Sunday Morning Sanctuary

July 24, 2005

“Our Ultimate Security”

1 John 4:13-21

The two sons of a woman in her 90’s were worried about her safety. They finally agreed upon a measure to help protect her. “Mom, we’re going to get you a handgun so you can take care of yourself. And we’re going to teach you how to use it. There’s too much violence out there.”

So they bought their mother a pistol, which she dutifully packed in her purse. One day, when she left the shopping mall to get into her car, she found two young men sitting in it. She quickly took out her pistol, pointed it at them, and yelled, “Get out of my car or I’ll shoot!” Startled by this fierce old lady, they jumped out and ran off.

Feeling relieved, the mother got into the car, put the key in the ignition—and found it didn’t fit. Then she realized it wasn’t her car. She found hers and would have apologized to the two young men, but she couldn’t find them.

We do live in a scary, anxious age where people borrow trouble, where they’re tense, on edge and so paranoid that many suspect everything and jump at their own shadows. One writer made this confession:

My ancient fear came last night to pay its monthly visit. It comes less often than it once did but I’ve come to expect its dreadful face. Still I tremble, tensing my forehead and chest, as if to shutter my house against this danger, in hopes that it will pass by. But fear is drawn to tension like vultures to decaying flesh.

Many people are scared today and desperately seek protection and shelter. They’ll accept almost anything that promises them security: from wrought-iron grills on their windows to sophisticated alarm systems, from handguns in their homes to self-defense training, from military arsenals to walled and security-gated fortresses, from more police on the streets to burying personal supplies of gold and survival items and foodstuffs. Some even withdraw to a fancied Shangri-La. But how much protection do these really afford—and against what? How much security do we find through them and how long do they last?

This search for security is not new, for people in every generation have had their fears. That’s why the Bible is full of proscriptions against fear and anxiety and prescriptions for overcoming it. “Say to those of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, fear not! Behold your God will come and save you.’” declares the prophet Isaiah. “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?” sings the Psalmist. “The fear of a man lays a snare but he who trusts in the Lord is safe,” advises the Book of Proverbs. Jesus’ message is also plain: “Do not be anxious,” He said, “only believe . . . Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Believe in God; believe also in me.” There’s also that enduring promise that we read as part of our Scripture lesson this morning: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” This continual concern is the focus of this morning’s message.

Let’s begin by realizing that to be human is to be afraid. That’s our first word this afternoon. As Ashley Montagu put it so directly in the opening line of his book, On Being Human, “To be human is to be in danger.” Life is a dynamic venture involving hazards of all kinds. To be alive is to be vulnerable to those hazards, some of which threaten our physical well being and that of those we love. How swiftly and suddenly do serious accidents and catastrophes strike with injury, destruction and suffering. How rudely illness disrupts our best-laid plans and changes forever the pattern of our life.

To be human is also to be exposed to social dangers. Relationships on which we count and from which we derive joy and meaning are threatened continually by circumstances and contradictions. Death comes. Uncontrolled factors separate us and reset the context of our sharing. Wars, economic adjustments, moral upheaval and technological changes can shatter the familiar and make us exiles and strangers in our own land. One writer shared these feelings:

When I was young and my world was dominated by indestructible adults, I learned an ancient way of thinking that is as dangerous as a rotten step on a ladder. It told me that some things would remain unchanged: my grandfather who meant so much to me; the trail through our woodlot into the timber beyond; the feeling of the lake on a hot summer’s day swim; the colors when I opened my new pencil box on the first day of school . . . But my grandfather died; a developer bulldozed the woodlot; lumberjacks cut down the timber; the lake is polluted and posted against swimming and pencil boxes aren’t what they used to be.

Our inner life is the most vulnerable of all to life’s dangers. Some people never seem to find their place in life and others feel worthless and a failure because they never have a success. Some have undeveloped and flawed characters and others are emotionally impaired because they cannot or will not cope, have been rejected and denied love’s affirmation. A psychiatrist said it first and later it became a song, “We’re never promised a rose garden.” Life can be ugly and human souls are easily twisted and scarred.

Being alive and trying to function in our world is a risky venture full of dangers. To be human is, therefore, to be afraid. I’m often afraid—more than I care to admit. Often I reach the point that the apostle Paul must have reached when he wrote to the believers in Corinth: “And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling . . . fightings without and fears within” (1 Corinthians 2:3 and 2 Corinthians 7:5).

The story is told about a 747 jumbo jetliner taxiing down the runway. While the passengers were buckling up in preparation for the takeoff, a voice came over the speakers in the plane’s cabin. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard Flight 122 for London’s Heathrow Airport. We’ll climb to a cruising altitude of 30,000 feet and will travel at an airspeed of 660 miles per hour. Our flight plan will take us across Canada, Greenland, Iceland and over the tip of Ireland. Our flying time will be about nine hours. When we’re airborne, your flight attendants will be serving you breakfast. We’ll takeoff . . . just as soon as I can get up the nerve!” Yes, to be human is to be afraid.

So we seek a place in which we might be calmed and comforted; we need a shelter and a solid place on which to stand. That’s our second word. We need adequate resources to face and cope with our fears. We need a power that becomes in us strength and character, courage and fidelity. And because fear is basically a self-centered response, we need a vision that points us beyond our personal concerns; we need a wider perspective than this age’s wisdom; we need something ultimate that outlasts change and rises above our human limitations. We need the persuasion of a power that lifts and forges us, that realizes our undeveloped strength and renews our energies and resolve. “From whence comes my help?” asked the Psalmist, and replied, “from God!” “All things are possible to you who believe (in God),” said Jesus. “God is love,” says the apostle John, “and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them . . . There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” This trust in God’s love through Jesus Christ is our ultimate security for this love finishes off fear. This love leads to God and the power of God makes us more than conquerors over any fear, any terror, any obstacle, tyranny, darkness or despair. This love calls forth courage; it raises ridges of character and is the only thing we keep when all else goes.

Encouraged with such security, those first disciples went out to preach the good news of Christ’s resurrection in a hostile, pagan world. They were scared to death, but watch them rise above that fear. The apostle Paul, trusting in God and the power of God’s love, surprised himself more than anyone else with all he could do, despite his fighting without and his fears within. Come forward a few centuries and watch it happen in a nurse, Edith Cavell, who hid escaped Allied prisoners during World War I in a Brussels hospital and then faced a firing squad for it. Before she died, however, she said, “I have no fear or shrinking . . . I thank God for His amazing love.” Or come forward another generation and watch it happen in a young American doctor, suffering the fiery inroads of cancer, but returning to wartorn Southeast Asia, to establish a hospital and a ministry of healing, saying, “I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.” Or just look around you in this chapel, for there are some persons seated here who know the peace of trusting in God, who are secure in the grace of Christ and live out a great love in their lives. In my own journey of faith, I have watched many with prayer as they have struggled through to victory.

They would be the first to confess that the power and the strength they’ve discovered are not so much in them as through them. They would tell you that when things were at their worst, God came to help as a Presence, an Assurance, a Force that pulled, sometimes prodded, as courage to risk the impossible. And they would tell you that we don’t need to face the dangers of life alone. God doesn’t expect us to be fearless, but God does want us to be faithful and offers us His perfect love—a love that casts out fear.

Several years ago, a woman by the name of Louise Degrafinried of Mason, Tennessee astounded the nation when she persuaded an escaped convict from a Tennessee prison to surrender. He came into her life waving a gun and threatening her life. With that gun he thought he was in control. He had surprised Louise’s husband, Nathan, outside their modest home and forced him inside at gunpoint.

Only Louise wasn’t afraid of the gun. The short, grandmotherly woman told the prisoner to put down his gun while she fixed him some breakfast. Surprisingly, he did. Then she spoke of her faith in Jesus Christ and told how a young man like him could have a better life if he accepted the Lord also. They said grace together at the table and Louise prayed for the young man. They ate breakfast together and then the young escapee telephoned authorities and before long he was on his way back to the Tennessee prison. He thought his security was in a gun; he thought he was in control. But Louise, trusting our only ultimate security, had the power that overcame any fears she had. With the security of love and trust in God she opened to the desperate and confused young man a new life and offered him the peace of Christ.

God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them . . . There is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out fear.

The love that God offers us is our ultimate security, because love like this leads to God and it never ends. Amen, Lord. Amen!