"Even in Our Fear, We Are Called Forward - (December 14, 2025 Sermon)

I invite you to raise your hand if you’ve ever heard the following statements:

• “God never gives you more than you can handle.”

• “God doesn’t call the equipped; he equips the called.”

• “Too blessed to be stressed.”

• “Faith over fear.”

Your snarky pastor calls these phrases, and others like them, “bumper sticker theology.” Although they may be well-meaning, these phrases oversimplify complex theology into a few words slapped on a fender or embroidered on a pillow, or patched onto a t-shirt. No matter how altruistic the intent, the effect these phrases have on someone going through life can be hurtful. “Too blessed to be stressed,” probably isn’t a helpful or healing phrase when the recipient is a stressed-out mother juggling a full-time job and a side hustle, worried about skyrocketing healthcare premiums starting next month while trying to figure out if she can afford to buy her children Christmas gifts. “God never gives you more than you can handle” is a slap in the face to the man whose husband of decades dies of prostate cancer. “God doesn’t call the equipped; he equips the called” isn’t a helpful phrase to a teenager struggling with anxiety and depression, who doesn't know if it’s okay to say “no” to something to attend to their own self-care.

And finally, “faith over fear” creates an unhealthy binary, as though faith and fear are at war and we’re helplessly caught in the middle. When my five-year-old came to me a few days ago, saying she was scared to go to bed because she had a nightmare the night before, I didn’t tell her to “have more faith” or to “not be scared.” No, I got down on her level, put my arm around her, and said, “It’s OK to be scared, sweetheart. Nightmares are no fun.” Then we discussed what nightmares are and what they aren’t. We talked about how they're not real (even though they certainly feel real in the moment!). We discussed how mommy and daddy are right next door, and she can come get us if she gets scared. I hugged her and said, “It’s OK to be scared. Mommy, Daddy, and Sissy are here, and we’ll keep you safe. You are not alone.”

Though I suppose “It’s okay to be scared. I’m here” doesn’t quite have the same “ring” as “faith over fear,” it is definitely a much healthier way to talk about fear in relation to our faith. Both of the characters in today’s scripture readings, Jeremiah and Mary, had good reason to fear. Jeremiah was called to prophesy to Israelites as the Babylonians were gaining political influence and threatening the sovereignty of the Davidic monarchy. Prophets often face the tough task of telling people things they don’t want to hear, and because of that, their messages are rarely received with gratitude. “I am just a boy,” he says, “I don't know how to speak.” God replies to Jeremiah by telling him that he once knew a man named Moses who had the same excuses. “But never mind that,” God says to the young man, “I formed you, consecrated you, and appointed you. I’ve been with you since the beginning and I’m not leaving you now.”

Fast forward some 500+ years, and a different voice of reluctance is heard, “But I’m a virgin!” Mary was “perplexed,” the text tells us.  I’m here to tell you today that that is an unfortunately tame rendering of a Greek word that means something far more dramatic than mere puzzlement or confusion.  The Greek word is tarassō, which means troubled, agitated, or unsettled.  In fact, the specific word that Luke uses is diatarassō, where the first portion (“dia”) serves as an intensifier.  If tarassō means troubled, diatarassō means you’ve missed the exit for “troubled” and are barreling down the freeway of anxiety and fear.

The Rev. Dr. Boyung Lee explains it this way: “Mary is not simply puzzled - she is shaken, thrown off balance, possibly afraid for her life. And with good reason. Mary was young, unmarried, and living under the weight of imperial and patriarchal control. To be told - without warning - that she would bear a child by divine initiative wasn’t just a spiritual shock; it was a profound social and bodily risk.”

When was the last time you felt unsettled, unqualified, and overwhelmed? In those moments, we often respond with fight, flight, or freeze. In Mary’s case, it could be said she chose 'flight.' To be clear, she had said “yes.' She was not fleeing from God or the call bestowed upon her. Instead, she was perhaps running from people who might have stoned her for being an unmarried pregnant woman, which was legally permissible. Maybe her survival instinct led her to seek comfort with her much older cousin, Elizabeth. Or perhaps she was driven by a need to protect herself in a society that would have viewed her with suspicion and disdain under those extraordinary circumstances.

My suspicion is that God knew Mary would be scared, which is why I imagine God instructed the angel to tell Mary about Elizabeth. This, of course, aligns with God’s encounters with previous Biblical characters. God gave Aaron to Moses to help him confront Pharaoh (later, Moses would forget that he was not called to lead alone, and his father-in-law Jethro would lovingly say to him, “What you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out… for the task is too heavy for you”). God gave Mordecai to Esther when she needed courage to confront King Ahasuerus and Haman. When Elijah was feeling overwhelmed, God gave him Elisha to help bear the burden. Saul’s son, Jonathan, became a beloved and trusted advisor for, and protector to, King David once he took the throne.

The biblical story is full of God calling people to work together, serve together, and advocate for one another and their neighbors. Ultimately, God’s people gathered in Christ’s name and called this “Church.” The Greek word for “church” is “ecclesia.” For Spanish speakers, you might recognize the Spanish word for church, “iglesia.” This word also comes from the Greek “ecclesia,” and it literally means “to be called out” or “to be sent out.” The very word “church” is therefore outwardly focused. It’s not about a group of people who stay in, but about people who are sent out. “Ecclesia” describes a group working together, linking arms, and stepping boldly into the world to share the Gospel—despite a culture that often dismisses the very idea.

But before the first “ecclesia” formed, there was another who was “called out,” and her name was Mary. On the screen, you’ll see our liturgical art for the week, created by Rev. Lisle Gwynn Garrity of A Sanctified Art. It’s called “Mary’s Yes.” Today’s passage makes two references to Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, being six months pregnant with John the Baptist. Coincidentally, Rev. Garrity herself was six months pregnant with her second daughter when she created this piece. Regarding this art, she says: “Mary’s willingness to say “yes” is also fortified by the assurance that she is not stepping forward alone. Even as fears surely surround her, Mary will go to Elizabeth for protection and comfort. She won’t fulfill her calling without support. Her hope will be strengthened in solidarity.”

None of us, friends, are called to fulfill our calling without support. Our hope grows stronger through solidarity. Together, we channel our “inner Mary” and step forward into a weary world to do the blessed, messy, life-giving, and sometimes downright scary work of discipleship. I want to draw your attention to the writing on Mary’s clothing. If you look closely, you’ll notice that Mary’s headdress has the words “do not fear” written over and over and over again.  Likewise, embroidered around her neckline are the words “Here I am” repeated over and over. “Do not fear” and “here I am.” We hold our fears in one hand, recognizing them without allowing them to stop us, and in the other, we hold trust, saying “here I am” to the God who promises to be with us.

It’s not faith over fear so much as it’s faith with fear. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Want to know a secret? I did the math this week and I’ve preached at least 500 sermons in the past decade. And you know what? I still get scared when I step into the pulpit. I get scared because, like all preachers, I wonder: will I say too much? Will I say too little? Will this message be received in love? What if I hurt someone? What if I say something wrong? I still get scared, and I hope I always do. Fear is a friend that’s misunderstood, John Mayer once sang. Fear makes me a better preacher because the moment I lose that fear, it’s probably the moment I forget how important this task really is.

And you certainly don’t have to be a preacher to know this truth. The surgeon with a scalpel in her hand. The professor wondering if they’ll be denied tenure for teaching the unvarnished truth of our nation’s history. The teenager who is gathering the courage to come out of the closet to their friends and family. The couple who wonder if trying again to have a child will only bring more heartbreak. The son who finally decides that it’s time to go to an AA meeting. Friends, fear can push us to do really brave things.

So let us move forward in faith and fear. I don’t think Mary left her fear behind when she went to see her cousin Elizabeth. And God doesn’t expect us to leave fear behind. Fear is what makes discipleship so beautiful. Fear is what makes courage and vulnerability the stuff of hope. Fear, perhaps, is a holy thing—if only we remember that it’s part of our story but never the end of it.

In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s children, say: Amen.

"In the Time of Herod, We Long for God to Break In" (November 30, 2025 Sermon)

Text: Luke 1:5-13

“Fear is a friend that’s misunderstood.” John Mayer sang this in his 2006 song, “The Heart of Life.”  Fifty years earlier, Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way: “Normal fear protects us; abnormal fear paralyzes us. Normal fear is a friend that motivates us to improve our individual and collective welfare; abnormal fear is an enemy that constantly poisons and distorts our inner lives. So our problem is not to get rid of fear but to harness and master it.” Most of us, I suppose, consider fear not friend but foe.  We all try in our own ways to escape our fears.  Many of you will recall a sermon series we did on the Enneagram a year or two ago, which gives us, among other things, a helpful framework for exploring how we all, in different ways, try to cope with our fears.

• Type 1’s fear of being wrong leads them to overcompensate by constantly striving for perfection.

• Type 2’s fear of rejection causes them to seek validation through helping others.

• Type 3’s fear of failure drives them to pursue success and recognition.

• Type 4’s fear of insignificance pushes them to escape into creativity and emotional depth.

• Type 5’s fear of incompetence makes them seek knowledge as a form of security.

• Type 6’s fear of uncertainty and abandonment leads them to seek stability through relationships and systems.

• Type 7’s fear of pain causes them to escape into a world of possibilities, plans, and distractions.

• Type 8’s fear of vulnerability prompts them to assert control and take charge of everything.

• Type 9’s fear of conflict makes them engage in social gymnastics to avoid confrontation.

Understanding our fears and how they motivate us is a vital spiritual practice. Without acknowledging our relationship with fear, growth becomes impossible—whether as disciples, parents, lovers, or friends. Ignoring our fears only results in denial and the slow burn of repressed anxiety and stress, which will eventually surface in other ways, often causing no small amount of collateral damage along the way. But the good news is that if you’re looking for a powerful remedy to fear, there is one: curiosity. This is the foundation of this sermon series. As we bring to God “the hopes and fears of all the years,” we look forward to Christ’s birth dab-smack in the middle of a fearful world.

If you appreciate meticulous details, then Luke's gospel is perfect for you. Luke based his account of Jesus’ life on the gospel of Mark but, like many of us, he was likely frustrated with Mark’s lack of detail in describing Jesus’ earthly ministry. As a result, he adds many details that Mark didn’t consider important. Today’s passage from Luke features an often-overlooked but crucial detail in its opening words: “In the days of King Herod of Judea.”

King Herod was a controversial figure; some people loved him, while others hated him. He was the Roman-appointed king of Judea, and his only job was to funnel as much money and power as possible to the Empire. That money and power came at a steep price, in the form of heavy taxes and brutal oppression of those who suffered the most to feed the Empire's greed. Herod branded himself as a master builder. He had many costly vanity projects, such as the hippodrome, which Herod built in honor of Emperor Augustus about 10 years before Jesus was born. These projects boosted Herod’s ego and, of course, pleased the Romans, but they came at a cost. Economic disparity was increasing, and many hoped that Herod would spend less time on vanity projects and more on serving his constituents.

Historians differ on Herod’s reputation as a brutal tyrant. Although the Bible states that Herod had all infants murdered in an attempt to kill baby Jesus, some historians dispute this fact. However, it is widely accepted that Herod executed one of his wives and at least three of his own children. Some believe that Herod may have started as a somewhat well-meaning ruler, but as the saying goes, “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” At some point, Herod’s slide into tyranny became undeniable, and the people of Judah lived in constant fear of where his lust for power would lead them.

Amid this climate of societal unrest was a man named Zechariah. Zechariah was a priest who, like all of us, faced both macro and micro fears. Macro fears involved the socio-political and economic situations we’ve just discussed. But he also experienced micro fears, which were more personal to him and his wife, Elizabeth. Like some undoubtedly among us, they longed for a child who had so far eluded them. Luke’s mention of their righteousness adds to the fears surrounding their situation, mainly because of the common belief that infertility was a sign of divine disapproval. Zechariah and Elizabeth must have been affected by the socio-political unrest of their society, but their fears were also deeply personal because they lacked children:

• Fear of social ostracism in a world where women were valued only to the extent that they could bear children.

• Fear of losing the legacy of their family name in a world where lineage was an important marker of social status.

• Fear of growing old in a world where children were the primary caregivers of elderly parents.

And so, like each of us, Zechariah and Elizabeth were hungry for God to “break in” and disrupt the painful reality of their fears, both macro and micro.

Where do you long for God to “break in?”  What fears do you have that call out for God’s intervention?  Maybe you know the acute pain of longing for a child.  Maybe you know the ache of some other unfilled dream? Maybe like Zechariah, you know what it’s like to sit in the house of God, giving thanks in one breath and voicing lament in the next. In that messy, fearful space, God breaks in.

Zechariah is alone with his thoughts.  The people are outside praying. In this quiet moment, the angel appears. Zechariah’s response is familiar to those of us who know the stories of scripture.  Never in the Bible does someone greet an angel casually, like, “Hey, dude. What’s up?” Instead, the response is predictable—probably including a four-letter curse word that a scribe at some point in history thought it best to scratch out. The text says Zechariah is terrified and overwhelmed by fear. The Greek word here is tarassó. This isn’t just a temporary jump scare where he clutches his heart and laughs it off. No, tarassó means disturbed, agitated, unsettled. Rev. Dr. Boyung Lee describes the word: “This is no fleeting startle. It evokes deep inner shaking, a disruption of body and spirit. Tarassó is the soul’s recoil from the unexpected, the mind’s clamor in the face of uncertainty, the body’s trembling at the threshold of something it cannot control.”

She goes on to say the following: “Like Zechariah, we may grow so used to disappointment that when hope finally arrives, it startles us. When God interrupts, we flinch.”

But the good news of this passage is that fear doesn’t have to be the final word; in fact, it never is (though our anxiety tells us otherwise). Fear sees itself as a brick wall, but sometimes it’s a doorway to new possibilities if we respond with curiosity.  And so, the angel opens the door and beckons Zechariah to take a stroll on a path God has meticulously curated for him and Elizabeth.  “The dead end you’ve decided for yourself is your narrative and not mine,” God says to Zechariah through this divine messenger.

And here, I want us to remember that Elizabeth and Zechariah’s lack of a child is a symbol for a larger story of scarcity that Advent challenges with its message of hope. The child to come, whose name will be John, will point to another, whose name will be Jesus. This child, this Messiah, presents an existential threat to the Herods of the world, whose brands are built on selfishness, greed, and an insatiable appetite for domination. God’s promise to the unsettled priest speaks to both his “macro” and his “micro” fears.  And we, too, are recipients of that message.  But what will you and I do with it?

We can choose to let our fears drive us inward. If we do, our echo chambers will only grow louder.  The Herods of history, past and present, delight when that happens!  Because when the people below Herod focus more on using their fears as weapons against each other instead of working together to hold leaders like him accountable, he gets an endlessly renewable get-out-of-jail-free pass.  It’s one of the best-kept secrets in the handbook of oppression.

But we can choose a different response to our fear. We can let it push us outward. That’s what curiosity does; it opens doors that the Herods of the world claim are forever closed. Every Advent, we walk through the door opened by Zechariah and Elizabeth’s angel. Each new liturgical year, we pass through the door that the Herods among us, driven by paranoia, have locked and bolted multiple times to keep us from breaking through. But, friends, God specializes in smashing the doors we build to keep us apart. And the one who does this chaotic good is named Jesus. And there’s a reason Herod wanted him dead.

So, friends, as we begin Advent, rest in this good news: God’s beloved thief is breaking in. And this thief we need not fear unless, of course, your name is Herod. The rest of us should welcome him. “Come,” we will sing to him, “thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free, from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee.”  Friends, our fears may have a firm grip, but they’re no match for God’s embrace.  There is a rest to be found in the one who is “born a child and yet a king.”

And so, friends, let us see fear as a misunderstood friend. As we continue this sermon series, we will open ourselves to God's curiosity, who sits with us in our fear and guides us toward new possibilities. Yes, fear can be paralyzing if we allow it. But fear is also an important biological response that signals when something significant is at stake. This means that God’s beloved thief arrives when his message of hope is most needed.  And so, with our fears in one hand and our curiosity in the other, let us sing to the One who is born to set us, his people, free. Together, let us end this sermon by song.

[sing “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus”]

In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s children, say: Amen.