December 31, 2006

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For God Hath not Given us a Kingdom of Fear

          A couple of weeks ago I was in the library with Matt Eley and his brother Kevin.  We were in one of our favorite sections, philosophy.  It just so happened that right beside the philosophy section stood the dreaded self-help books.  You may have seen the type.  The infamous “how-to” and “steps to success” books which use catchy phrases and colloquialisms.  Kevin and Matt noted how the titles of these books seemed as if they started with a catchy phrase only then to fill in the content later.  Titles like these: “Why do I act this way on the Highway: How to stop Road Rage” and “Ten steps to a Tender heart: How to love and be loved.”  Catchy titles with little depth.

          Now, for my confession: I, too, designed my sermon title to be a play on words, though I did have my content prepared beforehand.  My sermon title makes reference to Matthew 2 and II Timothy 1:7.  “For God hath not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind.”  Aside from John 3:16, it was the first scripture I ever memorized.  “Why?”  I am glad you asked, for it is a rather strange verse for a four year old to know by heart.  When I was young, like most kids, I was afraid of the dark, of things that went bump in the night.  My mother, ever the saint, thought I should memorize this verse and say it before I went to sleep. So, I did.  However, mom thought one more phrase might be of help to me.  And I would repeat this phrase over and over again.  It became my mantra, if you will.  “There ain’t no ghost but the Holy Ghost.”  If you were to go in my room at night as a four year old, you might hear this, “For God hath not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.  There ain’t no ghost but the Holy Ghost.” I would like to say that, together with Saint Paul and my mother’s mantra on my side,that I went to sleep immediately with great courage and hope.  That would be a lie.  On the contrary, I started to become afraid of the Holy Ghost because well… I thought he was a ghost and mom told me he was real.  Holy or not, I thought he must be the king of ghosts which made Casper the friendly ghost pale in comparison.  It reminds me of a story I once heard.

          5-yeard old Johnny was in the kitchen as his mother made supper.  She asked him to go into the pantry and get her a can of tomato soup, but he didn’t want to go in alone.  “It’s dark in there and I’m scared.”  She asked again, and he persisted.  Finally she said, “It’s OK—Jesus will be in there with you.”  Johnny walked hesitantly to the door and slowly opened it.  He peeked inside, saw it was dark, and started to leave when all at once an idea came, and he said: “Jesus, if you’re in there, would you hand me that can of tomato soup?”

          I suppose the dark has been a common fear of humanity, especially children, for generation upon generation.  Researchers at John Hopkins University reported 30 years ago that the greatest fears of grade-school children were: 1) Animals, 2) Being in a dark room, 3) High places, 4) Strangers, 5) Loud Noises.  Today, kids are afraid of the following: 1) Divorce, 2) Nuclear war, 3) Cancer, 4) Pollution, 5) Being mugged.  This is quite the difference.  Real or perceived threats are the same in at least one respect- the production of fear.  When we turn on the television, open the newspaper, or browse the Internet, we are bombarded with threats, with news of impending danger or simply with information so abundant we can scarcely process even a fraction of it.  It could even be that this generation has more access to information in which to anticipate disaster than any previous one.  This fear has not bypassed the Christian community.  In fact, nearly all of the top-selling Christian books of the last 15 years have had two themes: Self-help and the supposed “end of the world as we know it.”  We live in a culture of fear.

          It was into a similar world that Jesus was born, at least in the Middle East and North Africa.  The Romans were advancing their territory by the day.  The Pax Romana, or Roman Peace, was anything but peaceful- at least to those whom resisted.  The Jewish people were underneath the control of the Romans, but at the time of Jesus, there was a certain former governor and now King who ruled the kingdom: Herod the Great.  In 63 BC Pompey the Great, a military mastermind, took control of Jerusalem.  In doing so, he set up “a dark cloud of Roman presence” which would continue “for several hundred years” (Witherington, 49, New Testament History).  By the year 37, a “rising star” in the Roman syndicate named Herod the Great took power.  “Herod the Great, king of Judea, gained imperial [Roman] favor by consolidating territory and ruthlessly quelling opposition” (Yancey, “A Tale of Five Herod”, Christianity Today).  Just before ascending the throne, Herod “married Marriamne II, the niece of Antigonus, to whom he had been betrothed for five years.  Not only was this a contemptuous move against Antigonus, but also, since she was a Hasmonean, it strengthened his claim to the throne.  Herod beheaded Antigonus, thus ending the Hasmonean rule and ensuring his position as the king of the Jews” (Hoehner, 317-326).  Herod thus began his rule as king in bloodshed.  This act foreshadowed his tumultuous career as king of the Jews, for though there were short times of relative peace in the land much of the Jewish landscape was reflected in the domestic affairs of Herod.  By time of the birth of Jesus, Herod had murdered his wife, three sons, and many others (Yancey, Christianity Today). 

          This is where the story begins in Matthew 2.  Jesus has been born to the Virgin Mary and while the news of the birth of the Messiah flew under the radar for the first months and possibly even years, it has come to the attention of King Herod and “all Jerusalem” (2.3) that a King has been born.  What was Herod’s reaction to the news?  Fear.  Though his health waning and his throne about to be passed to his son, Herod Antipas, Herod the Great was fearful of this “infant king.”  Can you sense a hint of irony in this situation? One of the most powerful people in the nation and the Roman Empire (read world) is threatened by a mere child, a baby; the man who invoked fear within many was just as fearful as the people whom he threatened.

          This is reminiscent of another brutal ruler, Joseph Stalin.  It is said that the Soviet Dictator so feared for his safety that his residence in Moscow contained eight bedrooms.  Each night Stalin chose a bedroom at random to ensure that no one knew exactly where he was sleeping.  His fear spurred violence toward others and his violence toward others ignited fear within him, a vicious cycle which is no respecter of persons.  Herod knew this fear well.  Herod feared losing his throne, but the irony is startling- he had no reason to fear him for even as Jesus grew to become a man, he never reflected the desire to usurp the throne; incidentally, this is the final temptation the adversary, Satan, brought to Jesus in the Wilderness (Mt. 4.8-10).  Like Herod, Satan mistook Jesus as someone who was searching for earthly power and prestige.  It would only be a matter of time before Jesus displayed and redefined true power.  Power which unraveled the powers that be not through coercion, rules, and the sword, but through love, submission, and sacrifice for an unwitting and unwilling world.

          Herod was not the only one filled with fear, however.  The book of Matthew recounts in the story that “all Jerusalem” was frightened with him.  Jerusalem was the center of Jewish religion, art, and commerce.  It was thought that if a Messiah was to be born, surely he would be born in Jerusalem.  He wasn’t.  However, Jerusalem was frightened at the news of the birth of Jesus, King of the Jews.  It seems odd that “all Jerusalem” would be frightened at the birth of a new King, especially in light of tyrannical King Herod.  Herod, it would seem, was not oppressive everyone.  Josephus, one of the greatest, if not the greatest historian of Antiquity wrote that, “Those who opposed him were punished, and those who took his side were rewarded with favors and honors” (Hoehner, 317-326).  The religious, political, and social elite was not in danger of Herod the Great; in fact, it was he who probably secured their status as such.  A new King, however, what would that mean?  They were comfortable with their “in” status which meant continually deciding who was “out.”  They did not want that defined by anyone else.  Once again, and the ironies of this story and in fact the stories of Jesus Christ are endless, the logic of those who are on the “inside” are inverted.  People on the “outside” are brought into the Kingdom of God in the book of Matthew while those on the “inside” are left out.  To those who thought they were “in” Jesus says, “depart from me thou wicked servant” and to those who were uninvited to the wedding banquet, He bids “come and dine.” (Mt. 7:23; 22.1-14).  Isn’t that interesting?

          We see the same thing with the wise men. the wise men were actually magi.  This name, which is Greek in origin, is where we get our word “magic.”  Magi were astrologers, watchers of the stars.  They would be far from the religious circles of Judaism as I am sure they would be with Christians today.  Later in history, the puritans and other “Christians” thought they might do God a favor by burning these heretics and witches at the stake.  The year 1692 witnessed the deaths of 19 “witches” within a span of three months.  This was later referred to as the Salem Witch Trials. 

          However, it is the Magi who are the first to acknowledge the Kingship of Jesus and the first to worship the King of the Jews.  These Magi, who were not part of the religious “inner circle”, were the only ones to recognize the Messiah until John the Baptist did down on the River Jordan thirty years later.  The contrast between Herod the Great and Jerusalem and the Magi reaches crescendo in verse 10.  Herod and Jerusalem were filled with fear; the Magi were “overwhelmed with joy.”  Herod sent his cronies in and around Bethlehem to kill all the children two years and under so as to destroy the opposing King; the Magi knelt down to worship the child, the King of the Jews.

          God warned Joseph in a dream to flee to Africa, to the land of Egypt.  So, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus flee to Egypt.  After some time, being led by another dream, they return to Israel, but go to Nazareth rather than Bethlehem.  Interestingly, Philip Yancey notes that settling in Nazareth helped “consign Jesus to the ranks of an outsider (“Can anything good come from Nazareth?”) [sic] (Yancey, Christianity Today).  Jesus not only identified with outsiders- He was an outsider.  God in flesh showed up where the religious were not searching, where the rich were not buying, where the social elites were not living.  We could assign this behavior to what “they” would do, but I think we would be missing the point.  We could say that “they” were religious, but “we” are spiritual.  We could find ourselves in the place of the Magi, kneeling to worship who we are sure must be God.  However, I think we are more often like frightened “Jerusalem” than we would like to imagine.  We are often more akin to the defensive posture of Peter as he denied even knowing a man named Jesus.  At least I know that is the case with me.  There are many times in which I am more fearful than faithful.  Perhaps I could even say there are times when I am faithfully fearful. 

          However, there is something special that should challenge the way in which we fear.  I say, “the way in which we fear” because we will  be scared.  The question is not will we be scared or frightened, but how will we respond to it.  Will we, like Herod and Jerusalem seek to silence that which scares us?  Unfortunately this question is not metaphorical for that which we fear, or whom, is often pressed out of our life whether through aggression, turning off our hearts and minds, or by leaving.  Either way we are setting up walls.  Either way we are constructing barriers and burning bridges so as to avoid those people or ideas which deconstruct our carefully constructed reality.  One of the best ways I have found to figure whether you are afraid is really simple:  can you listen?  Will you listen?  When someone tries to explain how she/he feels or thinks, will you listen?  Can you listen and still admire the worth of someone as human being created in the image of God even when they do not agree with you- even someone who the world or maybe even your religion has dubbed as your supposed enemy? 

          Why do we do this?  What underlines this fear?  In the case of Herod and Jerusalem it was very similar; comfort and security.  Can we not relate?  We live in a time in which comfort and security reign as virtues.  We are encouraged to do that which makes us comfortable.  I am a product of this as well.  I like to be just as comfortable as the next person.  We want our way of life to be intact, just as Herod and Jerusalem, without question.  We desire security, physical and emotional, and make it the Gospel truth that we have the right to such things.

                                But we don’t.  That is not the Gospel.

          Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.  The importance is not where we are or what we have, but who we are with that makes the difference.  Or should I say who is “with us.”  This is the story of Christmas, this is the anticipation of advent; “God with us.”  “Look the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us” (Mt. 1.23).  This is how the book of Matthew starts and ends.  “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations… And remember, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS” (Mt. 28.19-20).  This is what challenges us in how we respond to fear.  We do not respond to fear as those who do not have hope, but we respond as those who are attempting to see beyond this present circumstance. In Matthew we see King Herod fear and all Jerusalem with him, but we see the angel of the Lord telling Joseph to “fear not” (Mt. 1:20); we see the Magi, the wise men, filled with joy as they worshipped the King of the Jews, Emmanuel, God with us!  We see a Jesus who did not respond to fear by announcing what was rightfully his.  Surely he could have!  He could have rightly taken the throne of Herod and even Rome.  He could have bypassed suffering on the cross by taking what was rightfully his.  But this is how Jesus defines divinity- with his life he showed that submission and sacrifice are true power and how the power of this world will pass away.  The Roman Empire is no longer an empire.  The Caesar no longer rules; the emperor’s crown has been burnt away as chaff.  In so doing, Jesus redefined not only what it means to be God, but also what it means to be human. 

Paul puts it this way in Romans 5:12-17:

5:12    Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned—

 5:13    sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law.

 5:14    Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.

 5:15    But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man's trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.

 5:16    And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification.

 5:17    If, because of the one man's trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

          Jesus came, God in the flesh, as the fullest expression of what it means to be divine.  He also came to show us what it means to be human for he was fully so.  Scripture and Tradition teach us that he was both, and one cannot lean more towards either one, for He was both.  Paul desires us recognize both aspects, too.  The first Adam taught us what it means to lose our humanity through fear and disobedience of God.  Jesus, as the second Adam,  taught us what it means to be obedient in the face of fear. 

          When I think back to the mantra my mother told me as a child; when I think of the admonition of Paul to Timothy, I can see wisdom perhaps my mother didn’t realize she was imparting.  God is with us, even when we least expect it- when we least see Him.  I don’t just mean he is “with us.”  He is with the world, in the world, working to redeem the world, through the power of the Holy Ghost- and that ain’t no Ghost to be afraid of. 

Paul Jones
Paul@mulberryumc.org