Sermon Title: "Whom Shall I Fear?"
Date: January 23, 2011
Minister:  The Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  Psalm 27:1, 4-9

FEAR.  That is certainly a palpable feeling gnawing at some people nowadays.  After the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson two weeks ago, what congressperson is going to attend a public gathering with constituents without looking fearfully around?

Thursday’s (1/20/11) Press-Telegram reports that Long Beach area Congresswoman Laura Richardson plans to introduce legislation to protect members of Congress and those around them from suffering similar fates.  To the point of my sermon theme today, her proposal is entitled “The Freedom to Serve Without Fear Act.”

After the shootings at two Los Angeles area high schools—Gardena and Woodland Hills—last week, what parent is assured of the safety of their children, and what student can walk confidently through the school without casting their eyes right and left to ward off fears that some “normal” looking student is not armed and dangerous?

On the good news side, the front page of Tuesday’s (1/18/11) Los Angeles Times quotes Mary Lawson as to how much crime has dropped in her Compton neighborhood, where she and her husband go out on their porch to sit each evening.  For years, they avoided the porch, fearful of stray bullets and gang toughs.  The gunfire on New Year’s Eve used to be so bad the Lawsons would check into a hotel that night.

This year, they stayed at home.  “We heard not one gunshot,” Mary Lawson said.  “Now you don’t have to be afraid of sitting on your porch, or going to and from your car…  You just don’t have the fear there used to be before.”

There are many kinds of fear:  Fear of losing one’s job in the current economic climate, or if laid off, fear of not finding another job soon.  Fear of losing one’s house, or insurance, or car for inability to pay.  Fear of earthquakes or tornados or flooding.  Fear of the dark.  Fear of heights.  Fear of spiders or snakes.  Fear of flying, or fear of being in a boat on open water.  Fear of walking or driving through the wrong neighborhood at night.  Fear for our health or mortality after getting the diagnosis from the doctor.  These are very real fears for some people, whether or not they affect you.

Old Testament scholar J. Clinton McCann points out that the opening line of Psalm 27 captures and summarizes the entire psalm, challenging us to make a choice between faith and fear.  Either we make the faith choice, seeing God as “my light and my salvation,” or we make the fear choice, looking for the answer to the question, “whom shall I fear?”

We don’t have to go far to find something to fear.  As human beings who have experienced life, we know we’re vulnerable to physical illnesses, emotional distresses, relational breakdowns, economic stresses and spiritual crises.  If I were to stop this sermon right here, many of you would leave this sanctuary this morning on high fear alert!

But if instead we make the faith choice, our departure from this sanctuary might feel very different.  We aren’t so vulnerable if we put our trust in God because we discover that the Lord is our light, our salvation, and the stronghold of our lives.  The key is to put our trust in Almighty God, not in ourselves.

When, with the psalmist of old, we live in God’s light, we’re living in the presence of the Lord.  God’s face is often depicted as light, or shining upon people, such as in the Old Testament benediction I will use today:  “The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you.”  (Numbers 6:25)  So when the Lord is our light, we dwell not in darkness and fear, but we live close to God and in a place of inner peace.  Our psalm text today concludes with the plea:  “Your face, Lord, do I seek.  Do not hide your face from me.” (27:8-9)

Making the faith choice also reveals to us that the Lord is our salvation and the stronghold of our life.  After the Israelites were saved from the Egyptians, Moses and his people sang out, “The Lord is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation.”  (Exodus 15:2)  Later, the writers of the psalms spoke repeatedly of God as a stronghold or refuge:  There is the familiar “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…  I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.”  In the psalm following today’s, the psalmist affirmed, “The Lord is the strength of his people; he is the saving refuge of the anointed.”  (28:8)  And Martin Luther wrote his famous Reformation hymn based on Psalm 46:  “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change...”  (46:1-2)  Would that I had known that when I was five years old!

When we choose faith over fear, we receive the assurance of God’s power and presence through all the challenges of life.  In Psalm 27, the writer expresses a desire “to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.”  (v. 4)  In Bible times, God was thought to live in the very inner sanctum of the temple in Jerusalem, so to live in the house of the Lord was to live in God’s presence.  No wonder families, including Jesus’, made pilgrimages to the temple in Jerusalem each year.

But you have to wonder:  What does God actually do for those who choose faith over fear?  Psalm 27 says that God “will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock.” (v. 5)  One of the hymns suggested to go along with today’s psalm was “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee…”  This means God will offer protection and deliverance to all who trust in him, keeping them safe from anything that would destroy them.

Challenges will arise—let there be no doubt about that—and crises will come.  I believe we can all attest to that.  But God’s promise of protection and deliverance means we’ll never be completely destroyed by adversity.

Patricia Dahlgren experienced a horror that would cause most people to feel destroyed:  the murder of her mother.  But Dahlgren responded with faith instead of fear.  Twelve years after the killing, Dahlgren, accompanied by a friend and a minister, spent an entire day in an Oregon prison with the killer.  Dahlgren told the killer about her emotional journey after losing her mother, and the killer told her exactly what he had done, admitting that he was sorry for it and ashamed of it.

The meeting led to healing, for victim and offender.  Dahlgren told the killer she forgave him, which stunned everybody in the room.  (The Christian Century, 7/13/10)

The promise of God’s protection and deliverance doesn’t shield us from suffering or pain.  I don’t want to paint any pretty Pollyanna-like picture here.  In my career I’ve experienced people suffering bitter divorces, crushing breakups of relationships, unexpected deaths of spouses, children, grandchildren, suicides, terminal illnesses, loss of homes and businesses through flood and fire and financial woes.  There is a difference between hurt, pain, loss and fear.  But choosing faith instead over fear does mean the Lord shields and guides us as we move through life’s horrors so that we’ll emerge with unexpected healing and strength.  After passing through a time of hardship, the writer of Psalm 27 says, “Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me … I will sing and make melody to the Lord.” (v. 6)

That’s probably how Patricia Dahlgren was feeling after her day in prison visiting her mother’s killer.  And that’s how we can feel as well, if we choose faith over fear and trust God to lead us toward healing and new life.

No matter how much faith we have, most of us will still face unexpected crises which may well lead to fears.  But when storms hit us, and they will, just as they hit the first disciples, we’ll find that Jesus is sitting right beside us and asking, “Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?” (Mark 4:40)

When illness strikes us, as it struck the people of Galilee, we’re going to feel weakened and discouraged.  But if we reach out to Jesus, we’ll receive unexpected wholeness, and Jesus will say, “Your faith has made you well.” (Mark 5:34)

Death is going to threaten us, as it threatened the daughter of a man named Jairus.  But Jesus will come to us and say, “Do not fear, only believe.” (Mark 5:36)

We’ll face enormous personal challenges, as the disciples did when they encountered a crowd of 5,000 hungry people.  But Jesus will say to us, as he said to his disciples, “You give them something to eat.”  (Mark 6:37)  If we choose faith over fear, all will eat and be spiritually filled.

We need to trust God, instead of just ourselves.