Do Not Fear

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 14:22-33:

One of my earliest memories comes from when I was probably around 4. I was spending the day with my grandmother and we had gone to the store, and one the way back home we decided to stop at a tasty-freeze for some ice cream. I was sitting in the backseat of my grandparents 1966 Ford Galaxy 500, which was an aircraft carrier, especially when the top was down, but we had placed our order and I looked down and on my left arm was a tarantula. Now in my memory it was huge, although I don’t know if that is because I was small or because of the trauma, but I screamed and my grandmother turned around, saw it and swatted it off my arm. And this I definitely remember, but it then jumped onto the front seat, ran down it, then jumped onto the dashboard and squeezed into one of the air conditioning vents and disappeared. My grandmother used to comment that she never saw it again. And we drove off before we got our order. I happened to be wearing a bright yellow shirt that day, which had a puffy lion on the front, and at the top of the grocery bag was a bunch of bananas, and so best guess is it came out of the bananas saw more yellow and was coming over to check it out. But the moral of this story is that FDR was wrong in his first inaugural address when he said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but that we should fear fear itself and also spiders. We should fear spiders, although while I still can’t deal with tarantulas or any big spiders, I have gotten much better about regular spiders as I’ve aged.

And so, with that we move on in our series on the nots of Jesus, or the things that Jesus tells us not to do, by moving onto the injunction: “Do not be afraid.” Of the things we are not to do, and the things that cause us to get ourselves all into knots, this may be one of the harder ones because fear is hardwired into us. And living entirely without fear is not only unhealthy it can be downright dangerous. There is a reason why we have fear of snakes and spiders and tigers, because they can be life threatening. Fear is a primal urge that comes to us from the most primitive part of the brain known as the amygdala, and located close to the base of the brain at the spine. It’s what trigger the fight, flight or freeze response when we sense danger. And it’s played an important role in keeping us alive and uninjured over time, both as people and as a species. Fear in proper doses, or natural occurrences is healthy and productive. It teaches us to not touch hot stoves, to not play in traffic and to avoid spiders. And so fearing things is not a sin, and in fact not fearing, or living without fear, could just be plain and simple stupidity. And so, we start with that reality because I don’t think that’s what Jesus is talking about when he tells us not to be afraid. But it’s about the what and the why.

State of the Church

Here is my message from Sunday. The texts were Numbers 13:1-2, 17-21a, 25-28, 30-33 and Matthew 14:22-34:

I want to start with a story this morning. At our prayer breakfast in May, rather than sitting in a room talking and praying, we came out onto the property and prayed, with some of us walking circles around the property and praying, although only a few of us got all seven laps done, and the laps did get smaller and smaller as we progressed. But we were praying for big things, including the elimination of our mortgage debt. That was a Saturday. On Tuesday afternoon I received a call from Rev. Randall Partin, who is the provost for the conference, which is a fancy way of saying he is the bishop’s assistant and runs the conference office and staff. Now Randall had been in conversation with us about some of the things we have explored for doing with the eastside of the property, and he wanted to know if we were interested in having a conversation with a Methodist organization who was looking for some property. That led me into a conversation with Saranam, which runs a two-year residential program for homeless families. They were begun when Central UMC received a several million-dollar gift in someone’s will, which serves as a reminder that you too can make gifts to Mesa View in your estate planning, and one of the things we are beginning the work on is an endowment committee and policies and procedures for the reception and use of endowed gifts. So, I met with Saranam for an initial conversation, which then led to a meeting with some of their board members and some representatives from Mesa View, and this week the Trustees voted to approve conversations about the potential sale or lease of the back piece of the property to move forward. But, before I say any more, I’d want to show a shortened video about Saranam…

Now a few points. The first that is that Saranam is a Sanskrit word that means refuge. There’s actually a song in the hymnal entitled Saranam, Saranam. The second is that at this point we are only in conversation. We have not made any agreements, we have signed any documents, we haven’t even agreed on any terms. We are now waiting for their board to meet and approve moving forward in conversation with us on the possibilities. I believe we are still a few months away from that conversation, and even farther from a deal. If we do move forward, we will have presentations on who they are and as well as what it might mean to be working together, as well as listening sessions to get feedback. Right now, this is just so you are aware, and hopefully some, or most, or all, of you are as excited about this possibility as I am. Not only will this help us in our mission of serving our community and making good use of our property, but it will also greatly help us financially.