Fear For

Here is my message from yesterday. The text was Matthew 2:13-18:

So far we have heard several angelic pronouncements about the coming birth of Jesus, or of John who will prepare the way. We had the announcement to Zechariah, and we were told he was terrified. We heard the announcement to the shepherds as we set the nativity today, and we are told they are terrified. And the angel’s response to them? Do not be afraid. We also have the announcement to Mary in Luke, and to her betrothed Joseph in Matthew, and although we are not told that they are afraid, which I think is significant, they too are told not to be afraid. But there is one another person who plays a crucial role that we are told is frightened when he hears word of Jesus’ birth, and that is Herod, whose official title is King of the Jews, although his announcement is not from an angelic messenger,. And so I have been using a quote from Max Lucado who says that “fear, at its center, is about a perceived loss of control.” And so, if that is true that it would make perfect sense that Herod is frightened because what the wise men do when they arrive, and please note that it doesn’t actually say how many there are there, is that they ask is where they can find the child who is born king of the Jews? And so that begins the trouble.

Herod sends the wise men on their way and tells them to come back and tell him where the child is so he can go and pay homage, which we can guess is probably not true, and as it turns out we know is not what he wants. But the wise men are warned not to go back to Herod and so go a different way, and Joseph too is warned to flee Egypt. And so Joseph takes Jesus and Mary and they flee during the night making their way to Egypt in order to protect themselves from Herod. And because he appears to be thwarted by the wise men, we are told that Herod is furious or extremely angry. And out of his anger he strikes out at Bethlehem. Fear and anger, although different emotions, are not unrelated to each other.

Obadiah: Turning Back Those In Need

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Obadiah 1:1-4, 10-17:

There is a Depeche Mode song from the 80’s that says “I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor and when I die I expect to find him laughing.” That’s how I feel sometimes about God when it comes to Sunday’s messages. I began planning this series on the 12 minor prophets last summer, long before we knew the results of the election and certainly long before I knew what that president would or would not be doing when we got to each of the individual prophets, but sometimes the scriptures just seem to match up with world events, especially when it comes to controversial events. Just once I would like the scripture to match up positively with something that’s happened in the world, but that doesn’t seem to happen nearly as much, if ever, as scripture calling us out as individuals and as a nation for some action we have undertaken, which, I think, is where we find ourselves today.

Now just by a show of hands, who here had ever heard of Obadiah either before today, or before you saw that Obadiah would be covered today? That’s about what I thought. The first time I heard about Obadiah, or at least could remember it was while I was in seminary, but it was not in class, instead it was through my wife Linda who came home and told me right at the beginning of the school year that she had a student named Obadiah, a girl by the way, and I was like “okay.” And so, she had to tell me why she thought this was important information for me to know because she was named after one of the prophets, and so then I had to go look it up. Obadiah is one of the few books that is not covered at all in the lectionary, and according to what Biblegateway.com, based on what verses and books people look up and read on their site, Obadiah is the least read book in the bible, and six of the top 10 least read books are all minor prophets. So, if you have never heard of Obadiah you’re in good company.