"WHAT GOD CAN DO FOR YOU”

A Sermon Based Upon Luke 12: 32-48

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Pentecost 11c, August 11th, 2013

 "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

----Luke 12:32 (NRSV)

In his commentary on Luke for everyone,  N.T. Wright makes the statement that ‘the modern western world is built on anxiety’….   “You see it on the faces of people hurrying to work.  You see it even more as they travel home, tired but without having solved life’s problems.  The faces are weary, puzzled, living with the unanswerable question as to what it all means.  The world thrives on people setting higher and higher goals for themselves, and each other, so that they worry all day and all year about whether or not they will reach them.  If they do, they will set new ones.  If they don’t, they will feel like they’ve failed.”  Then, Wright asked: “Was this really how we are supposed to live?”

The famous Rabbi, Howard Kushner wrote of this fear more concisely: “I am convinced that it is not the fear of death, of our lives ending that haunts our sleep so much as the fear... that as far as the world is concerned, we might as well never have lived.”      What fear keeps you awake at nights?   Is it the fear of dying, the fear of living, or the fear of never having lived your life like you wished?   

Strangely enough, Dan Clendenin says that his major fear and worry is that he doesn’t worry enough. He says he keeps two cartoons which illustrate his greatest fears and worries.  One sketch pictures a man sitting in his living room with a look of panic on his face. He's dropped his book and his hair stands on end. He's yanked his legs off the floor and onto the chair where he clutches them in his arms. There's a bomb on the floor that someone tossed through his window. Shattered glass litters the floor as the fuse burns down. In the punch line he confesses to his wife: "It's my fault — I wasn't worrying enough."    In another cartoon, one he keeps taped onto the kitchen cabinet, pictures a man in bed late at night. He's sitting up, scribbling on a note pad, and talking on the phone. In the caption he tells his friend, "When I can't sleep, I find that it sometimes helps to get up and jot down my anxieties."  Every square centimeter of the bedroom walls is covered with dozens of scribbled worries — war, recession, killer bees, aging, calories, sex, balding, radon gas, and so on.  Could you imagine keeping all your worries listed on your bedroom wall just so you could look at them as you try to go to sleep?  Could you imagine worrying more just to make sure you worry about everything you need to worry about?

“DO NOT BE AFRAID”

It may sound like an incredibly strange thing to say in a world like ours, in a time like ours, and in the midst of the moment in which we find right now, but Jesus’ word to us today is “Don’t be afraid?”   It is a word that we find ourselves more needing more and more, especially with the world the way it is, with the way the economy is not going; with the way we are getting ever closer to death; and of course, in the way we have so many more things to worry and be afraid today than ever before.  In spite of all this, Jesus still says to us, “Don’t be afraid!”

Fear really does drive much of our lives, so how do we get a grip on the handle of our life?  How do we overcome the obvious and unobvious fears that haunt and even hunt us down?   When I was in the 9^th grade, I recall reading an unforgettable story in English class, “The Most Dangerous Game”.    It was a story that kept your attention because it was filled with so much drama and danger, telling about a sailor who was going to hunt big game down in South American.  But on his way his ship was wrecked and now he was on an island own by a wealthy General, who owns this island where shipwrecks often happen and he likes to capture the sailors and then send them into the jungle with limited supplies so they could be hunted by him like wild animals.  The story is filled with unforgettable images of this sailor being chased by a pack of hunting dogs through the jungles that are already dangerous enough.  

Sometime or other, we all feel like something or someone is out to get us.  Sometime or other we have to deal with dreads and fears that come into our lives.  We might think it’s the government, the IRS, bill collectors, life in general, or maybe even God who is out to get us.  Psychologists say that if you have reoccurring dreams of being chased or running away from something, some subliminal fear in your life needs to be realized, confronted, and dealt with.   Much of our lives can be lived reacting to fears we have, but we’ve never really met face to face.  This makes me wonder what kind of fears Jesus’ disciples were facing when Jesus first spoke these words.  

The world always faces some kind of fear.  In the ancient world it was natural disasters—plagues, earthquakes, floods and windstorms which people believed the gods were bringing on unjust people.   Other times people faced wars due to invading armies which overtook their homelands.  Some of these great wars were religious wars, though most of them were economic or political.  We’ve known terrible wars and disasters in our own lifetime, which may surely bring fear and anxiety to us still today.   One of the greatest fears today, is not what nature can do, not even what God might do, but some of the world’s greatest anxieties and fears are brought upon us through worrying about what will happen through our own human inventions and technologies, most of which have been created for our good, but can fall into the wrong hands.  There is much worry and money put into defending not just from terrorist with bombs, but also from terrorist with brains.  That’s the kind of scary thought which will cause many military and national security leaders to lose sleep tonight.

In Jesus’ own world, we can only image how much more fearful daily life must have been.  Many of Jesus’ hearers hand only enough to live on each day, and there was always the possibility that they wouldn’t have that.   Most people in the biblical world had one spare garment, but not more.  As with most of the world today, that lives on 1 or 2 dollars a day, just one disaster—like the breadwinner becoming sick, injured, could mean complete destitution.   And it was to people just like that, not people who had to worry about luxury cars, investment accounts or hospital bills---people to who probably had much more to worry about that you and I ever have---it is to these people Jesus addresses these words,  “Do not be afraid!”

Anxiety and stress can be a killer.   Carrying around constant fear in our hearts and minds can be very dangerous to us moderns too.   Even in this modern world, with all its increasing technology, we might have even more to worry about, not less.   It’s not that we are in a more dangerous situation than they were, but it’s because we simply know too much and have so much more to lose.  As the old saying, “what you don’t know can hurt you”, but at least you won’t worry yourself sick over it until it does.

“SELL YOUR POSESSIONS”

It is quite surprising, perhaps even alarming to begin to ‘unpack’ what Jesus recommends people do to control their fears and worries.   We will probably not pay much attention to what Jesus recommends either, but if you listen to what he is prescribing for dealing with worry and fear will certainly ‘grab’ our attention.  For the first thing Jesus recommends hits us head on in verse 32, “SELL, SELL, SELL”.  On Wall Street this is normally what people do when they are afraid, who would ever thought “selling your possessions” would rid our fear.

A lot of scholarship hours have been spent trying to understand or water-down what Jesus was saying.  This is certainly a very shocking plan of action, isn’t it?  Will it work?  Will having less make us worry less?  I would say that the answer to this question depends on some other things too.   If you ‘sell’ everything and start living on the street, that would not reduce your anxiety.   If you sell all the things that are causes you so much worry, anxiety, fear and burden, you could discover that Jesus is on to something important.

This is really what Jesus implies.  Earlier in this chapter, Jesus’ concern was not have some possessions, or having enough to live on, but Jesus was concerned about people who think life consists ‘in the abundance of possessions” (12:15).  Underline the word ‘abundance’.  It was not having something that was causing the man in the parable to lose his soul, but it was having too much---so much that he spent most of his time worrying about what had than the time he had to live.   Later on in this text, Jesus tells his disciples ‘not to worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear, for life is more than food and clothing.” (12: 22).  What brings fear, anxiety is not whether or not we will eat or have clothing, but what brings excessive worry and stress is the unnecessary worrying about what kind of food we will eat and what kind of clothing people are wearing.  The world wants you to worry about these things.   Jesus wants you to eat, get dressed and go out and not worry so much about these kinds of things.

I have told you before, that one of most ‘freeing’ times of our lives was when we sold our possessions to become missionaries.  Those six years in Europe were challenging, but also exciting.   As we put our lives into God’s hands, we felt free to do our work, but also to live our lives with a whole different set of priorities.  That was not an easy thing to do, and unfortunately, it came to an end when we had to come back to the States and care for my parents.  Today, some of the fondest memories are that time when all our ‘burdens’ were lifted and we lived our life on prayers, hopes, faith and trust.  We had a great mission agency to work for and they assured us that they would be there for us, and they were.

It is difficult for most of us to let go of all that we have and to live in unlimited trust.  We are so dependent on ‘things’, ‘homes’, assets, and incomes.   This is of course unfortunate, because we miss so much when we fail to trust and risk our lives for love and for life.   Think of what a child will miss if they never let go of the float and learn to swim.   Think of what a young person might miss, if they say to themselves, “I’ll never get married”   Or think of what a young couple might miss if they, out of fear, say that they will ‘never have children”    Think of what a Christian misses, when they hold on too tightly and miss the adventure of journey of following Jesus.  Think of what all kinds of things people miss when they are not willing to take a risk for the sake of something bigger than what they are holding on to.  Sometimes all we need to do is learn to ‘let go’.

“BE DRESSED FOR ACTION” 

There is something more to this Jesus approach toward living.  Not only do we overcome much of our anxiety by reducing our possessions and materialistic worries, but Jesus also tells his disciple to ‘get dressed for action”.   All this follows Jesus’ words about selling our possessions, giving to the poor, and storing treasures in heaven.   The word is to reduce our anxiety about ourselves by getting involved in helping others.

We’ve all heard stories about people who never retire, but use their retirement to learn to work in some area of social work, charity, church, or mission.  I recall hearing about a wealthy woman who retired to Florida, but instead of hitting the shopping malls, golf courses, or recreation areas, she established a ministry to the poor.  Why was she doing this, she was asked by the reporter.   “I not ready to sit down and worry.  There is something to do, and I can’t imagine someone not doing it.”   Again, the point is, that you don’t worry so much about yourself when you are busy helping others.   This is what Jesus means about getting ‘dressed for action’.   There is so much to do, and too little time to spend our days worrying about what we can’t do anything about.  We need to occupy ourselves; not only for the sake of ourselves, but for the sake of others.  Every psychologist of counselor in the world will tell you that people deal best with their anxiety by think less about themselves and think more about others.  Get busy.  Take charge.  Go to work.  Be involved.  Find some way to give back and you will overcome all kinds of worries, fears, anxieties, doubts and apprehensions about life.

One of the reasons most adults survive without excessive anxiety is because they have so much to do—going to work, making a living, children to raise, mortgages and bills to pay.  The things we do keep us going and keep us from worrying too much.  But on the two edges of life, worry can build up fast.  Surprisingly, worry and anxiety can build up fast for young people who have too few emotional resources for dealing with their anxiety, or it can overcome those who have lived most of their lives and now worry because they are getting closer to the end.  How do young adults and senior adults best deal with their anxieties: Get dressed for action.  Do something.  Make a difference.  Go out and learn about the world and how you can make a difference; or actually get busy teaching, showing, giving back to others out of the experiences you have had.  A book aimed at high school and college youth says it all: “Just Do Something!”  One of the best ways to deal with your anxiety before it gets to you is to ‘do something’.  

“BE PREPARED FOR THE MASTER WHO IS COMING

The final word from Jesus is be ready.  As a metaphor of readiness, Jesus often uses the image of a bridegroom coming for the wedding feast.  He says we are to be like ‘bridesmaids’ having our lamps lit, being ready to open the door, and being prepared for the bridegroom, whether he comes day or night, even if he comes like a thief.  It’s hard for us moderns to get into this imagery today, but we do understand what it means to be ready, to get our hearts right, to make things right within ourselves and with others, and to prepare ourselves for the future, no matter what comes.

Maybe you heard in the news about the couple who were driving to a Dave Matthews concert in Hersey, PA, when they encountered a man on the road who had a bicycle with a flat-tire.  As they passed the fellow they looked into his face and both said to each other, "Hey, wasn't that Dave Matthews?"  They had to turn around and go back and see.   They did.  It was Dave Matthews, and if it had not been for the couple who passed by and stopped along the road to pick him up, there would have been no concert that night.  To reward the couple, Dave gave them backstage seats, and then took them out to dinner with the whole band.  Wow!  We never know who we might meet along the road.  It's always a good idea to 'stay ready'.

We all know that a day is coming that we all must prepare ourselves for.  We must be ready because it can come like a ‘thief in the night’.  Life is built on this constant unknown that it can be taken from us at any moment.   To ‘prepare’ ourselves for this uncertainty means that we should live each day, as if, it was our last.  That’s not an easy thing to do.   We get so involved and distracted by things.  But Jesus words remind us how important it is to keep our focus, not just on now, but the end that always comes.  It will come whether we are ready or not.  Jesus wants to remind his disciples that they should be ‘prepare’ and be ‘ready’.  The only promise he can make about the future is that the last moment will be ‘unexpected’.  If you are not ready, you will live with all kinds of fear and anxiety.  But if you prepare your heart, keep your soul in shape, and face each day with a prayer and with a heart that is open and ready for God’s will, you can overcome a truck load of fear.  Amen.