One Book, One Parish: The Heartbeat of God, Part Five

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom then shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
of whom then shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27)
What are you afraid of?
Inside and out, we all have fears.
Some of them irrational to be sure.
I’ll admit that I jump at the site of a friendly black corn snake,
I have a pervasive fear of being struck by lightning during thunderstorms, and when I take to Wikipedia with my most minor ailments, I can self-diagnose any number of rare and terminal conditions.
Even though I know better, I won’t feel better until the snake is gone, the storm is past, the illness healed.
There is much fear in our world today. Climate catastrophe, gun violence, financial security to name a few. Many across the globe have been forced leave everything behind in search of safety and a better life.
If I can’t talk myself out of my most outrageous and irrational fears, who am I to judge the fears of those whose anxieties are grounded in truth and experience?
What are you afraid of?
In her book, "The Heartbeat of God," Katharine Jefferts Schori reminds us that humans often tremble to encounter the presence of the divine.
And yet, again and again in the scriptures as storms rage and enemies besiege, as tyrants scheme and darkness rises, as silence falls and angels appear we hear the voice of God who says: Do not fear. Don’t be afraid. Fear not. Take heart.
Indeed, we find that fear has no place in the life of faith not because God judges our fears as futile or unsubstantiated. But because the voice of the one who says “do not fear” is the voice of the one who went to the cross. Who suffered its shame, who bore its weight, who breathed his last - naked, starved, deserted and mocked. Who went to hell and back, trampling down the powers of death so that we might know love wins.
Whom then shall we fear? The Kingdom of God is near. God is with us and we belong to Christ.
Join us this Sunday as we conclude our book study and consider together where God is calling us amidst our fears and anxieties to step forward in faith, to journey toward the Christ who meets us in the last, the least, the lost, who overcomes our fears that we might join with God in nothing less than the healing of the world.