SCARY STUFF

June 20, 2010
Pentecost 4
Galations 3:23-29
Luke 8:22-39
(prayer)
The disciples and Jesus decided to sail across the Sea of Galilee – from Galilee to Gerasene. Things seemed to have started off calm enough, because Jesus went to sleep. It was one of the obvious advantages of calling some fishermen to be disciples. Jesus could leave the driving to someone else. Along the journey, the winds pick up and the waters got rough and extremely choppy. The boat was tossed and turned in danger of capsizing.
“Wake up master, we are perishing!”
Jesus then did an unusually thing, he spoke to the wind and the waves and the seas were calm. The disciples weren’t sure what was more scary, the windstorm or suddenly realizing that Jesus might be more that they had thought (who is this that even the winds and waters obey his commands?).
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Once on the other shore (as soon as Jesus stepped on the shore Luke says), they were approached with by a very disturbed man. He was known to wander around buck naked and screaming. In the medical assessment and theology of the time, he was said to be dominated by a demon, or spirit. It was obvious to all who knew him that he certainly was not in control of himself. The people of the town were scared of him and had tried several times to restrain him, but he (or they would say the demon) was strong and broke the bonds, leaving behind any family and home and running off to the wilderness hills where there were graves and tombs. It was a disturbing scene. Certainly, this was not the ambassador that the local chamber of commerce would have wanted greeting visitors at the port.
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Then, in a very similar scene to the boat, Jesus spoke directly to the problem, he addressed the man’s illness, his demons: commanding them to leave the man alone. The scene was dramatic and chaotic, we can imagine the naked man shouting incoherently, and Jesus working hard to get the man’s attention. There would have been murmurs and comments rushing throughout the crowd wondering what was going on. Suddenly, the crowd’s attention shifted to a herd of swine who had been panicked into rushing down a hillside right into the lake. Before the swine herds could respond the herd was lost and drowned. I imagine that it was at that time that someone realized that the disturbed man was calm. Someone may have given him a clock to wear and Jesus and all through around him were smiling and talking joyfully with him.
As people told others what had happened they would link all of the events together. It was as if the man’s demons had left the man, entered the swine, who reacted by rushing to their deaths.
People weren’t sure what was scarier: the man when he was so disturbed and not in his right mind, or realizing that this stranger from the lake might be something more than they thought. They all asked Jesus to “just leave”, everyone is except for the man who had been healed.
Both in the boat with the disciples and on the shore with the Gerasenes, people were too scared to imagine that something wonderful might have happened in their midst.
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A week and a half ago, I got to spend a couple of days the immediate past moderator of the United Church, the Very Rev. David Giuliano. It was a retreat planned by Red Deer Presbytery in support of the camping and youth programs.
The event title (Fear, Faith and God) was taken from the sub-title of David’s book, Postcards from the Valley: Encounters with Fear, Faith and God. As many of you might know, very shortly after begin elected moderator in 2006, David learned he had a cancerous tumour near his temple. The book is a series of personal reflections that David shared with the church through a blog and in other ways before during and after his treatments.
Ironically, David admitted at the event, he thinks that he was elected Moderator largely because of four words of scripture he quoted during his moderator nomination speech - three words found at many different places in the bible: DO NOT BE AFRAID.
He had no idea, how much those words would challenge him only a few weeks into his three year term as moderator.
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I know I have preached in this area before, but fear is such a strong emotion that can come so quickly into our lives – so when the suggested readings for a particular Sunday point me in that direction, I am nudged to go back.
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The truth be told, the actual lectionary Gospel reading from Luke for today did not include the calming of waters section I read at the start of the service, just the verses about the demons and the swine. That passage still has a theme of fear, near the end, when the people of the town are afraid of Jesus, because of what he did.
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In almost all cases, when fear is mentioned in the Bible, it is contrasted with Faith. As I have noted before: “doubt” is not the opposite of faith in the Bible, “fear” is.
I read the story of Jesus and the disciples in the boat from Luke today, because that is the gospel the lectionary readings are focusing on this year. Matthew and Mark tell very similar stories. Both of these gospels quote Jesus as saying to his disciples: Why are you afraid, where is your faith? Fear and faith seeming tigging in opposite directions. For some reason, Luke chose not to include the first half of the question. Although, Luke does say in the very next sentence that the disciples were afraid.
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Why are you afraid is a slightly passive way of saying don’t be afraid. But the message is similar. Faith will calm your fears.
It is one of the high spiritual promises: that a deeper connection to the holy, a stronger relationship with God, will give us calm and contentment. Sadly, the facts of life, even the lives of the very faithful, show us that faith does not seem to allow us to avoid fear, but perhaps we can still trust in the hope that we are not leave us completely alone with our fears and worries. [I often speak of fear and worry together – worry for me is just a softer word for fear.]
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All of us have some experience with fear. And I know that for each of us, it is significant and is not well served comparing it to other’s experiences. I know for me that it doesn’t usually bring me much calm just to know that someone else has it worse off. What worries me is still valid, even if it could be worse.
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One of the things that this Biblical theme gets me thinking about is that when my heart and mind are dominated by fear and worry, I find it hard to connect spiritually. Fear and worry tend to pull be right back to the basics of the moment and right into myself. Fear and worry can make me extremely short-term and self-focused. It seems to be a pattern that I have noticed that when I am so narrow in my focus that I have trouble noticing or being affected by the God is all encompassing and eternal.
On the same idea though – my experience has been that as the light of God is able to penetrate my cocoon of worry and fear, I begin to be released.
David Giuliano reminded us that most often, when Jesus asks people, why are they afraid, or just straight out tells them do not be afraid: something amazingly wonderful happens.
It might always be what we want to have happen. The man in the story today wanted Jesus to stay (to hold the moment of enlightenment), but he was instead commissioned to share the good news of God’s activity in his life.
Fear and worry don’t always disappear with faith, but they can begin to be less dominate, so that we can find the energy we need to confront what is holding us in that negative place.
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This holy experience is not just for the ultra-pious or for the eccentric 24-hour-a-day praying hermit. The hope for God’s comfort and love is a promise we all share. We also heard those powerful words from Paul’s letter to the Galatians: the barriers that this world uses to divide us don’t matter to God. A first century world that saw men as superior to women, where slaves were subordinate to the free and where everyone foreign was considered barbaric, did not affect the reach of God’s love where faith was concerned.
And so, we too, are all given the hope of God’s love and comfort – especially when we are faced with scary stuff. As we said earlier:
We are not alone. We live in God’s world.
In life in death in life beyond death.
God is with us, we are not alone!
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Let us pray:
God, help us know that you are with us. Hold us in our worries and fears even when we aren’t able to feel your embrace. Love us deeply, O God. Amen.

#154MV “Deep In Our Hearts”