I won’t speak for you, but I find this kind of problematic. Try telling the scared and starving people in the world’s hunger hotspots that they shouldn’t be worried about where their next meal is coming from. Why isn’t God dropping food and water from the sky for them?
Then again, maybe it’s not fair to pin the blame for those situations on God when humans are ultimately responsible for what’s going on. It’s not like there’s generally insufficient food to go around, it’s that the people who control it are intentionally keeping it from the people who need it. Sadly, this isn’t the first time in history that this kind of thing has happened (and it likely won’t be the last). As Jesus goes on to say, when it comes to the resources that sustain life here on Earth, “it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them,” and Jesus understood this because it was happening in his place and time too. In a nutshell, Jesus is saying that God dependably gives us (meaning humanity writ large) all that we need to survive and thrive here on Earth but we, for some reason, keep screwing things up.
And why do we keep screwing things up, you may ask? Well, Jesus seems to believe that the answer is greed, though there’s more to it than that. I say this because Jesus, explicitly and repeatedly draws a line between greed (which is a result) to fear (which is its root cause). And fear, as it turns out, is a many splendored thing.
Think about it for a second: Do people really amass possessions of various kinds for their own sake, or do they amass them because they’re afraid that they don’t have enough, that they won’t have what they need. And if ensuring you have enough means keeping it from someone else who also needs it, then so be it; after all, if you have it, then it means that I don’t. But there’s a inherent problem with this way of thinking: our fear of not having enough runs so deep that there never could be “enough.”
And in a twist of irony, those among us who seem to be the best at playing this ridiculous and un-winnable game, are quite adept at exploiting our fear in their futile quest to alleviate their own fear. Just turn on the TV and watch their commercials or drive down the street looking at their billboards and you’ll see what’s going on: if we could just lever ourselves into a bigger house; if we could just lease a nicer car; if we could just pay our annual fee in order to buy things from a website that’ll have them on our doorsteps almost immediately, then we’d have enough, right? And the people who accumulate more as a result of us accumulating more will have enough at some point too, right? Sure, that’s the way it works.
But alongside this deep-seated fear of not having enough runs another one, which is this: a fear of not being enough. We see it among Christ’s earliest followers who, grappling with their own insecurities, struggled mightily and repeatedly to be first among the disciples. They were so focused on this, in fact, that they failed to see that this is not what being a disciple is all about. And, let’s face it, we see this happening among Christ’s later disciples too.
I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve heard people in the Church — people in this church — lament that we don’t have the numbers in the pews that we used to; that our bank accounts aren’t as big as they used to be; that there’s not enough new folks who want to be part of this community; that we’re not doing the all things we once did with the levels of participation we had in the past; that some other church’s youth program is bigger than ours; that if we did this, that or the other thing that we’re not doing now we’d be better off than we are. But, when you get right down to it, doesn’t all this just sound like variations of “we don’t have enough” and “we aren’t enough”?
Yet, in another strange twist of irony, we gather here every Sunday ostensibly to worship the God who tells us over and over and over again, that we have enough and that we are enough. So, which is it: Do we have enough, or don’t we? Are we enough, or aren’t we? Do we believe in God’s promises or don’t we?
Look, at some level, I understand the fear; I really do. And I’d be lying if I told you that I don’t experience it sometimes too. These are scary and uncertain times for the church and for the world in which it exists.
But at what point does our faith transcend that fear?
At what point do we trust that God’s knows what we need and that God provides it?
At what point do we accept God’s presence and God’s grace and God’s care as a given and turn our focus to making God’s reign a reality in this world?
At what point do we cease wringing our hands over all the people who are not here and embrace the ones who are?
At what point do we stop existing in fear and actually live like we have what the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews describes as “assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen”?
At what point do we stop measuring ourselves against the past and worrying about the future and just be the church we’re being called to be right here and right now?
Do not be afraid, for God delights in giving you the kingdom.
We have enough, we are enough, because God says so.
Maybe we should start thinking and acting like we believe that to be true.