God of strength and power, grant us the wisdom to
know that you are the author and provider of the courage we need to follow you
and make your call our priority. Give us
insight to know that you hold us in a precious place of peace. Amen
I’m
down to my last four sermons in Open Circle.
I have anguished over the exact words that I want to leave you
with. One of our Sundays is devoted to
Trees—really sort of perfect, given my love of trees. For the other three Sunday, I have chosen to
do a three-part series on what, to me, are the most important traits of being a
follower of Jesus. Those three traits
are courage, compassion, and faithfulness.
Today, I want to start with courage because I don’t think the other two
traits are possible without it.
When I think of courage, I
always think of the Lion in, you guessed it, the Wizard of Oz. He wanted so badly to be brave—especially to
think of himself as brave—to know in his heart of hearts that he had the courage
to be the ferocious lion he believed that he was supposed to be. He wanted this so badly that he was unable to
see the many acts of bravery that he routinely performed. When the Great Wizard was found out (by a
tiny little dog, I might add), he, nevertheless, wants to give each of the
characters what they came for. When he
reaches the so-called “Cowardly Lion”, author Frank Baum has the Wizard say
this: “You have plenty of
courage, I am sure,"… "All you need is confidence in yourself. There
is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is
in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in
plenty.” And, so, the Cowardly Lion discovers that he is not cowardly at
all; but, rather, brave over and over again.
Children’s
tales, notwithstanding, we all can probably recount times when it seemed as if
our courage failed us. Some of those
times may have been crucial and some of those times may have turned out not to
matter at all; though it may have been years before we figured out which one
was which. In the recorded words of
Jesus, we don’t hear him talking much about courage. He certainly lived a life of courage, but his
teachings don’t really give us much to go on.
When the word ‘courage’ does appear in the four gospels, it is always
linked to the expression of fear by someone he encounters. Take for example what is probably one of the
most famous stories in the New Testament.
Feeding the thousands has just occurred.
Jesus sends the disciples on to the other side of the lake; this lake
was a big lake, big enough to have waves and bad weather. Jesus, after serving all those people dinner,
goes off to pray. In the story, he then
meets up with the disciples in the middle of the lake. There is a great storm and they are
struggling mightily to keep the boat afloat.
So, here comes Jesus, walking on the water, and the disciples are scared
out of their wits.
I think most of us can identify. So, here is Jesus, apparently intending to
walk across the lake rather than ride in the boat like everyone else. Suddenly, his disciples see him, are
convinced he is a ghost or spirit of some kind and start screaming. He speaks, “Courage!
It’s me. Don’t be afraid.” He then gets
in the boat, the winds and waves die down, and they can proceed without any
more fear or danger. Now, as beautiful
as the hymns and poems about this story might be, it never made sense to me why
it is here. And, it really doesn’t
unless you realize that the core of the story is in the phrase of Jesus’
response--“Courage! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.”
“It’s me”, says Jesus. Jesus
knows who he is. He is the incarnation
of God. He knows there is no reason to
fear him. The problem is that they—the
disciples—don’t know who he is. More
importantly, they didn’t know who they were.
If they knew that they were followers of the earthly incarnation of God,
they would have recognized Jesus for who he is and was and known that there was
nothing to fear. But, Mark says, “They
were stunned, shaking their heads, wondering what was going on. They didn’t
understand what he had done at the supper. None of this had yet penetrated
their hearts.” It would take much more
time for any of this to even begin to penetrate their hearts as they followed
the man they called, “Teacher”.
It has always troubled me,
even though I understand it, that it took so long for the disciples to
understand who they were following and the impact of that on their lives. I’ve told you before that I would like to
think that I would have caught on much sooner, but I suspect that is far from
likely. And, so I wonder—what is it
about who they were; and, hence, who we are that keeps any of us from grasping
the miraculous or the extent to which God can live through us. Even though the language may seem strange, when
I started reading on courage, Julia Cameron’s words (our second reading) seemed
most appropriate to think about what our Gospel lesson is telling us about
courage and the connection to knowing who we are. She suggests that we might not live into our
destiny because we do not believe that we have one. Further, she suggests that we allow others to
determine how we experience ourselves rather than discover it for ourselves. Jesus, I believe, calls us to be the best
version of ourselves that we can be—not some watered down version, dependent
upon what others think we ought to be, but a courageous version—a version made
possible by knowing exactly who we are.
And, just who are we? My friends, we are children of God, created
by God, loved by God, and called by God.
I agree with Cameron and others who have suggested that it is fear that
keeps us from living into the fullness of all that we are created to be. And, it isn’t that we must create something
that isn’t there. Our belonging to God
has already happened; but, we must uncover for ourselves exactly what that
means. Do we not uncover what that means
for each of us by exploring our own stories—looking seriously and honestly at
how God has been at work in our lives?
Every once in a while I
change the saying that appears at the bottom of all my emails. The one that is currently there has been
there for a while. I suppose I will
leave it there until I “get it” in its fullest meaning. It is a quote from Father John
O’Donohue. It says, “May I have the courage today to live the life that I would love, to
postpone my dream no longer; but do at last what I came here for and waste my
heart on fear no more.” Initially, I had
no idea that “living the life I would love” would entail leaving the church
that I love. It never occurred to me
that to “do at last what I came here for” was different than being your
pastor. So, in my reflection and
meditation, I got to thinking about how that came to be.
If someone were to ask me
what I think the bravest thing I have done in the last 5 years is; my answer
would not be “leave a full-time job in Orlando and come here to plant this
church”. Although, I have to say, that
was a pretty brave thing to do. No, the
bravest thing I have done is share my own spiritual journey with you, exactly
as it unfolded along the way. At some
point, and I don’t remember exactly when, I gave myself permission to stop
shaping what I believe or thought I believed around what I thought I was
supposed to believe. And, that was the
bravest thing I have done. I invited God
to show me exactly who God is and who I am.
In the doing of that, I was gifted with the knowledge that, first and
foremost, I am the child of a God who created me and loves me in fullness
beyond fullness. I came to understand
that it was not necessary to understand everything that God was revealing; that
it was enough to know that God is God and that things become clear to me, just
as they did for the disciples, as life teaches me more and more about myself
and about God. I let go of the tether
that was keeping me safely floating fairly close to the shore and drifted out
into the deep water where the waves and storms of God’s truest lessons take
place. And, most of all, I started
(emphasis on started) to believe that I was on the right track towards
experiencing all that God wants for me.
The second bravest thing I
did was begin to share my journey with you.
Some of you were excited as God invited us to explore more and more
about what freeing our hearts and minds from old dictates and dogma would look
like, feel like, act like. Some of you,
not so much. I guess that’s what made it
brave. I believe that God calls us, more
than anything else to be true to ourselves and our journeys. Many of you have been brave as well. I invite us all to continue in a life of
courage, a life where we, together or apart, continue to walk courageously the
joyful path of self-discovery. May we
open our heart to what God longs for us to know—that, in God’s Spirit, we are
powerful and brave beyond measure. We
are called, all of us, to “do at last what [we] came here for and waste [our
lives] on fear no more”. Amen and
amen. Namaste.
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