Healing Our Fear

Isaiah 6: 1-8 & Luke 5: 1-11

Roger Lynn

February 24, 2019

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God is all around us all the time! The Psalmist put it this way – “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.” (Psalm 139:7-10) There is no where we can turn that we will not encounter God’s presence. But the reality is that most of the time we don’t notice. We’re too busy or too distracted. Painful experiences from our past blind us to the present. We think we know what we’re looking for and where we need to look, and thus fail to recognize the unexpected ways in which God comes to us. Whatever the reasons, and they are many, we just don’t come face to face with God very often. Which may explain why we react the way we do when the reality of God’s presence does, in fact, break through our defenses. Fear. Throughout scripture, throughout history, indeed, even in our own experience, we find examples over and over again of people who catch a glimpse of the awesome enormity of God, and then respond with sheer, mind-numbing fear. Virtually every time angels show up in the scriptures (and angels are really just localized manifestations of God) the first thing they have to say is “Be not afraid!” It is apparently lesson number one in Basic Angel Training. It happens in both of our scripture readings for today. Isaiah and Peter both respond with fear. It seems to be deeply rooted in the human experience.

Living Into Our Potential

Micah 6: 1-8 & Matthew 5: 1-12

Roger Lynn

February 17, 2019

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We human beings have lots of potential. We are, in fact, loaded with it. There is the potential for powerful connection, transforming compassion, life-changing faith. We have the potential not just for goodness, but for greatness. In describing who we are, the writer of the first creation story in Genesis declares that we are a reflection of God’s very self, and that when all was said and done, God pronounced it all to be “very good.” In a similar fashion, the writer of Psalm 8 put it this way, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.” (Psalm 8:3-5) According to ancient Hebrew wisdom, there is nothing less than the stuff of God at the core of who we are.

Which makes it all the more confusing to watch the ways things unfold much of the time. We hurt each other. We hurt ourselves. We hurt the planet. If we have so much potential, why do we keep doing things the way we do? The prophet Micah certainly understood this frustration. Things in Micah’s day had gotten so bad that he imagines even God is fed up. “God has a controversy with the people, and God will contend with Israel. O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me!” (Micah 6:2-3) What I appreciate about this image of God which Micah portrays is the way in which it reflects a God who seeks to remain engaged with humanity. Here is a God who will not give up on us, no matter what. Something has got to change. Things simply cannot continue as they have been.  But God can be counted on to hang in there with us through the often painful process of finding our way back to our potential.  And therein lies both the problem and the hope. We forget who we are. We lose sight of what it means to be human – truly, deeply, richly, fully human. And God will not give up on us until we remember – until we find our way home again. 

Reaching Out – Reaching Up

Isaiah 40: 21-31 & Mark 1: 29-39

Roger Lynn

January 27, 2019

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In the Gospel of Mark we find lessons in faith revealed in and through the life of Jesus. We discover such lessons not only in the words which Jesus speaks, or even in the things which he does, but also in the shape and pattern of his life over the course of his ministry. One such pattern is revealed in the Gospel text for this morning. Even before the end of the first chapter, it has already become clear that actively caring for the sick and those possessed with demons is a central part of Jesus’ ministry. Relieving people’s suffering and restoring them to wholeness is at the heart of what Jesus does and who he is. And the more he does, the more demand there seems to be for such a ministry. He brings relief to Simon’s mother-in-law, who is suffering with a fever, and soon the whole town is gathered at the door desperate for an end to their afflictions. And Jesus obliged. He cured many. Scenes like this occur at several points throughout Mark’s Gospel. It is a powerfully compelling story which invites hope for those of us who live in this world which so often seems to be filled with pain and suffering. 

But Mark does not end the story there. Without any pause or transition whatsoever, the scene shifts from Jesus in the midst of the crowd, healing their brokenness, to Jesus alone, deep in prayer. And thus the pattern begins to form. We begin to catch a glimpse of the larger picture of Jesus’ life. Reaching out to touch the lives of those in need is a calling to which Jesus faithfully responds, but he cannot do so alone. Moments of public ministry, in which he gives of himself for others, are counter-balanced by moments of private prayer, in which he replenishes his spiritual batteries and maintains the intimate connection with God which is his source of both strength and direction. Jesus’ life reveals a cycle of reaching out to others and reaching up to God. Both are required for his life to be full and complete. Both are connected parts of one faithful response.