Afraid to Answer the Call

1 Samuel 10:20–22 ESV

Then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its clans, and the clan of the Matrites was taken by lot; and Saul the son of Kish was taken by lot. But when they sought him, he could not be found. So they inquired again of the Lord, “Is there a man still to come?” and the Lord said, “Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage.”

1 Samuel 10:20–22 ESV

Then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its clans, and the clan of the Matrites was taken by lot; and Saul the son of Kish was taken by lot. But when they sought him, he could not be found. So they inquired again of the Lord, “Is there a man still to come?” and the Lord said, “Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage.”

Isaiah 8:11–22 ESV

For the Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.” Bind up the testimony; seal the teaching among my disciples. I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion. And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God, and turn their faces upward. And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness.

Isaiah

Isaiah 8:11–22 ESV

For the Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.” Bind up the testimony; seal the teaching among my disciples. I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion. And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God, and turn their faces upward. And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness.

1 samuel

John 3:16–20 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

1 John 4:15–21 ESV

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

While here in Pittsburgh the violence at the front of our minds is the terrible tragedy at the Tree of Life Synagogue, that incident didn’t stand alone as the only targeted violence in recent weeks. There were two people shot in Kentucky because of their race. And just Friday evening, a man walked into a yoga studio and killed 2 people, injuring 14 more. Just as the shooter in Pittsburgh had made terrible anti-semitic statements online, the yoga studio shooter was targeting women. The man who shot two people at a grocery store in Kentucky made racist comments to other people at the scene.

I said last week that the answer to the troubling violence we are seeing in our country and that we continue to see is love. The way to overcome divisive hate is, at the heart of things, so overwhelm it with unifying love. This week’s passage, which I’d chosen several weeks before any of that happened, seems to fit perfectly in continuing that exploration. There is a great deal of fear in the public eye right now. But there is also a great deal of love in the public eye as well.

That’s encouraging, because 1 John says, “Perfect love casts out fear.”

I can obviously only speak for myself, but when I hear that phrase, it always makes me reflect on how imperfect my love must be because I have plenty of fear. Heck, love itself is terrifying. It’s not even just the idea of love being strong enough to push out fear that is difficult, it’s the fact that love is a risk in and of itself. It’s scary to love. Love means risking loss or hurt or betrayal. It feels safer to not love. Love is hard. It’s hard enough to really love the people for whom love is supposed to be natural - spouses, children, parents - let alone everyone else. And when we’re in a time of trauma like our city is feeling this past week, it’s really hard to love everyone. There is a bad guy. There are people who disagree with us on how to fix the problem. There are internet trolls and angry people.

Even though. . . that’s our calling. “Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

Last week, we visited the ancient story of Cain and Abel- brothers- one a murderer, the other his victim. Clearly not a story filled with love, in spite of the fact that the two are brothers. Cain struggled to love even his own biological brother.

This week, John tells us in no uncertain terms that we can’t love God without love for one another. “Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

Let that sink in.

Even though. . . that’s our calling. “Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, Volume 2 Theological Perspective

With stunning brevity, John tells us what God is and what God is not. John might have said that God is power or order or goodness. In our insecurity and longing for protection, we often yearn for a God who can control nature and prevent sickness or violence, a God who will protect us from all harm. In a world of moral confusion, we wish for a God who lays down the law with complete clarity and holds everyone accountable, catching the cheaters and rewarding the faithful. In our hunger to possess, we might even imagine a God of prosperity, one who promises to make us rich if we obey a few principles.

Whatever may be true about God’s power or moral order or generosity, John avoids all these descriptions in favor of the simple word agape or love. It is not power or law or prosperity, but self-sacrificing love that is the heart of the truth about God. How do we know this? Not by imagining or philosophizing or intuiting, but by looking. God has acted in love, sending Jesus Christ to overcome the destructive and divisive power of sin. God has defined God, and God’s chosen self-definition is love. We do not have to guess what God is like. We simply have to look at what God has done. We cannot see God, John tells us, but we can see what God has done in Jesus Christ.

If you can’t manage to love the people around you, you’ve missed the mark on loving God too.

There is a T-shirt I’ve been tempted to get that says, “Love thy neighbor” then it lists a whole bunch of groups of people that are often the target of hate: “Love thy homeless neighbor. Love thy Muslim neighbor. Love thy gay neighbor.” etc.

But loving others is scary! Especially if others are different in some way. And what if we don’t get it right? What if we don’t love them enough or in the right way?

This passage in John sets up two polar opposites: fear and love. God is love and fear is the opposite of love. Usually we think of hate as the opposite of love, but John says the opposite of love is fear, not hate. Hate is really just a side effect of fear - fear of other, fear of being hurt, fear of the different or the unknown.

The world is a scary place, full of reasons to be afraid. The past week’s events have shown that scary things can happen anywhere. It’s interesting that we’re in the midst of this sermon series on fulfilling our calling and getting rid of our baggage at one of the most important times in our lives to be living out our call as Christians.

Why did

When people don’t feel heard, there is a fear of being forgotten, left behind, etc. While we might never really know all that went into Robert Bowers’ decision to enter a synagogue on October 27th and kill 11 dear souls, this much we know: he was looking for a place to be heard. He was trying to find an outlet for what he had to say. Surely, there was a fear of not being heard that went into what he did.

An article from the Post Gazette this week featured a Jewish doctor who was married at and whose children’s bat and bar mitzvahs were held at Tree of Life Synagogue. Dr. Cohen is the director of Allegheny General Hospital and he was moved to meet and talk to Bowers on Saturday.

While not excusing Mr. Bowers, Dr.Cohen said, “Here’s someone all alone and all he hears is the noise in his head all the time.”

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, Volume 2 Theological Perspective

With stunning brevity, John tells us what God is and what God is not. John might have said that God is power or order or goodness. In our insecurity and longing for protection, we often yearn for a God who can control nature and prevent sickness or violence, a God who will protect us from all harm. In a world of moral confusion, we wish for a God who lays down the law with complete clarity and holds everyone accountable, catching the cheaters and rewarding the faithful. In our hunger to possess, we might even imagine a God of prosperity, one who promises to make us rich if we obey a few principles.

The trouble is that the world is a scary place, full of reasons to be afraid: many of them valid. The past week’s events have shown that scary things can happen anywhere.

It’s interesting that we’re in the midst of this sermon series on fulfilling our calling and getting rid of our baggage at one of the most important times in our lives to be living out our call as Christians. This is a time where EVERYONE’S baggage is showing because we’re all feeling really vulnerable. The world needs the gospel message of love more than ever when tragedy strikes, but when tragedy strikes is the hardest time to get that message out.

We’re not all doing it perfectly right now. This poor beaten up city is acting all kinds of ways because of our raw, up and down, strong emotions. It’s a minefield out there, friends. It’s bad enough when mass tragedy hits another place, but here? Pittsburgh? Our home? Every time I hear the word “Pittsburgh” on the radio, it makes me tear up all over again. I have spent so much time and energy this week trying to edit and filter and preach the gospel message in a dark and difficult time. It’s emotionally exhausting.

One of the things I’ve been trying to process is why Robert Bowers did what he did. Why did what happened last Saturday happen?

One thing that has been noted is that he was, as one article states it, “pretty much a ghost.” He seemed to have no voice in the world, so he sought out a forum in which he could be heard: an online platform where he could communicate with other white supremacists and shout his fear turned hate without anyone challenging the things he was saying. He was looking for a place in which he could express his fear of the different to others who would acknowledge and affirm that fear.

When people don’t feel heard, there is a fear of being forgotten, left behind, etc. While we might never really know all that went into one man’s decision to enter a synagogue on October 27th and kill 11 dear souls, this much we know: he was looking for a place to be heard. He was trying to find an outlet for what he had to say. Surely, there was a fear of not being heard that went into what he did. And he succeeded in being heard. His name will live long in infamy. The story of the man who opened fire at the yoga studio is hauntingly similar.

An article from the Post Gazette this week featured a Jewish doctor who was married at and whose children’s bat and bar mitzvahs were held at Tree of Life Synagogue. Dr. Cohen is the director of Allegheny General Hospital and he was moved to meet and talk to Bowers on Saturday when he was brought into the hospital.

While not excusing Mr. Bowers, Dr.Cohen said, “Here’s someone all alone and all he hears is the noise in his head all the time.”

http://www.post-gazette.com/business/healthcare-business/2018/11/01/Allegheny-General-Hospital-Cohen-synagogue-mass-shooting-Tree-of-Life-doctor-pittsburgh-squirrel-hill/stories/201810310163

He was afraid of the other and at the same time, he was afraid to remain unheard.

But. . . “Perfect love casts out fear.”

So what is that perfect love that casts out fear? What is that love that the people committing these atrocities are missing? What does it take to irradiate the sort of fear that leads someone to such violence?

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, Volume 2 Theological Perspective

Whatever may be true about God’s power or moral order or generosity, John avoids all these descriptions in favor of the simple word agape or love. It is not power or law or prosperity, but self-sacrificing love that is the heart of the truth about God. How do we know this? Not by imagining or philosophizing or intuiting, but by looking. God has acted in love, sending Jesus Christ to overcome the destructive and divisive power of sin. God has defined God, and God’s chosen self-definition is love. We do not have to guess what God is like. We simply have to look at what God has done. We cannot see God, John tells us, but we can see what God has done in Jesus Christ.

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

That’s the perfect love: the love of Christ. Perfect love is love that came into this imperfect, fear filled world and sacrificed itself for our sake.

This perfect love didn’t just come for the popular or the whole or the big and mighty. It didn’t just come for those who the world pays attention to or the ones who have their act together. This perfect love didn’t just come for the lovable or the safe and easy ones to love. Christ came for everyone - the entire world. Every single person out there is worthy of that love and acceptance.

It is love that acts not out of obligation or some sense of duty, but out of acknowledgment of the great love God showed us. We are able to and indeed called to love others no matter the risk because God loved us with no worry about the risk.

While here in Pittsburgh the violence at the front of our minds is the terrible tragedy at the Tree of Life Synagogue, that incident didn’t stand alone. There were bombs in the mail. There were two people shot in Kentucky because of their race. And just Friday evening, a man walked into a yoga studio and killed 2 people, injuring 14 more. In this incident, just as the shooter in Pittsburgh had made terrible racists statements online, the yoga studio shooter was targeting women. I said last week that the answer to the troubling violence we are seeing in our country and that we continue to see is love.

We have seen sacrificial, risky love acted out in many ways this week.

We have seen it in Rabbi Myers protecting his congregation and literally risking his life to usher as many of his congregants as possible to safety.

We saw it in the first responders who rushed into what had essentially become a war zone in order to apprehend the shooter and secure the building.

We saw it last Sunday evening when thousands of people showed up in Oakland to mourn with the community.

We saw it when the local Muslim community raised hundred of thousands of dollars for the families of the victims.

We saw it Friday morning as Rev. Eric Manning, the pastor of Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church of Charleston, SC wordlessly hugged Rabbi Jeffery Myers because nobody else quite understands what their congregations have been through.

We saw it when Rev. Manning was asked to speak at the last of the 11 funerals for the Pittsburgh victims.

We saw it Friday evening and Saturday morning as Christians and Muslims and atheists and people of all different backgrounds joined their Jewish sisters and brothers in celebrating Shabbot.

The interfaith community has banded together stronger than ever. People have flocked to donate blood and funds, to stand shoulder to shoulder with their Jewish friends and neighbors. Conversations are opening up all over the place about how we can be peacemakers and bearers of love in the world.

Nobody I know felt like they were obligated to do any of these things. They did it out of love.

Love isn’t a burden. Love is not something to fear. Love is a freedom given to us by our new identity as the body of Jesus Christ. God so loved the world that God sent Jesus in an unrivaled act of love so that we are free to live in the light of love and share that love with the world around us.

Love is the freedom from fear and separation and being unheard. Love is the freedom from division and isolation. Love joins us together, gives us a voice, gives us a safe place to be with God and with one another.

How fitting that we are celebrating communion this morning. We join together at this table today to celebrate that love shown to us in Jesus Christ and our commitment to live lives of love together and to celebrate our unity.

We live in love, not as something we have to do but as something we get to do.

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, Volume 2 Theological Perspective

Believing and loving are the marks of the new creature, the one who is born anew in Christ.

Yes. Our love is going to be imperfect. It’s going to be hard to live out. It won’t always be clear what the most loving thing to do is. We will feel afraid sometimes. But that’s ok. We still go forth and act in love, even when we know we’re going to miss the mark sometimes. As imperfect as we are when we act out of God’s love, we still let God’s love loose in the world to be known by others.

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, Volume 2 Theological Perspective

Love is not a concept, known abstractly. It is an action, lived concretely. It is not enough to remember Jesus’ self-sacrifice, to think about it, or even to be moved by it. We must live it. To know the God of love is to live the love of God.

When we come together and eat and drink at this table before us, we proclaim joyfully to the world that love conquers all.

John 3:20 ESV

For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, Volume 2 Theological Perspective

God’s love is perfect, while ours is always flawed. Even so, we should not fear or be held back by our inadequacies, John tells us. Act lovingly, even if imperfectly. The love and the perfection come from God, whose perfect love casts out fear. We can honestly admit that we are not yet perfect in love, for it is God’s love that makes us loving, and it is God’s perfection that is making us ever more holy.

Thank God. Our love doesn’t have to be perfect, because God’s love IS perfect!

Yes, it has been a hard week around here. But there has been so much hope in our city this week - hope born out of incredible love.

This is what we should hold onto this week.

How can we be the safe place for others to share their stories, and listen to their fears, their trauma, their pain?

Where have you seen hope and God’s love this week?

How have this week’s events freed you to act in love?

Afraid to Answer the Call

Perfect Love Casts out Fear

Trouble in the World

Trouble in the World

Hope in the Text

Hope in the World

For Further Reflection

Afraid to Answer the Call

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Perfect Love Casts out Fear

Trouble in the World

Trouble in the World

Hope in the Text

Hope in the World

For Further Reflection