What Are We Afraid Of?
September 9, 2009
Jeremiah 18:1-11; Luke 14:25-33
I want to begin this morning, indeed, this program year that we kick off this morning with a quotation, then a brief story, after which I propose to invite you into some dialogue about who we are and why we are here.
First, then, this brief word from Walter Brueggemann’s most recent work. Brueggemann is, for my money, the most provocative theologian at work in the church today, which is at least mildly amusing because he’s been retired for several years, which just goes to show that provocation is not the exclusive province of the young.
Brueggemann writes,
"You might think
• If you cringe at the boisterous, cocky new sound of religion in politics,
• If you worry about the divisiveness of “red” and “blue,” and
• If you are vexed that too many people claim to be speaking directly for Christ …
You might think that our Christian faith is all about getting the moral issues right and leveraging others to think and act the right way, as do we. But if you think that, you are very wrong, because such contemporary loud posturing is not so much about faith as it is about anxiety and maintaining control in the world. Our faith, I propose, is not about pinning down moral certitudes. It is, rather, about openness to wonder and awe in glad praise."
“Such posturing is not so much about faith as it is about anxiety …”
So I want to ask, this morning, with Jesus’ words about the cost of discipleship ringing in our ears, I want to ask, “what are we so afraid of?”
I was on my bike one morning a couple of weeks ago, riding up the W & OD trail. I was passing a little wetlands preserve, looking out over the reeds when a bull frog offered a low croak of commentary on the morning. The sound caused two almost simultaneous responses in me.
The second was a memory – both personal and, I think, primal – of hearing that sound as part of a chorus or symphony of night sounds when I was a child spending summers in the mountains of East Tennessee.
It was a sweet recollection, but the first response strikes me as more interesting: fear. Oh, sure, it was not any deep fear – more a startle reflex than a thought. Nonetheless, it was an instant of anxiety.
As I considered this irrational response to a bull frog, I thought, “how 21st-century American of me.”
What’s that you say? We Americans may be many things, but we are not afraid of frogs!
Well, I don’t mean to suggest that we are a nation fearful of amphibians. But we are a nation afraid, and, increasingly, we are afraid of nature itself.
“Nature deficit disorder” is a label recently given to this fear as it has come to be lived out in the lives of kids who know all there is to know about navigating the internet but know nothing about navigating a creek bed or a park trail.
Whether it’s a fear expressed from a perspective on the Left, such as the fear of nature’s wrath in the form of global warming, or a fear expressed from a perspective on the Right, such as the fear of the immigrant other, we are told from all sides that we should be afraid, and, increasingly, we are told to be afraid of things that are either natural or of nature herself.
Please don’t misunderstand me on this – climate change and immigration reform are real and complex issues, but the rhetoric of fear surrounding them and most every other issue reflects a deep-seated anxiety as we confront our inability to control the most natural things in the world, such as people and the weather.
If the church is to be what it is called to be, we must be first and foremost, a people unafraid. To be such, we must be a people unafraid to talk together about precisely the things that scare us, the things that cause us anxiety.
The church is called to be a people unafraid, not a people anesthetized. We don’t come here on Sunday mornings for a does of religious laughing gas that will enable us to waltz through the days to come. The extent to which we need such a balm to make it through the days is precisely the extent to which those days and our lives need to be transformed.
Life is not to be endured, it is to be lived fully. A human being alive is the glory of God, as Augustine put it.
So don’t look for ways through our around what troubles you, what angers you, what hurts you, what scares you. Maybe you have raised a chronically ill child or cared for an aging parent in poor health and know first hand the deep brokenness of our health care system – the ways that the ministry of healing has become the industry of treatment delivery systems.
The church ought to be a place of comfort and of transformation; the place where we seek ways to engage precisely those things that tick us off.
Maybe you are deeply troubled, angry even, about the war. The church – the followers of the prince of peace – ought to be a place of comfort and of transformation: the place where seek deeper engagement with the world, not escape from it.
Maybe you are angry about the way the church and culture treat sexual minorities. The church – the followers of the one whose love and compassion knew no bounds – ought to be a place of radical welcome and transformation: the place where we engage the culture and the ecclesiastical powers as well.
If we are to be the people we are called to be, we must be unafraid. Perhaps the most scary thing of all – we must be a people unafraid to talk about what draws us together as a community of faith rather than a huddled mass of fearful folk.
So that’s what we’re going to do for the next few minutes. I know that, for some of you, nothing is more anxiety-producing than the words, “get in groups of three or four,” but I promise you it will be OK. As Jesus said, “fear not, be not afraid; I am with you always, even when you are in small-group discussions!”
Here is your charge: first, gather in small groups that mix young and old, newcomer and old timer; second, make sure that you share names; third, share for the next couple of minutes, your various responses to the question, “what causes you to feel anxious?” or “what are you afraid of?” I invite you to move beyond the “snakes and spiders and flying insects” to deeper levels of anxiety – although, feel free to linger at the level of creepy-crawly for a bit if you feel so moved.
* * *
By way of calling you back together, let me suggest that you’ve just participated in something profoundly counter-cultural: you’ve gathered in community and shared some of your own insecurities. For so many folks these days, the response to insecurity is to build walls rather than connections, but walls do not create real security – community does that.
I am utterly convinced that the only way to be disciples, the only way to pick up our crosses and follow Jesus, the only we to be unafraid, is to gather in community where we bear one another’s burdens, bind one another up, and love one another. It really is all that simple; and all that hard. Let us endeavor to do it, here at Clarendon. Amen.
Jeremiah 18:1-11; Luke 14:25-33
I want to begin this morning, indeed, this program year that we kick off this morning with a quotation, then a brief story, after which I propose to invite you into some dialogue about who we are and why we are here.
First, then, this brief word from Walter Brueggemann’s most recent work. Brueggemann is, for my money, the most provocative theologian at work in the church today, which is at least mildly amusing because he’s been retired for several years, which just goes to show that provocation is not the exclusive province of the young.
Brueggemann writes,
"You might think
• If you cringe at the boisterous, cocky new sound of religion in politics,
• If you worry about the divisiveness of “red” and “blue,” and
• If you are vexed that too many people claim to be speaking directly for Christ …
You might think that our Christian faith is all about getting the moral issues right and leveraging others to think and act the right way, as do we. But if you think that, you are very wrong, because such contemporary loud posturing is not so much about faith as it is about anxiety and maintaining control in the world. Our faith, I propose, is not about pinning down moral certitudes. It is, rather, about openness to wonder and awe in glad praise."
“Such posturing is not so much about faith as it is about anxiety …”
So I want to ask, this morning, with Jesus’ words about the cost of discipleship ringing in our ears, I want to ask, “what are we so afraid of?”
I was on my bike one morning a couple of weeks ago, riding up the W & OD trail. I was passing a little wetlands preserve, looking out over the reeds when a bull frog offered a low croak of commentary on the morning. The sound caused two almost simultaneous responses in me.
The second was a memory – both personal and, I think, primal – of hearing that sound as part of a chorus or symphony of night sounds when I was a child spending summers in the mountains of East Tennessee.
It was a sweet recollection, but the first response strikes me as more interesting: fear. Oh, sure, it was not any deep fear – more a startle reflex than a thought. Nonetheless, it was an instant of anxiety.
As I considered this irrational response to a bull frog, I thought, “how 21st-century American of me.”
What’s that you say? We Americans may be many things, but we are not afraid of frogs!
Well, I don’t mean to suggest that we are a nation fearful of amphibians. But we are a nation afraid, and, increasingly, we are afraid of nature itself.
“Nature deficit disorder” is a label recently given to this fear as it has come to be lived out in the lives of kids who know all there is to know about navigating the internet but know nothing about navigating a creek bed or a park trail.
Whether it’s a fear expressed from a perspective on the Left, such as the fear of nature’s wrath in the form of global warming, or a fear expressed from a perspective on the Right, such as the fear of the immigrant other, we are told from all sides that we should be afraid, and, increasingly, we are told to be afraid of things that are either natural or of nature herself.
Please don’t misunderstand me on this – climate change and immigration reform are real and complex issues, but the rhetoric of fear surrounding them and most every other issue reflects a deep-seated anxiety as we confront our inability to control the most natural things in the world, such as people and the weather.
If the church is to be what it is called to be, we must be first and foremost, a people unafraid. To be such, we must be a people unafraid to talk together about precisely the things that scare us, the things that cause us anxiety.
The church is called to be a people unafraid, not a people anesthetized. We don’t come here on Sunday mornings for a does of religious laughing gas that will enable us to waltz through the days to come. The extent to which we need such a balm to make it through the days is precisely the extent to which those days and our lives need to be transformed.
Life is not to be endured, it is to be lived fully. A human being alive is the glory of God, as Augustine put it.
So don’t look for ways through our around what troubles you, what angers you, what hurts you, what scares you. Maybe you have raised a chronically ill child or cared for an aging parent in poor health and know first hand the deep brokenness of our health care system – the ways that the ministry of healing has become the industry of treatment delivery systems.
The church ought to be a place of comfort and of transformation; the place where we seek ways to engage precisely those things that tick us off.
Maybe you are deeply troubled, angry even, about the war. The church – the followers of the prince of peace – ought to be a place of comfort and of transformation: the place where seek deeper engagement with the world, not escape from it.
Maybe you are angry about the way the church and culture treat sexual minorities. The church – the followers of the one whose love and compassion knew no bounds – ought to be a place of radical welcome and transformation: the place where we engage the culture and the ecclesiastical powers as well.
If we are to be the people we are called to be, we must be unafraid. Perhaps the most scary thing of all – we must be a people unafraid to talk about what draws us together as a community of faith rather than a huddled mass of fearful folk.
So that’s what we’re going to do for the next few minutes. I know that, for some of you, nothing is more anxiety-producing than the words, “get in groups of three or four,” but I promise you it will be OK. As Jesus said, “fear not, be not afraid; I am with you always, even when you are in small-group discussions!”
Here is your charge: first, gather in small groups that mix young and old, newcomer and old timer; second, make sure that you share names; third, share for the next couple of minutes, your various responses to the question, “what causes you to feel anxious?” or “what are you afraid of?” I invite you to move beyond the “snakes and spiders and flying insects” to deeper levels of anxiety – although, feel free to linger at the level of creepy-crawly for a bit if you feel so moved.
* * *
By way of calling you back together, let me suggest that you’ve just participated in something profoundly counter-cultural: you’ve gathered in community and shared some of your own insecurities. For so many folks these days, the response to insecurity is to build walls rather than connections, but walls do not create real security – community does that.
I am utterly convinced that the only way to be disciples, the only way to pick up our crosses and follow Jesus, the only we to be unafraid, is to gather in community where we bear one another’s burdens, bind one another up, and love one another. It really is all that simple; and all that hard. Let us endeavor to do it, here at Clarendon. Amen.
posted by David Ensign at
8:03 AM
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