Take a moment and think about a fear that you challenged and
overcame. If you can, think about the people you were with. Think about what
motivated you. Think about that moment when you almost gave up. Think about how
you felt after you conquered that fear.
All of us have hundreds of moments like these throughout our
lives. Some are so small and regular to us as we grow that we forget how
difficult they must have been in the beginning – like learning to walk or
riding a bike.
For me, one of those base fears came with roller coasters. As a
young child I could not stand roller coasters. I’m told it may have been
because of inner ear issues as a baby. Whatever it was, I just could not bring
myself to enjoy them.
But somewhere along the way I realized that the people that
wanted me to share in that joy were not trying to kill me, and that maybe I
should try to enjoy it. I think what finally clicked for me was the fact that
my fear was based in feeling vulnerable, and that I could trust the seatbelt to
keep me safe. From that point on, the fear was turned into joy and the panic
became the feeling I craved.
You can analyze that any way you want. As for me, I think of it
as an illustration of love transforming fear into joy—for we are told that
perfect love cast out fear in the beloved community of the people of God!
It’s important that we hear that perfect love casts our fear loud
and clear, because our readings today contain both. We have to hear about both of
them because we need to understand how and why love wins out in these accounts—
for love is fearless.
If we are to abide in the presence of God – and if God is to
abide in us – then we must also be fearless. We must be motivated by the
opportunity of sacrificial love and not by the fear of punishment or loss or
hatred or malice. We must be something more than the sum of our fears. We must
be summed up by the love of God that binds us and sends us – even as it holds
us.
We see this love in the story of Phillip from today’s reading.
Phillip, a disciple of Jesus, has already been to Samaria to include those once
thought of as excluded by God’s covenant. Now he’s been sent by the Spirit of
God to Gaza.
It’s not such a bad place, but he’s been sent by a wilderness
road. Bad things happen on the wilderness road. And sure enough, he comes
across something that is totally threatening to the established church – a
eunuch. Without getting into details, the words for eunuch in Greek and Hebrew
are typically associated with court officials. It also means a person who is
identified as “male” at birth but develops “female” characteristics either in
puberty or through human intervention.
Now, once you get past thinking about that, you might ask
yourself, “Why would this person be a threat to the church, and yet entrusted
as a court official?” Well, as to the courts, they weren’t a threat because
they weren’t going to have any offspring. As to the church, it’s exactly the
opposite – and they were kept out of the temple for it.
So, here comes this eunuch – he doesn’t even get a name in the
story – and he’s reading about the suffering servant in Isaiah. Maybe he’s
Jewish. Maybe he’s a Godfearer. All we know is that he is a court official from
Ethiopia. He’s been worshiping on the outskirts of the temple in Jerusalem, and
he can’t get this idea out of his mind. Maybe he thinks it’s about him, having
been cut off from his own people. Either way, it just doesn’t set right with
him that the chosen one of God should suffer.
So, Philip sets him straight. This is about Jesus, and Jesus’ suffering
brings us together with God. So, he sees the water, and he says, “Look! What is
to prevent me from being baptized?” Phillip baptized him, and then he is whisked
away by the Spirit.
Without getting too far into down the rabbit hole of the
mystical here, I think what we need to think about is the way in which this man
is simply included in the covenant of God’s love. Without fear over the
ambiguity of his sexuality (I’m not politicizing this. That is what is
happening in the text.) Phillip answers the question of “Why not?” with the
action of inclusion.
Fear of the one who cannot contribute to the gene pool is
flipped by love! The only ambiguity in this story is what he’s going to do when
he gets home. Now that he knows the truth about the scriptures, what will he do
with it in the court of the Candice of Ethiopia?
So, it is with us, with our fears and our worldly anxieties. So,
it is with a nation that has had to add “school shootings” and “active shooters”
and even “church shootings” to our vocabulary. So, it is in a nation where our
grandparents fought and died to end Nazism and fascism, yet we see it in our
own backyards. So, it is with a church that continues to wrestle with our age
and size in the face of mega churches and cultural trends that call us
irrelevant (and sometimes rightly so).
So, it is with a beloved community of disciples that hears
another voice in the midst of the headlines and buzzwords. That voice says that
we are to love, not only in words but in deeds. That voice says that we are
called to carry on the witness that God has been revealed through the person of
Jesus of Nazareth, and that through him we are called beloved. Through him we
are included in a covenant of love.
This love is not sappy or romantic or even simply emotional. No,
this love is permeating. This love is one that fills us in such a way that fear
has no space. This love is the type of love that tells us that we can partner
with others in our community to serve meals to the elderly. This love is the
type of love that tells us that we can have the audacity to reach out to other
congregations across our nation and engage them in flood recovery. This love is
the type of love that even inspires us to think that we could provide clean
water in a village in Cuba.
Yes! We can, and we have, and we will do these things – and even
more – because of the love that removes the fear associated with doing them.
There is more to it than that, though.
I hate to tell you, but love gets a lot more personal than these
big picture, feel good moments. For we are also told that whatever does not bear
fruit is pruned and removed and burned away.
That may feel threatening – and it may be – but if anything, I
take it as reassuring. If perfect love casts out fear, then I do not believe
these words are given to threaten us into loving God. These words are to assure
us that there are things in our lives that get in the way of loving God.
And those barriers are found and removed in our ability to
forgive one another. Those bearers are found and removed when we see love as
the face of justice, and justice as the fruit of love’s labor spent to glorify
God!
Meanwhile, in the vulnerable space of our disagreements, and our
wrangling over what is just and unjust; in the vulnerable space of our limited
resources amidst the abundance of God’s love; in the vulnerable space of our
desire to reach out to a community that includes those experiencing
homelessness and those of excessive wealth, those of lifestyles we may call
alternative and those we may not even understand at all, those of differing
sexual orientations and gender identities, those with addictions and those
whose lives are perfect on the surface and troubled down below; in the midst of
theses vulnerabilities and those yet unnamed, we are called to be the force of
love that transforms fear into joy.
We are the safety belt that turns the clackety-clack of the
roller coaster track of life into the expectation of an adrenaline rush that
makes you want more. That’s not because we sing so pretty. It’s not because we
do everything right. It’s because the Spirit of God testifies through our our
common witness of God’s love, and that, beloved of God, is what spills out of
these doors when they open – even in and through me, and even in and through
you – and to God be the glory, now and always. Amen.
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