God Meets Us In Our Fear | Deacon Courtney Greene

Show Notes

Deacon Courtney Greene August 13, 2023 Scripture Readings: 1 Kings 19:9-18 • Psalm 85:8-13 • Romans 10:5-15 • Matthew 14:22-33 We’re so glad you’re here! This is a community for everyone and all of life’s questions. This is a place where Jesus welcomes, shapes, and sends disciples for the good of our neighborhood. No matter where you are in life, this is a place for you. If you would like to connect click here: bit.ly/3RiftL1

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Rez is a community where Jesus welcomes, shapes, and sends disciples for the good of our neighborhood. No matter where you are in life, this is a place for you.

Life Together In The Goodness Of God

In our readings today, you may have noticed that we seem to have a theme. And that theme is fear. We encounter two people, Peter and Elijah, who are in situations that make them desperately afraid. And as humans, we can relate, right? Because fear is part of all of our experience. We've all been afraid at various points in our lives. And we know that fear can make us pretty miserable, right? Can make us want to withdraw and isolate ourselves from others. Elijah, because of his fear, was hiding out in the cave by himself. And fear can distort our vision. Like Peter in our reading today, fear can keep us from recognizing Jesus even when he's right in front of us. And fear can cause us to act out against others in strange ways as we try and regain control of uncomfortable situations in order to try and manage our fears. And fear can even paralyze us and just keep us from acting on anything at all. But in our stories today, we get to see how God engages these two people, Peter and Elijah, in their fear. And what does this tell us about how God engages with us in our lives when we're struggling with fears of our own? And then what does that mean for how we, as a church, engage with others who are struggling with their own fears? So I want to begin with our Old Testament passage today, which was 1 Kings chapter 19. And we read that Elijah is alone in a cave, but we don't know why he's there. But if you back up a bit to the verses that preceded our reading today, we find that Elijah is actually fleeing Jezebel, who's the wife of Ahab, the king of Israel. And this is because Elijah has just killed all the prophets of the Baals, who Jezebel happens to support. And now a murderous Jezebel is wanting to kill Elijah in retribution for this act. So after a long journey of fleeing for his life, we find Elijah in this cave, understandably afraid and desolate. Just a few verses before our reading today, Elijah was sitting alone under a tree, asking the Lord if he might just let him die. So it's hard to get much lower than that. And this is where God comes to him. We read about how God appears to Elijah, beginning in verse 11. Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks and pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire, a sound of sheer silence, or as the NIV interprets it, a gentle whisper. We know that God could have appeared to Elijah in fire. He'd appeared that way to people before, or in a wind, or in an earthquake, but perhaps a gentle whisper is exactly what Elijah needed. And in that whisper, God posed this question, what are you doing here, Elijah? Now did God really need to ask Elijah this? Of course, God, omniscient God, knew why Elijah was hiding out in a cave. But in asking him the question, the Lord invited Elijah to reflect on what was really going on with him, and to ask him to allow him to honestly pour out his hurts and his frustration, to tell God, look, see all of these things I've done for you, and yet here I am, alone with people trying to kill me. And after Elijah had unburdened his heart, the Lord pointed him to the way forward. God instructed Elijah to go on, to anoint new kings, and even to anoint his own successor. And God assured Elijah that the thousands of Israelites who'd been faithful to the Lord and had not bowed down and worshiped the Baals would be saved. When encountering Elijah hiding out in fear, God came to him knowing exactly what he needed, a gentle whisper, an invitation to unburden his heart. And beyond that, a plan of action and a renewed purpose. And through this, God assuaged Elijah's deepest fears by reassuring him that God would be faithful to his covenant with Israel and that Elijah would not be left alone. Now turning to our second story, in our gospel reading from Matthew chapter 14, we find the disciples, after spending a night out on the water, being battered by the wind and the waves, encountering Jesus, who they think is a ghost. And as Peter goes out to Jesus on the water to confirm it's truly him, he becomes frightened by the strong wind, and he begins to sink. But Jesus catches him, and like God did with Elijah, Jesus poses a question to Peter too. Why did you doubt? And by this question, Jesus holds a mirror up to Peter, inviting him to look at what's really going on in his soul. Why did he doubt? What did he really believe about Jesus' identity? Did he believe that Jesus was truly God's agent for God's rule, in which case he unquestionably had the power over the wind and the waves, or did he believe that Jesus was just a ghost? And it's clear that in that moment, as his sinking demonstrates to us, Peter wasn't sure who Jesus was. So in both of these stories, we see the Lord coming to his children in their fear and their doubts, not with anger or more fear. After all, Jesus didn't leave Peter treading in the water to figure out his doubts and get his doctrine squared away before he let him into the boat. Jesus pulled him up even with his doubts. The Lord responded to their fears with exactly what they needed in that moment, as only God can know, whether it was a gentle whisper, a probing question, a renewed purpose, or a saving hand, and God will do the same for us. But God meets us in our fears and gives us what we need to face them, not just to make us feel better, not just to provide simple relief for whatever happens to be troubling us in the moment, but working through our fears with the Lord as part of our ongoing process of transformation. Through this work of encountering our fears and working with God to move through them, we grow more and more into becoming courageous participants in God's work, a becoming a pause words from our reading today, the beautiful feet that bring the good news of salvation to others. Notice that after Jesus has quieted the wind and the waves, the disciples worshiped him and recognized him for who he truly was. But if you look back in time, that wasn't the first time the disciples had been caught out on a boat in the middle of the storm and Jesus had to step in and save them. We read a similar story in Matthew chapter 9, but that story ends not with the disciples worshiping Jesus, but with the disciples simply wondering who this person who can quiet wind and waves, who this person can be. And looking forward in time, the doubting Peter ultimately becomes the rock on which Jesus builds his church. And eventually we find Peter in the book of Acts, boldly and courageously proclaiming good news, bringing thousands of people to the waters of baptism. It's a Peter hardly recognizable as the same person we see in our story today who's frozen on the water in fear. The Lord works with each of us and our fears to transform us into people who live faithfully and courageously for him. But it's a process. It doesn't look the same for everyone and for some of us it may take longer than it does for others. We must respect the sacred, transformative work that God is doing in the lives of people all around us, even if it sometimes takes the form of a whisper that we are not entitled to hear. So what does this mean for our work as a church? How do we patiently participate in this work of transforming people from people of fear and to courageous people of faith? Well, we might begin by looking up. And for those of you who have attended Father Sean's liturgy tour, you've heard him talk about how the ceiling of our church is designed to look like a boat sort of turned upside down. And this is to inspire our imaginations to think about our church as a bit like being in a boat. And this seems especially fitting when you think about how the disciples in our story today worship Jesus in the boat after he rescued them. So we might think of our mission as a church of bringing people out of their places of fear and into the safety of the boat where they can encounter Jesus and worship with us together. And I know I don't have to tell you that fear seems to be around us a lot today, right? And I know there's theories that abound as to why. I think maybe we could just blame it on social media like we do with everything else. But I wonder if the real root of many of our fears is simply the fear of being unloved or being rejected or alone and significant. Perhaps people even gravitate towards hate-filled groups with toxic ideologies because they don't know what genuine love looks like, but at least it's better than being alone. In Jesus, though, we have a picture of genuine, perfect love. And as this church, we offer a community centered in Jesus and in that love as a safe harbor for all those who are afraid. Did you notice the first thing Jesus did in response to the disciples' fear? He did what God does throughout scripture when he reveals himself to humans. He tells them, take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Because God, despite his dominion over all of the created order, despite having the ability to control the wind and the waves, God doesn't use his power to diminish or terrorize his creatures, but rather to save and to uphold them. And Jesus revealed who he truly was not by walking on water, rather it was Jesus' compassionate act of saving Peter, despite his doubts, that reveals to us that Jesus, who we worship, is Lord. Now perhaps you've been in churches before where it feels less like a safe harbor and more just like another place where winds of fear are being whipped up. But if we are a church that truly embodies Christ, then no one, regardless of who they are, no one should ever walk through these doors afraid of us. Now I want to close this morning with my own boat story. This is a story that was rattling around in my head as I prepared this sermon. So last summer my family and I, we took a trip to Alaska, and one afternoon we took a kayaking trip up in one of the bays up there. And I was in a kayak with my son Liam, and my husband Ryan was in a kayak with my daughter Annabella, and we had this lovely trip right up until the end. Okay, so at the end of the trip, we're having to paddle back this open bay to get across and back to the dock. And we're about halfway there, and this really strong wind kicks up, it seems like out of nowhere. Now, I would not exactly call myself an adventurous person, plus I don't like being wet, and I really, really don't like being cold. But there I was, cold and wet, in the middle of this bay, and I could see the dock ahead, and I'm paddling as hard as I can, but the wind is carrying me and Liam in the opposite of direction, of the direction that we're supposed to be going. And so I began to feel really afraid, especially when I start seeing these big power boats coming out, pulling up the kayakers out of the water. But I knew that I couldn't give in to my fear and let it overtake me. I'd either have a panic attack right there in the water, or I'd probably just freeze and just stop paddling altogether. So instead of thinking about the parade of horribles, drowning on my summer vacation, just imagining how my parents would react when they heard the news, I just sat there and I pictured my husband and my daughter waiting for us on the dock. And it shouldn't surprise anyone that Ryan is a much better character than me and he'd already made it back. But with that image in my head of my daughter and my husband, I was able to keep paddling more or less calmly until we finally made it back to the shore. So what was it about that image that kept me going, that was stronger than my fear? And that picture of my husband and my daughter was love, right? With my hope and my future and all of my joy. And these are the same things that we find in their most perfect form in the person of Jesus. So my friends, all of us will find ourselves in place of fear at various points in our lives. Some of you may be feeling afraid today about something. Some of you may be even feeling fearful about what's happening in the future of our church. But by keeping our eyes trained on Jesus and the hope that he offers to us and to everyone, by continuing to worship together, by coming to his table to be fed, then we'll find the courage to keep on going. And eventually, we'll find ourselves transformed into his courageous witnesses, welcoming others to come out of the storms of their fear and into the safety of God's love. Now as we take a moment of silence and prepare our hearts to come to this table together, I ask the Spirit to be present to us as we consider this. Are there any fears that you're wrestling with today that you need God's help with? Are there fears that are keeping you from growing into someone who can courageously and lovingly welcome others into his kingdom? So wherever you're at, know that God invites you even now to allow him to work with you through those fears and to transform you and all of us into becoming the courageous participants in his work of transforming all of South Austin by his love. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.