“When Fear Is In The Driver’s Seat”

Sermon Written By Rev. Dick Stetler – April 26, 2020

On the occasion of church’s closure due to COVID-19 Virus

Centenary United Methodist Church

Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19; Luke 24:13-35

 

    One of the most difficult things to do is to receive news about what is happening in other parts of the world.  Most of us can remember the runaway fires in Australia, the tornado destruction in the United States, and the 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Jamaica.  Each of these received coverage and then vanished with no follow up.  Almost all the news-media outlets were consumed day after day with the virus COVID-19. 

    Probably the next newsworthy item that got our attention was how COVID-19 is being managed by the Premier to keep everyone safe. Perhaps number three comes from our fears concerning our island's financial future. With the cancellations of cruise ships and daily flights, what will happen to businesses that count on tourism for their livelihood?  A friend of mine once asked:

We will never run out of things to worry about until we reach the biggest unknown – our own deaths. Why do we waste our energy worrying about anything since there is nothing that we can do about any of it? Life is what it is. When do we wake up to that fact?

    Perhaps the person who best summarized why our responses are all over the landscape of possibilities was Benjamin Franklin. Dr. Franklin summarized why people are so different in their responses. He used as an example why politicians are always partisan in the way they express themselves.  As an active participant in the committee that crafted the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, he summarized the experience by writing:

When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views.

    Our Gospel lesson this morning deals with the two disciples who had become so preoccupied with what happened to Jesus that their vision was totally blocked by the overwhelming drama of recent events.  They did not recognize the stranger who had joined them as they walked.  The response of the two disciples was the result of some serious preoccupation!

    Every Sunday we celebrate our trust in God's presence in our lives.  With what is happening today, our experiences of COVID-19, as serious as it is, is nothing more than another distraction that can rob us of our mental health.  This response is what consistently happens when fear about anything has gotten into the driver's seat of our lives. 

    We become oblivious to what is happening to us when fear removes from our lives what once produced joy and happiness. Every day we are faced with making a decision between what causes worry and the attitudes that produce peace.  My friend was right.  We never run out of things that can produce worry.  Someone jokingly said to me:

Before we put our lives in hands of a surgeon or an airline pilot, wouldn't it be nice to know if everything was okay with his or her marriage, their family, their financial stability, their children tracking well with their lives, and that their jobs are secure?  Wouldn't it be nice to know that you are not the surgeon's first heart procedure on a real person or that this is not the pilot's maiden flight on this new jet plane.

     Today's population is so overwhelmed with such movies that the specialists in the advertising industry claim that, if their ad does not get the attention of the public in a matter of seconds, they will lose their audience.  Advertisers have also learned that, if they are too dramatic with their message, the captivating storyline will cause the public to forget the product being advertised.

     Throughout my career, our lack of being able to concentrate is a thought that has come into my mind on a weekly basis.  How are preachers doing if the advertisers are correct?  Most pastors want to help people to get in touch with a world that no one can see while living in the world filled with the countless distractions from the appearance of back to back movies. 

     Given that we have not been physically together as a congregation for weeks and all of us passed through Holy Week and beyond with make-shift observances, what have we really missed?  Instead of our annual celebration of the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection, our lives were dealing with sheltering-in

-place, being separated by six feet from each other, and wearing masks when we go grocery shopping wondering what produce we will still find on the shelves.  

    A question entered my mind: "Would the congregation prefer a spoken sermon or a printed message that can be read and pondered?" What invited such thinking was the reality that most of what Jesus said was forgotten by his listeners who had chores to do and families that needed their undivided attention. By contrast, when people could read what Jesus said in the Gospels, they have studied his teachings for thousands of years. If we did not have his message in printed form, who would know about what our lesson revealed this morning?

    What was it that broke into the lives of those two disciples that removed their blindness?  The movie of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection was still playing in their minds when they invited this stranger who had joined them to stay with them for dinner. THEN during his prayer before eating and his breaking of the bread, the spell of distraction was broken when that movie stopped playing. (Luke 24:30f) His visible presence suddenly vanished from their midst and they were given another movie to consider, "Was it not like fire burning within us when he talked to us on the road as he explained the Scriptures to us?"      (Luke 24:32)

    All around us are symbols of God's presence, but most of us need to be reminded of what they are.  Our inner world is one of enormous power.  It alone holds our ability to rise above the impact of distracting movies that have played since we were born.  The litany of our personal movies can be quite lengthy.

    We cannot forgive someone who has betrayed our trust.  We cannot forget being hurt because we were passed over for a raise in salary or a new opportunity.  We may remember feelings that our parents were less supportive of us than they appeared to be to our siblings. Perhaps we fear that we have not accomplished much with our lives. 

    Our ability and willingness to bow down at the altar of the current movie is quite compelling.  Most of the time, we by-pass the understanding that we are infinite spirit-beings who could be immune to all fear-evoking movies if we chose not to be persuaded by life's sabotaging thoughts and feelings. What have we gained by giving anything in this world power over the spirit by which we live?

    Once we realize and thoroughly understand that the source of our worries and fears are coming from the current movie, we can allow who we are to become visible in every drama. When the two disciples realized who it was that had just been with them, they wasted no time getting back to the others to tell them of their experience.

     We have to own who we are as daughters and sons of God every morning when we start our day.  We are spirit-beings who are here to see how we respond to all the movies. When we accept the reality that no one ever dies, that our severest dramas only have the meaning that we supply, and that God allows all the movies to play to give us opportunities to serve others in the midst of chaos, we have arrived at Heaven's door.   When we walk through that door still living in our limited, physical forms, we can bring Heaven's confidence and spirit to our present world by what we do and say.

    To get there we have to view every movie for what it is.  They are all the same.  They give us something to experience visually, but we do not need to be influenced by them. How can illusions ever threaten us when we are spirit-beings? Are we angels-in-the-flesh or not?

    If we do not understand these realities, everything else that we experience becomes a link in an infinite chain of endless movies that can easily terrorize us.  COVID-19 is one of these! The death of a friend or loved one is one of these. We do not need to be influenced by fear-based thinking and feelings.  When we cave to such temptations, we are revealing exactly where we are in our spiritual journey – still a work in progress. 

    When Jesus was presented with making such a choice, he just stood silently after being slapped by a guard as his mock trial continued.  He was found guilty of blasphemy.  He was alone.  There was no justice for him, BUT he remained silent and allowed the movie to play.  By the end of the week, he showed the two disciples that he met on the road that he was not his body nor did the drama matter that terrorized his followers that had taken place only days before.   They had only met Jesus in another form. Jesus was always teaching that we never need to be afraid of anything.  (Matthew 10:28b)

     Knowing this allows us to remain a light in darkness. Why wait until we leave our bodies to learn that everything that Jesus taught was authentic information that he brought into our world from the world of spirit where his energy and presence were clearly rooted. 

    Do we really want our distracting movies to rule us?  This will happen to us when fear is in the driver's seat of our lives. If we find that our movies are defining us in ways that are not helpful to ourselves or anyone else, perhaps it is time we awaken from our slumber and live with humility and self-control.  Such attitudes will give our lives increased meaning and purpose.  (Galatians 5:22)

      

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER

Each time we gather for worship, O God, we are challenged to think differently.  It remains difficult to do since many of our self-taught responses have been in place for most of our lives.  Jesus taught us to measure success by our experience of happiness and peace.  He taught us that those who have light should let it shine in all circumstances.  Heal us, O God, when we give authority to the voices that prevent us from taking leaps of faith and that cast doubts on our ability to shed old habits. In spite of our struggles, thank you for continuing to work through us to help make our world a more wholesome place to live.  Amen.

 

PASTORAL PRAYER

Loving and merciful God, we are grateful for our Sabbath mornings when we can pause to refresh that part of ourselves we often neglect because of life's countless distractions.  We wonder what our lives would be like if we never took time to nourish the captain of our ship, the decision maker inside of us, or the spirit that responds to all of life's many varied circumstances.

We thank you for the little reminders that you send to us that teach us how strong we are when our steps falter.  How easy it is to be filled with regret when we make mistakes or when we belittle ourselves for not being perfect.  We thank you for the lessons we have learned from hindsight or from realizing the power that distractions have to blind and immobilize us. You always show up anyway. Please inspire our vision to focus on what is important for our growth.  We thank you for your presence in the lives of our friends.  When we receive firm handshakes, their smiles and laughter, and their support, we are reminded of how nurturing others are. 

We live in a world that needs us to be more self-accepting that all of us are a work in progress.  How can you ever work through us if our worries and fears prevent your presence within us from being seen by others?   Help us to let go of our need to maintain a certain stage presence so that you can show up in our countless dramas realizing that we are whole just as we are.  May we always understand ourselves as humble kindred spirits to Jesus, the Christ, who taught his disciples to say when they prayed . . .