May 17, 2009 , June 19,2009, October 25, 2009, December Confirmation 2009

July 2009

Faith and Fear
By John Undem
There are, I think, a variety of ways to come to Christianity. There seems to be a continuum of the Christian experience. On one end you have the experience of Saul on the road to Damascus. He was struck down to his knees, he was blinded by the light. It was an instant and utterly complete conversion to Christ. At the other end of the continuum we have what I call the slow Christians. Their path to Christ requires years, sometimes decades of patience by God. Their progress is incremental (some might observe, at times, that this is imperceptible) in their journey with Christ. They tend to not be emotional but embark on a path which is cautious and tentative.   I fall at this end of the continuum. My Christianity has never been particularly emotional. I would not do well in a church where people enthusiastically fell into the aisles speaking in tongues, or handled snakes or shouted encouragement to the preacher during a particularly good sermon. I'm really a pretty good Episcopalian in this way.
Having said that I need to acknowledge this - there are passages in the Bible which bring me to tears. Passages which will cause in me a welling up from the very depths of my being, an emotion that is so powerful and so unexplainable it will take my breath away... such is the Twenty-third Psalm.
Turn of the century congressional preacher, Henry Ward Beecher called the 23rd Psalm the Nightingale of all psalms. About the psalm he wrote this, "It has charmed more griefs to rest than all the philosophy of the world. It has comforted the noble host of the poor, it has sung courage to the army of the disappointed, it has poured balm and consolation onto the heart of the sick, of captives in dungeons, of widows in their pinching grief and of orphans in their loneliness."
Do you know that if you talk with any priest or minister, almost to a one they will tell you , of a time, or several times if they have been at it long enough, when they have walked into the room of a sick, or dying person, a person who by any measurable means is unconscious, but when they begin to read the 23rd Psalm, the person's lips begin to move. Even in their unconsciousness, they recognize this psalm which brings such peace.
What is it about the 23rd psalm that resonates so deeply within us? What is it about David's cry to God that touches our very souls? What is it about the weight and majesty of these words that can move us and can comfort us like no others?

The answer lies at the very core of our faith and the place that our faith holds in our world. The answer recognizes that the 23rd psalm contains the promise of God to his people - the promise of a life without fear.
You see, the world is a fearsome place. There is it seems no limits to the dangers and the fears we encounter. There is so much worry about - we worry about wars, we worry about famines, we worry about drugs, we worry about diseases, we worry about our spouses, we worry about our kids, we worry about our grandkids, our finances, our health, and our death. When things are good we worry that they are going to get bad, when they are bad we worry that they are going to get worse. There is no shortage of things in this world to fear. And if there is, there are those of us who can lay in bed at night when it's quiet and when it's dark and think up some more things to worry about. We can spend our entire lives walking in fear or we can choose not to.
Let's talk about that. Consider this - if you were to ask people what the opposite of love is, most will quickly say hate. That is incorrect. Hate is really a perversion of love. The opposite of love is really indifference. The same can be said of faith. Many will say that the opposite of faith is unbelief or atheism. It is not. The opposite of faith is fear. If you are living a life of fear, then you are not living a life of faith. And if you are living a life of faith, then you are not living a life of fear. Perhaps one of the most fundamental concepts or precepts of Christian living is that it is through our faith that our fears are conquered. It is through our faith that we find peace. Faith and peace will always walk together. Fr. Henry Nouwan a catholic priest, a psychologist and a writer who taught at both Harvard and Yale said this... "The invitation of Christ is an invitation to move out of the house of fear and move into the house of love." A life lived in fear is neither free nor is it what our Lord intended. So why is this important and what are we to do about it?
This matter of faith and fear is important for two reasons. First of all when we are living in faith, our decisions are based on faith. If on the othe

Paul in his letter to the Phillipians calls it "the peace of God which transcends all understanding." In the Old Testament lesson this morning, Jeremiah tells us good people shall fear no more. Paul tells us today in his letter to the Ephesians that Christ is our peace. The Bible is filled with the promise of the peace of God for his people. Faith and peace are gifts from God. They are gifts which we must nurture through prayer and meditation, through obedience to the principals of Christians living, with adherence to Christ's command that we love God and each other. Through these things we grow in faith and allow the peace of the Lord to grow in our hearts.
Lest we consider these things of no real consequence and which have no bearing on real life, let us consider this morning one instance where the peace and grace of our Lord collided with as great a fear as any of us will ever face:
On the night of April 14,1912, the Titanic hit an iceberg. Early the next morning, it sank. There were two thousand two hundred and twenty-three (2, 223) people on board. 706 survived. 1,517 died. On board there were five (5) protestant ministers along with two (2) of their wives, three (3) catholic priests and one (1) Christian missionary. None of them survived. The survivors of this disaster gave the accounts of the final moments of these people of God.
Anny Funk was a missionary for years in India. She was returning to the United States to be with her ailing mother. She was actually sitting in a life boat when she gave up her place to a young mother with children.
Ernest Courtney Carter was an Anglican priest. He was traveling with his wife, Lillian. Both of them were offered seats in a life boat as the ship sank, both refused and insisted that others take their places.
Charles Kirkland was a Baptist minister who administered to others and would not board a life boat.
Joseph Pervshitz was a Catholic priest and monk who also refused a seat on a life boat and stayed on board to help others.
Robert James Bateman was a Baptist minister. He helped his sister-in-law into a boat and gave her his coat. He then stayed on the ship to help others.
John Harper was an Evangelical Baptist minister . He spent his last minutes in the cold water of the Atlantic Ocean comforting others. He gave up his own life jacket to a young man who had none and who survived.

William Lahtinen was a Lutheran minister from Cokato. He was traveling with his wife Anna. He refused a seat on a life boat and Anna gave up her seat to stay with him. They were last seen on the deck of the ship as it was sinking. He was reportedly calmly smoking a cigar. (If my mother would have been there she would have pointed out that that was not good for him.)
Thomas Roussel David Byles was a Catholic priest. Three (3) young Irish women who survived recalled his final moments. "Be calm my good people" he said and then went about the steerage giving absolution and blessing. A few of us became very excited but when the priest raised his hand instantly we were calm once more. Continuing the prayers he led us to where the boats were being lowered, helping the women and children into the boats, he whispered comfort and encouragement. A crewman tried to convince him to board a life boat. He refused so another might live.
Juozas Montvila was a Catholic priest. He is currently under consideration for canonization. He also turned down a seat on a life boat. He said he wanted to stay on board to provide solace, consolation and absolution to the doomed passengers. He was 27 years old.
The promise of God as so beautifully recited by David in the 23rd Psalm is that we can walk through this fearsome world without fear. That we can, if we choose, walk in the peace of God which transcends all understanding. That we can live our lives joyously and freely, neither ignoring the fears and the dangers of this world nor wallowing foolishly in them, but rather walking in faith with God. For as David said, "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for you are with me." Amen.