February 26, 2006 Sermon by Rev. Nancy Cushman

According to Luke, after Jesus’ baptism when he was about thirty years old he began his public ministry. Before he went too far however he was tempted and he resisted the temptations for forty days. The passage we are reading today tells us what happened next.

We started this sermon series “Growing in Love: Tools for Strengthening Relationships” seven weeks ago with the foundation or motivation for all that we would be talking about over the rest of the series, that foundation was respecting ourselves and others. Today we are going to conclude this series with the essential ingredient for moving these reflections from ideas to reality and that essential ingredient is being courageous. The only way we move from where we are stuck to where we want to be is by change and change can be terrifying. When John the Baptist came to prepare people for Jesus, he talked about change. He railed at the religious officials; “Bear fruits worthy of repentance” in other words do something to show that you have truly changed. The Jesus story begins with change and ends with change as Jesus moved from being the earthly Jesus to the resurrected Christ. The Pledge of Shalom will remain tools on paper unless we use them to change our lives.

We were watching the movie The Princess Diaries the other night. In the movie the lead character’s father writes her a letter for her sixteenth birthday before he dies and as is his culture’s tradition he leaves her with a piece of wisdom. He writes, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all.”^[i] Living the way of Christ is difficult. Repenting or changing direction in the midst of our wounds, our brokenness, our sinfulness is frightening, it’s hard and can be painful, but there are things more important than the fear or the difficulty. Shalom, God’s peace and well-being, God’s vision for us as individuals and for us as a world is something more important than fear and it is worthy of our courage.

Making those changes can put us in conflict.In the Gospel passage from Luke, Jesus goes back home to preach and teach. He has been preaching around Galilee and getting lots of attention. He goes back to his “home church” so to speak and lays out his mission. It must have been scary to go home. It is one thing to be rejected by strangers in neighboring towns, but it is quite another to stand before your closest friends and neighbors. I always get much more nervous when I am preaching in front of my parents and it would be even worse in front of my brothers and sister. Jesus spoke about his mission in front of the people who knew him best and our passage said they were amazed. Well, they didn’t stay amazed. They got angry, so angry that they dragged him to the edge of the cliff to throw him down it because he said God’s grace covered folks they thought were condemned. The final verse says Jesus slipped through the crowd and “he was going on”. Jesus, himself, had to have the courage to go on living out God’s way and will for him even in the midst of rejection by those close to him. Sometimes those closest to us have the hardest time believing the change.

George’s Aunt Marion was a very faithful Methodist. Even though George’s immediate family did not go to church or practice any kind of religious faith, George’s aunt would try to plant seeds of faith in George and his brothers and sister by things like putting religious stickers on their cards and gifts to the American Bible Society in their names. When George decided to go into the ministry, he with great joy went to his aunt to let her know that her prayers and seeds were bearing fruit. He rehearsed in his head how happy she would be at his news. When he told her though he got an unexpected reaction; she jumped up and started straightening nearby knickknacks buying some time to think then she said, “I know that the Lord can do all things, but are you sure he called you to the ministry.” Needless to say George found her reaction very dis-couraging. It is funny to us today because we have no doubts that he was called by God. Sometimes we have to risk the disbelief, maybe even disapproval of those who’ve always known us to move forward. We may even find that those “doubting neighbors” are a part of ourselves that is resisting the change. “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”

While reflecting upon the Pledge of Shalom, ^[ii] we have talked about the need to respect ourselves and others, to communicate better, to listen, to forgive, to respect nature, to play creatively. It seems so appropriate that we finish the series talking about being courageous. It takes courage to change, to die to old habits, old ways of relating and to learn and practice new patterns to improve our relationships. It is not easy to make those changes; it takes practice, diligence and hard work. The pledge includes concrete, practical ways we can live out our faith and grow in love, but we have to en-flesh them. We have to make them real in our own lives and my friends we have to do it NOW. As John the Baptist said, “ Bear fruits worthy of repentance”, do something to show that you have truly changed. Developing these skills and habits will help us experience shalom and be channels of shalom. The path is before us. We may be at different places in the path, but we all have road ahead to lead us deeper and deeper into discipleship.

God doesn’t leave us alone to face our change, but sends the Holy Spirit, the Encourager to wrap us in God’s courage as we walk the path. The word courage appears only once in the four gospels. In John 16:32-33, Jesus is preparing the disciples for the suffering that lies ahead for him and for them and he warns them about what is coming so that they may have peace or shalom. He concludes, “In the world you face persecution but take courage; I have conquered the world! (John 16:33) Remember when George said last week that the prefix “en” can mean to cover or wrap in. Jesus will walk with us through the fear, through the suffering encouraging us, wrapping us in his courage so that we might persevere and experience wholeness in him.

As we open our hearts wider and wider growing in love, the effect can not help but ripple out, for God’s vision of shalom is for all people and all creation. God’s encouragement is not only to be inwardly focused, but to compel us to have the courage to challenge violence, injustice, and oppression that diminish the lives of other beloveds of God. The Pledge of Shalom says I promise to challenge violence in all its forms whenever I encounter it, whether at home, at school, at work or in the community and to stand with others who are treated unfairly. This calls us as the Bible does, to stand with the child being teased and excluded as George talked about in his Children’s Moment. ^[iii] It calls us to stand with the low income worker who can’t afford utilities and diapers or the migrant worker or the poor African or Asian who can’t turn on a faucet but walks miles for even dirty water. Jesus said his mission was to the poor and afflicted, the captive, the oppressed, the disabled to encourage them that God can and will bring you shalom. We are called to have the courage to continue his work in this time and place.^[iv] “ Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” By his own example Jesus shows us that this vision of God, this kingdom of God is important enough to live for and to die for.

Several years ago I spent three days in prison at a Juvenile Correction Facility to help lead a Spiritual Retreat called Chayah.^[v] It was a life changing experience. The incarcerated girls on the weekend had a bunch of Christian songs that they loved to sing and we sang them again and again. One of their favorite songs was “Step by Step”. Some of the words are “I will walk in your ways and step by step you’ll lead me and I will follow you all of my days. And step by step you’ll lead me and I will follow you all of my days.” As shalom people, people committed to God’s vision of wholeness, harmony and peace, may we have to have the courage to make the changes to grow in love no matter how hard they seem or how long it takes, so shalom becomes real in our lives and in our world step by step by step. Amen.

[i] The Princess Diaries. Disney DVD, Disney Enterprises, Inc, Garry Marshall, director. Chapter 23.

[ii] The Pledge of Nonviolence by The Families Against Violence Advocacy Network is part of the Institute for Peace & Justice. The website address is www.ipj-ppj.org, 4144 Lindell Blvd, #408, St. Louis, MO 63108. They call the pledge the Pledge of Nonviolence however we feel it goes beyond violence to the Biblical concept of shalom.

[iii] George sang the song “Friends” by Mary Lu Walker for his Children’s Moment. It is the story of three butterflies caught in a storm searching for shelter. Everywhere they go someone wants to exclude the others because they are a different color than they are but the three choose to stay together. “We’ll stick together because that’s what friends always do through the dark and stormy weather you’re with me and I’m with you.”

[iv] Emmanuel’s Gift DVD is a documentary of a disabled young man from Ghana who overcomes great obstacles to live this Christ-like call working for dignity and justice other disabled people in his country.