“When you hear of wars and insurrections,
do not be afraid.”
Our gospel lesson is about a time
Christians call “the tribulation.”
Jesus was thinking of the coming
destruction of Judah
by
the Roman Empire – the one that happened in 66 A. D.
But his words have lived on for two
thousand years,
and
have been applied to millions of tribulations.
Individually, I’ve had my tribulations,
and
I expect you’ve had yours.
As a society, we have some tribulation
going on most years,
and
sometimes things are scarier than others.
The basic thing to know about tribulation
is that it happens.
Count on them.
That’s what it says: “these things must
happen first.”
The line in the Lord’s Prayer
we usually translate
as “Lead us not into temptation.”
actually means
“save us from the time of tribulation.”
It means: God help us. Get us through this.
Deliver us from evil.
Jesus’ core message in today’s lesson is
two simple points:
1.
Tribulations happen.
2.
When they happen, do not be afraid.
In fact the commandment Jesus gave his
disciples
more
often than any other was this: do not be afraid.
This year in Jerusalem I bought a book by
Martha Nussbaum,
a
fine Jewish philosopher and literary critic.
Ironically, I bought it in a Palestinian
bookstore.
It’s called The New Religious Intolerance.
It’s called The New Religious Intolerance.
Nussbaum begins by noting that we are more
afraid
than usual these
days.
A lot of things are shaking us up.
Globalization is part of it.
Rapid technological and social change is
another.
We are afraid of economic instability and
war.
Migration is scaring everyone.
Sociological studies show that fear of
immigrants
is
one of our biggest anxieties
-- not just in the United States, but all over
the world.
Strangers make us nervous.
And, of course, there are terrorist whose modus operandi
is
to ratchet up fear.
Then Nussbaum says something profound
-- something that
unlocks the code,
that
explains why Jesus’ most frequent commandment,
by
far, was: do not be afraid.
She says: “Fear is the most narcissistic
emotion.”
It sucks the consciousness right out of our
frontal lobes
down into our
reptilian brain stems
where
all we can think about is saving ourselves
and
a few folks nearest and dearest to us.
When we are in the grip of fear, Nussbaum
says,
we
lose one of the mental abilities that make us human.
She calls it “participatory imagination.”
It’s related to empathy.
Participatory imagination is the ability to
see the world
through
someone else’s eyes,
to
imaginatively walk a mile in their shoes.
In fear mode, we can make up reductionist stories
about people,
stories
that portray them as two-dimensional caricatures.
But we can’t put ourselves in their place
and
imagine how the world looks to them.
Participatory imagination is a uniquely
human capacity.
Without it, we have no capacity for
relationship
except
with people who are just like us.
The narcissism of fear explains what Bill
Bishop
describes
in his book The Big Sort.
Americans are fleeing from our historically
diverse communities
into
smaller and smaller gated enclaves
of
people who look, think, and feel just like themselves.
The uniquely human capacity to see the
world as other sees it,
even
to see ourselves as others see us,
gives
us a rich, complex view of things,
and
a wealth of vicarious life experiences
from
which we can glean wisdom.
But when fear strips us of that capacity
for empathy,
our
world constricts.
When our arteries constrict, it shuts down
life.
It’s the same with our souls.
Fear makes the soul small and cramped.
It chokes the life out of us.
And as we choke we get more and more
afraid.
Today, we live in a time of heightened
fear.
The airport P A systems remind us of that
every
time we catch a plane.
We live in an anxious time.
So did Jesus.
The terrorists and insurrectionists of his
day
were
about to bring the wrath of Rome
down on the heads
of the people.
So they were afraid.
That’s why Jesus’ favorite book of
Scripture was Isaiah.
Isaiah is full of passages like today’s lesson.
Isaiah is full of passages like today’s lesson.
I took up praying these lines every day
during a personal tribulation a few years ago
and I’ve never
stopped:
“Surely
it is God who saves me.
I will trust in him and not be afraid.
For
he is my stronghold and my sure defense
and
he will be my Savior.”
It was in Isaiah that the Lord said,
“Fear
not for I have redeemed you.
I have called you by name.
When
you pass through the waters
I
will be with you;
(and)
the rivers . . . will not overwhelm you;
When you pass
through the fire,
it
will not consume you.”
Or try this one:
“Thus
says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel,
‘In
quietness and trust will be your strength,
In
returning and rest, you shall be saved.’”
Isaiah is all about the quiet, confident
strength of faith.
Jesus learned that kind of faith from his
mamma’s knee.
But don’t think he was naïve.
He didn’t say that nothing bad or scary would
happen.
He said bad stuff would definitely happen.
For the nation, he said that there will be wars,
insurrections,
earth quakes
famines, and
plagues.
For himself he foresaw the cross.
For his followers, he predicted,
“They will put some
of you to death.”
Faith isn’t naïve denial.
There will be typhoons in the Philippines,
genocides in Rwanda
and the Central African Republic,
and school
shootings in Connecticut and Nevada.
Each of us will have our own private tribulations.
All the frailties of human life are ours.
Faith doesn’t pretend disasters don’t
happen.
Faith is how we face them when they do.
Faith is trusting that God alone is eternal
and
that God loves us infinitely.
When the forces of evil, chaos, and
destruction
have done their
worst, God’s love is still there.
Even when we go to our grave,
we
go like Jesus trusting God to raise us up.
Have you experienced the difference that
kind of faith
makes in your life?
Or can you imagine it?
It doesn’t mean we don’t feel fear.
But it does mean we don’t surrender to it.
We don’t surrender our capacity to see the
world
through
someone else’s eyes – even through the eyes
of
someone who scares us.
It is that capacity – precisely that
capacity –
that
can make us instruments of peace in a darkened world,
channels
of blessing in a forlorn place,
agents
of healing in a broken land.
Brothers and sisters I wish you faith,
because
faith will not only give you the strength
it takes to live
this life,
it will enlarge
your soul.
It will let life flow in your spiritual veins
again.
But your faith isn’t just for your benefit.
Faith will make you a lover of this poor
world
that
is dying for love.
It will set you free to shine God’s grace
like
sunlight in a darkened land.
