Do Not Be Afraid

Matthew 10:24-39

June 22^, 2014

When I was young I was afraid of the dark.

I was very little I was sure that someone or something

was going to be there if I couldn’t see what was going on.

Gremlins or another person, I’m not sure what,

but I slept with a light on for a long long time.

I’m sure most people have something like this in their childhood.

An irrational fear of something.

From the moment we’re born, we learn to fear

it seems to be an inherent trait in people.

Sometimes we outgrow our fears,

but sometimes we grow into our fears.

As we get older, our fears become more complicated,

not necessarily less irrational, just more complicated.

Now we, might not be afraid of monsters hiding in the dark,

but we’re still afraid of those people out there,

that we’ve never met, that we label as monsters:

Once upon a time it was communists

now it’s Muslims that we label as terrorists,

immigrants that we assume are all criminals

or taking away our jobs. Generic “Bad people.”

Those people out there who are going to step in and

take away the life that I know and love.

Ghandi said wisely,

“Fear is the enemy. We think it’s hate, but it’s fear.”

Fear is the directing force of many of our lives,

whether we know it or not.

Politicians know the power of fear and how it

prompts people to vote certain ways,

How people are more comfortable with inactivity

than with any kind of change, even if it’s good.

Fear often guides our personal lives too.

Some people ride that “what if” train to insanity

worrying about the future:

What if I lose my job, what if I’m robbed or assaulted,

what if I get an illness, what if something happens to my family.

Or the more persistent fears,

What if I make a fool of myself, what if I don’t succeed,

what if it turns out I’m wrong.

Fear can be debilitating and isolating.

Fear can control our actions.

It can, and has, stopped all of us from doing what we need to do.

Today Jesus is in the middle

Jesus Les Envoie

of giving a pep talk to his disciples.

He is sending them out in pairs into the world to teach and heal

and cast out demons -- all that stuff that Jesus has been doing.

Generally when someone gives a pep talk,

the thesis of the pep talk is

“everything will be fine, it will turn out great.”

But not Jesus.

First of all in the verses before,

remember Jesus takes away all their defenses,

money, an extra cloak, extra shoes, food.
They enter the world completely vulnerable to whatever is out there.

And then Jesus tells them the world out there isn’t safe.

He tells them that they’re go as “sheep in the midst of wolves,”

they will face anger, arrests, beatings,

persecution, and death,

And if they do it right, they will even lose

their families in the process.

It’s almost a list of what people fear most.

 

But then Jesus says,

as he says so many times in the gospels,

“do not be afraid.”

Actually he says it three times in today’s reading.

Jesus does not promise a bed of roses.

Jesus doesn’t promise

a clear path without conflict or trouble.

But Jesus wants us to go through that path any way.

Fear is the death of discipleship.

The world is rough out there.

Sharing the gospel with others takes risk,

helping the marginalized takes risk.

Welcoming all people,

Demanding justice, working for peace,

can be risky.

Lots of people who have done the work of Jesus

are faced with all kinds of resistance,

debates, arguments, challenges, protests

in some cases, even threats of death.

If the disciples gave into their fears,

if we give into our fears,

where would the gospel be?

Where would the marginalized, the outcast,

the downtrodden be?

Daniel Berrigan, who was a priest

who led many peace protests in the 60’s and 70’s

“If you want to follow Jesus,

you’d better look good on wood.”

 Jesus says: “Do not fear those who

kill the body but cannot kill the soul”

If we know that whatever happens and whatever

fate befalls us that in the very end,

we will always be safe with Jesus

then what do we have to fear?

As Paul wrote to the Romans,

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

We say this at funerals to remind ourselves that

even if the worst tragedy happens,

we will still be united with

Jesus and be safe with God,

What ever we fear cannot truly harm us.

In other words, we know the end of the story.

Have you ever read the end of the book,

or watched the end of a movie before the rest?

If you know the main characters survive,

and are living happily together and the bad guys are gone,

then the middle of the movie becomes a lot less stressful.

We know the end of our story.

We end up safely in God’s care.

When we are confident the story will end

we don’t have spend our life afraid of what happens

in the middle of the story.

Jesus offers us new life

and Jesus wants us to live that life fully

Not living in fear of what could hurt us,

or take away what we have,

Not afraid of what might or might not be

but knowing whatever happens,

God is with us and we will be with God.

Jesus says,

“Those who find their life will lose it,

and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

When the disciples faced their fear

and did what they needed to do anyway,

then they found their life in Christ.

The life that Jesus has given us is waiting for us.

Do not be afraid.