9th Sunday after Pentecost
“Do not be afraid.” When I first read the beginning of our Gospel lesson today, I wanted to laugh. And then I wanted to ask Jesus if he had any cotton-pickin' idea of what this world was like. These words make Jesus look like a cock-eyed optimist at best, and like someone who's totally out of touch with reality at worst. How can these words have meaning for us in a world where people are shot in the streets in broad daylight every day? Where there were an average of 13 mass shootings per week through the end of June? Where COVID-19 still causes over 300 deaths per day in our country according to the CDC? Where the cost of medical care and essential medication can be so debilitating that some are forced to live – or die – without it? Where the cost of everything is going up so fast and so much that many people have to make very difficult choices about what they can afford? And on top of these things that affect everyone as a whole, we each face challenges in our own personal lives. I could go on, but you get it.
On the other hand, I don't think the situation was much different in the first century. Sure, they didn't worry about semi-automatic weapons, coronavirus, or gasoline prices. The specifics were different, but the general problems were the same. The Roman Empire was notoriously violent. Just think about the kinds of entertainment that were available in the Colosseum or the methods that were used to torture and execute criminals. Diseases that we might see as insignificant were mysterious and claimed lives regularly. No wonder Jesus was mobbed by people seeking healing. Except for the very rich, most people worried about how they were going to put food on the table and make ends meet. So when Jesus said “Do not be afraid” to his disciples, it probably made as much sense to them then as it does to us today.
I think we need to look a little more closely at verse 32, a verse that is found only in Luke's Gospel. What does Jesus mean and what is he pointing us toward?
The first thing to note is that the verb fear is in the present tense. In Greek this can indicate an action that is ongoing or continuous. So what Jesus is saying here could be translated as “Do not continue to be afraid.” He isn't telling us not to start doing something, as in “Don't eat too much at the church picnic next week.” Jesus is asking us to stop doing something we're already doing, as in “Don't eat junk food.” So Jesus isn't clueless; he knows that we are afraid.
In fact, we humans tend to be quite fearful. Greg Rickel, an Episcopal priest and pastoral counselor, said that fear “seems to be at the root of so much that we live with and struggle with in this life.” He went on:
Fear begins or enters in, when we realize that much in life does not make sense. It seems irrational and so we don’t know what to do with it, and whenever we don’t know what to do with something, we have some fear. ...
Our fear often remains hidden. We become good at that. If it is not hidden, it comes out of us in ways we, and those around us, rarely understand. … Many of our decisions are based on this emotion, an emotion that is often neither very rational, nor trustworthy. ...
We fear things, people, ideas, time, love, and even the night. ...
We often fear that which we cannot change, and then, ironically, we fear change.
Jesus is asking his audience, which includes us, to give up these fears. Now that's definitely a tall order. But there's an interesting thing about these words “do not be afraid” or “me phobou” in Greek. In Luke and elsewhere in the Bible, they're usually followed by really good news! Think about it. “Do not be afraid” is what the angel Gabriel said to both Zechariah and Mary right before telling them that they would each become parents of a son (Luke 1:13, 30). It's what the angel said to Joseph about going ahead with the wedding in spite of the fact that Mary was already pregnant (Matthew 1:20). It's what the angel told the shepherds in the fields before announcing the birth of the Savior (Luke 2:10). It's what the angel said to the women at the tomb on Easter morning (Matthew 28:5). And this didn't happen only in the New Testament. It's what God said to Abraham when God promised that he would have a son and heir (Genesis 15:1) even though he was “too old” and “as good as dead” (Hebrews 11:11-12).
So is there some good news in verse 32 that will help us stop being afraid? There sure is: “for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Or as the New Living Translation puts it, “For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom.” Isn't that amazing? God wants to give us the kingdom. God is gracious to us because that's what God wants to do. It makes God happy. God was so eager to do this that God sent Jesus, God's only Son, into the world to redeem us. This has nothing to do with how wonderful we are or what great things we do. This is something that God is doing out of pure grace. There's nothing that we have done or can do to earn it. It's a gift.
This unqualified promise is the basis for the relationship between God and us. It gives us a shared hope and expectation about the future. It creates faith, “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”, as the author of Hebrews put it. He was writing to a group of Christians who were struggling with their faith. They had “endured a hard struggle with sufferings” that included confiscation of property (Hebrews 10:32-34). They were also discouraged because they had expected Jesus to return soon; they were frustrated that they were still waiting decades after his ascension. Part of the reason for this letter was to encourage them to persevere in faith.
Near the end of the letter, we find this beautiful description of faith. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Notice that there are two aspects to faith. First, it provides a guarantee on which we pin our hopes. And then this conviction gives us the strength to move forward into an unknown future of “things not seen”. The author backs this up with examples of heroes of faith in the Hebrew Bible. We might call it a “Who's Who” or a hall of fame. After short references to Abel, Enoch, and Noah, which were not included in our reading, the author has a longer discussion of Abraham.
It was faith in God's promises which enabled Abraham to uproot his family and move from his homeland to an unknown country. He went in spite of not knowing where he was going or how long it would take. Faith enabled Abraham and Sarah to look beyond the problems of barrenness and old age to the heir that God had promised. Why? Because Abraham “looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:10)
Isn't this the same position we're in? We're looking forward to the kingdom which God is happy to give us. This is the thing hoped for that we are assured by God will be ours. God backed up this promise through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Our future is not secured by what we do, but by what God alone has done. And although this promise is about something that will occur in the future, it still shapes what we do now here on earth.
If this sounds strange to you, here's an example that might help. When the D-Day invasion of Europe was successful in June of 1944, it wasn't the end of World War II. But this victory influenced the plans of military leaders and shaped the hopes and dreams of everyone in the Allied countries for the next eleven months until Germany surrendered. That's because after D-Day people had faith that the war would be won.
Or think about an adult promising a child to do something, let's say play catch, when they get home from work or from running an errand. So when the adult arrives, the child is standing there with ball and glove, all ready to go. The child believed the promise of a future game and prepared for it in advance.
Similarly, God's promise for our future frees us to move forward not with fear but with faith, the opposite of fear. Faith in this promise is what enables us to participate in the work of the kingdom now. It changes the purpose of our lives, the things we care and worry about, the way we treat others, and even the way we manage our money. Through the eyes of faith, the things that Jesus challenges us to do in the rest of the Gospel reading aren't so much commands as ways in which we can live more fully and abundantly. Faith enables us to leave anxiety behind, to be generous and to experience the joy of sharing with others. It allows us to imagine that there is more to life than what Karoline Lewis calls “achievement, acquisitions, and assets”.
We can also stop speculating and worrying about where and when Jesus will return and look for ways that God is working among us right now. We can focus on living in the kingdom here on earth by following Jesus's example of building relationships and serving others, rather than always looking out for ourselves.
Even with fearless faith, this is much easier said than done. These things that Jesus is asking us to do are so contrary to our human nature and to the way our culture works. But there's one more part of verse 32 that we haven't looked at yet. When Jesus says “do not be afraid”, who's he talking to? It's the “little flock”. In the New Testament, the Greek word for “flock” that is used here always refers to a group of believers. We aren't in this alone. We're working on growing as Christians in a faith community. All of us here at Calvary have the promise that God wants to give us the kingdom. And at times we all have trouble remembering and acting on that promise. So we all need to pray for and support each other. Sound familiar? This is what it means to be a “compassionate community, where everyone is connected in relationship with God and each other.”
Today Jesus is telling us that in him God has given us the kingdom. This changes the way we live our lives and redefines what we care about. And in spite of the challenges and disappointments that face us, we know what the future holds: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Amen.