Spiders and Other Frights

In this season of scary things, the scariest is that some politicians are trying their best to divide us from one another. This sermon is a comment on that -- and an argument that, as Christians, we must not let it happen!

I imagine that many of you have decorated your homes for Halloween by now. October is the season of scary things of all kinds; and many of our homes reflect that. My grandson Tanner has always liked decorating for Halloween. This year, he decided that he wanted to use a spider theme; so, his whole house, inside and out, is full of spider webs – the artificial kind, of course. He was thrilled when I gave him a big, black, hairy, plastic spider to put right in the middle of the biggest web in their front yard! Now, my own tastes run more towards smiling jack o’ lanterns and little ghosts that peer out from behind picture frames on my end tables. (If my ghosts even said “Boo!” they would do so politely, I’m sure.) The scariest that I get is a string of ghost lights that climb up my staircase and shine softly each night until Halloween. But Tanner is a 5-year-old boy; and he wants to do scary – and what’s scarier than a spider?

I recently ran across a poem about a spider. It made me stop and think about my reactions in this season of things that frighten us. The poem is by Nikki Giovanni; it is titled “Allowables.”

I killed a spider

Not a murderous brown recluse

Nor even a black widow

And if the truth were told this

Was only a small

Sort of papery spider

Who should have run

When I picked up the book

But she didn’t

And she scared me

And I smashed her

I don’t think

I’m allowed

To kill something

Because I am

Frightened

Let that sink in for just a moment. “I don’t think I’m allowed to kill something because I am frightened.” Maybe fright isn’t a good enough reason to smash something out of existence. But, sadly, self-control isn’t our first response to something that scares us. When we’re scared, our adrenaline starts to pump, and our “fight or flight” reaction usually takes over. If we can’t run away from what scares us, we try to fight it. Just like lawmen in the wild west, we tend to shoot first and ask questions later. And the things that scare us usually get the worst of it, whether that thing is a spider or a snake or a bat. But this poet is questioning our right to do that. Is it all right to kill something simply because it scares me? The truth is that even things that scare us are part of God’s creation, too. Maybe they deserve our tolerance, if not our respect.

But maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. Who cares if we kill a few spiders, anyway? Well… maybe no one (except the spider, of course). But the attitude that it’s OK to get rid of anything that frightens us can itself become frightening when we start talking about other human beings. People can be scary, too – or so we are told. The last few months, especially, have been filled with all kinds of talk about other people that is intended to scare the pants off us. Whole categories of people have been pictured as scary… threatening… even dangerous. Why, you can’t turn around without hearing someone or other warning us about the threats from whole groups of people. Illegal immigrants from Mexico have been accused of being drug smugglers, murderers, and rapists. Never mind that many of them are very hard-working and ready to do the jobs that we don’t want to do! If they’re in our country illegally, they must be threatening. Refugees from the Middle East are vilified as potential terrorists. Everyone who has a Middle Eastern heritage is under suspicion. Remember the recent comment that compared refugees to Skittles candy? “If you knew that there were three poisoned Skittles in a bowl, would you eat a handful of them?” If we’re not careful, they’ll infiltrate our country and kill all of us! Even some of our police officers who are sworn to protect us (and who do a very good job of that most of the time) have bought into the “shoot first and ask questions later” mentality when their adversary is an African-American. Why? They’re frightened! Maybe all of us are, these days. That’s what happens when someone tries to divide us from one another. We’re told that “those people aren’t like us.” And after we hear that often enough, we start to believe it. They turn into “the Other,” and we start to be suspicious of everything about them. What appears to be a friendly smile from a stranger might mask deadly intentions. Pretty soon, we’re scared of everyone but the people we know personally. And when we’re frightened of something… Well, I think I’ve already covered that. We shoot first and ask questions later.

Can we get past being afraid of one another? If we can’t, we may be doomed to endless cycles of violence born of fear. Christian writer and thinker Thomas Merton asked, “What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?” We Christians, of all people, should realize that fear and separation is not the kind of world that God intends for his children. A world of suspicion and mistrust is the exact opposite of the Kingdom of God! So this morning, I have two suggestions that might start to get us out of the bog of fear in which we are sinking. First, let’s reject the “us-them” mentality that some people are trying to shove down our throats. We are all of us children of God; and all of us are infinitely precious and beloved by God. Remember that Jesus hung out with the very people who were considered to be “the Other” in his own society – tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, even Roman soldiers! Jesus reminded us that those scary people were just as valuable as the pillars of the Jewish community. And maybe we’ll find out that the scary people in our own society today are just as valuable as some of the politicians who are running for office. But there’s a second step; and it’s just as important as the first one: let’s refuse to be afraid. How many times in the Bible do you think that the words “Fear not!” appear? On the basis of a very quick search of the Bible, the answer is 63. 63 separate times God or one of God’s messengers tells someone not to be afraid! On the other hand, how many times does God tell somebody to be afraid? Not once! Maybe there’s a lesson for us there.

This morning’s scripture reading (Psalm 27:1-6) is a great example of someone who takes God at his word that we don’t need to be afraid of anything. The psalmist isn’t afraid of the wicked, or of his enemies, or of an army that is camped around his city, or even of a war! Why? Because he trusts God! Trusting God even in situations that look impossible is what we are called to do. If we trust God, we will do what God asks us to do. And what is that? Why, to love one another! The first letter of John hits the nail on the head when it says, “There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out fear.” (I John 4:18a) Does that work? Can we really get rid of our fear of other people by loving them? Well, it may not work for spiders and snakes and bats. But we could certainly try loving other people and see what happens. Do you know what I think? I think that if we rejected all the hate speech, and we didn’t listen to people telling us to be afraid of one another, and tried loving everybody, that the world would be a better place. Maybe we should trust God like the psalmist did – and like Jesus did. Who knows what wonderful things might happen!

Grace Abounds

What does grace do for us, really? Is it the source of what we often call our "blessings" -- a fancy car, a nice house, and new clothes? Or is it something else much less tangible but much more important? In this sermon that I preached on World Communion Sunday, I share thoughts on God's grace from around the world. Maybe we have something to learn from out brothers and sisters whose lives are not as easy as ours are...

Today is World Communion Sunday. All over the world, Christians are sitting down at the table of Jesus Christ and sharing in the meal that he provides for us. And all those Christians, wherever they live, will affirm that the bread we share is, in some mysterious way, the body of Christ that was broken for our benefit. That bread is a symbol of the grace that God gives us through Jesus Christ. Grace, after all, is what Holy Communion is all about. We don’t earn our way to this table by doing good works. No matter what we may do (or may not do), God invites us here because God loves us. And although every time we come to this table, we remember the first Communion when Jesus sat down to dinner with his disciples knowing that he was going to die the next day, grace isn’t just a historical event. Grace is available to us every day: right here, right now.

But I can’t help wondering if many of us, especially here in a country that is so well off, really understand what that grace is all about. We are so well off in so many ways that we fall into thinking that “the good life” is evidence of God’s grace. But where does that leave us if a fire or a tornado or a hurricane sweeps away all of our possessions and we suddenly have nothing? What if we are diagnosed with a debilitating disease? And what about those folks among us who don’t have a good life at all: the homeless or the mentally ill? Have they lost God’s grace? Our Christian sisters and brothers in other areas of the world have something to say about that. Many of them don’t have the kind of prosperous lives that we do, yet they can easily point to God’s grace around them. They teach us that God’s grace has very little to do with easy lives and everything to do with God’s presence in even the most difficult circumstances. Let’s listen to what some of them have to say. [These stories are from

http://www.globalministries.org/special_days_wcs_world_communion_sunday_ideas.]

Nomvula lives in South Africa. She is HIV positive, and her disease is terminal. Many of us would look at Nomvula, see a hopeless situation, and wonder what happened to God’s grace. But Nomvula sees it very differently. She believes that she is HIV positive “so the glory of God might be revealed.” Nomvula travels from church to church in her country, defying taboos and the stigma of HIV to provide comfort to those who are suffering. She even counsels people in parking lots who are afraid to seek help. Nomvula hosts a radio talk show and writes a weekly newspaper column. She leads the HIV/AIDS desk of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa. In a country where it is shameful to be HIV positive, Nomvula refuses to stay silent. She believes that God’s grace is what enables her to continue to speak out. She would tell us that grace abounds!

Or we could listen to what Nima has to say. Nima lives in Nepal; and women in Nepal are second-class citizens. Except in the church. “The church,” Nima says, “is the only place in my country where I, a woman, am truly welcome; where I, rejected by my family for marrying outside my caste, am accepted. This is the only group of people who welcome me in, despite the fact that I have been treated for mental illness. Even untouchables and lepers are allowed in!” And Nima considers receiving Holy Communion to be the greatest experience of all, because it is the evidence of the love and grace that God offers to all of us. “I am a baptized Christian,” she proudly says. “What a great privilege!” She, too, would tell us that grace abounds!

Even in El Salvador where people are executed for their political beliefs, or disappear off the streets never to be seen again – even in that place, men and women affirm God’s grace! Listen to this statement of faith that was written by a peasant woman from in El Salvador:

I believe, Lord, that everything good in the world comes from you. I believe that, because you preached love, freedom, and justice, you were humiliated, tortured, and killed. I believe that you continue to suffer in our people. I believe that you accompany me in the task of transforming this world into a different one where there is no suffering or weeping, a world where there is a gigantic table set with free food where everyone is welcome. I believe that you accompany us in waiting for the dawning of a new day. I believe that you give us strength so that death does not find us without having done enough, and that you will rise in those who have died seeking a different world.

Even in violence-ridden, poverty-stricken El Salvador, grace abounds!

Paul had the very same message for the church in Rome. Christians there lived under the constant threat of persecution from the Roman Emperor. Many of them were slaves and owned nothing. Even their bodies belonged to someone else. Some of them had even died for their faith! Most of them had nothing like the “good life” that we enjoy here and now. But Paul claimed that nothing could separate them from the love of Jesus Christ: not “trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword. [Nothing] in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:31-39) Easy life or difficult one, wealthy or poverty-stricken, secure or at daily risk of death, God’s love is there. That, my friends, is grace.

In just a moment, we will sit down at the table of grace – the table of Holy Communion. When the bread and cup are shared, we will eat just a little bit of bread and drink just a tiny bit from the cup. And that seems so inadequate, because God has plenty of grace to go around! Take three or four pieces of bread if you like! Take twenty pieces of bread! God doesn’t parcel out grace in little cubes! There’s enough for the whole world ten thousand times over! As we approach God’s table, I hope that you take a moment to thank God for love and for mercy and for generosity. Thank God for the good lives that we lead. (I do every day.) Thank God for all the things that have gone right for you. But most of all, give thanks to God for the grace that abounds in any and all circumstances – for you, for me, and for the whole world.