H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
2 November 2003
ONLY ONE THING TO FEAR
Matthew 10:24-33
As a mother was tucking her five year-old daughter into bed during an earth-shaking summer thunderstorm, the little girl asked, “Mommy, will you please
sleep with me tonight? I’m scared of the thunder and lightning.” The mother kindly but firmly refused the little girl’s request. “But why won’t you sleep
with me?” the girl asked with tears welling up in her eyes.
“Because Daddy wants me to sleep with him,” the mother explained.
The little girl shook her head in disgust and muttered, “That big chicken!”
Nobody wants to go through life as a big chicken, and Jesus tells us we don’t have to do so. Today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel is about being afraid
and not being afraid. Jesus and his friends were riding the crest of a rising tide of popularity. The crowds had turned into multitudes, whole towns coming
into the wilderness to hear Jesus preach and see him perform miracles and healings. But it wasn’t just the sermons and the miracles that had taken Israel by
storm; it was Jesus himself. He was the man of the hour. Had there been a 1st Century edition of Time magazine, Jesus would have been a shoo-in for “Man
of the Year.”
In the midst of this thriving ministry, Jesus called his disciples aside one day for a private conversation. They probably expected a strategy session or a state-
of-the-Kingdom message. However, instead of talking about how well things were going, Jesus began to describe how bad things were going to become.
“Pretty soon,” says Jesus, “I’ll send you out to do the same work I’ve been doing, and it won’t be easy for you. At times you will feel like helpless sheep
among starving wolves. Many will turn a deaf ear to your message. Doors will slam in your faces. If you visit a synagogue to share your message, they will
drag you into the streets and flog you. If you preach in the streets, the police will arrest you and haul you into court. After a while the persecution will have
you running like a rabbit from one town to the next. Eventually the hatred against you will grow so bitter that your own brother or your own daughter will
look for the chance to turn you in. After all a disciple is no better than the master. If they mistreat me and accuse me of working for the devil, they will
certainly do the same to my followers.”
By now the disciples are exchanging worried glances and reconsidering their career options, and it’s just then that Jesus says to them, “But don’t be afraid.
There is nothing hidden that won’t be revealed. There is nothing covered up that won’t be uncovered. What I have whispered to you, go out and shout from
the rooftops. Don’t be afraid; just spread the word.”
When the disciples began their mission work in earnest after the death and resurrection of Jesus and following the events of Pentecost, any reasonable person
would have predicted the failure of Christianity. Everybody knew that the Jews wouldn’t accept this preaching about a Messiah hung on a cross. Everybody
knew the intellectual Greeks wouldn’t buy into this silliness of a suffering God and resurrection of the body. Everybody knew the Romans wouldn’t support
a religion that might undermine the Empire.
The disciples had everything to fear, but they decided to take Jesus at his word. They chose to preach anyway without being afraid. It turned out that the
Jewish faith had gotten things ready for Christianity. In the Roman Empire were vast numbers of God-fearing Gentiles who attended synagogue services,
knew the Jewish Scriptures and were primed to receive the Messiah.
And it turned out that the Greeks had been getting things ready for Jesus, too. Greek philosophies of universal familyhood and virtuous living and the quest
for God had created an unrecognized hunger for Christ.
And it turned out that the Roman Empire had also been getting things ready for Jesus—a time of international peace, wide-spread law and order, the best
highway system the world had seen, a universal language—the perfect conditions for a new religion to spread like wildfire. Even Roman persecution merely
strengthened the new faith and caused outsiders to covet the faith and courage and joy of the Christians.
God took the fearsome obstacles threatening the church and turned them around to serve the church. Don’t be afraid for the truth. The truth can’t be
stopped, not by threats or persecution or even death. You can nail the truth to a cross, but you can’t keep it there. You can stop those who speak the truth,
but you can’t stop the truth. The message of Jesus will have its way and will have its day. No matter how fiercely the world resists, the truth in the life and
teachings of Jesus will be revealed. The victory of God’s word is inevitable.
We don’t need to be afraid for the truth and we don’t need to be afraid for ourselves. The world may do its worst and God will still take care of us. Jesus
pointed to the sparrows, the cheapest source of meat for poor people in the 1st Century. Sparrows were sold two for a penny or five for two pennies. The
seller threw in the fifth sparrow for free. That means in the market place, a single sparrow had no value, was absolutely worthless. And yet Jesus teaches that
the eye of God is fixed upon the lone sparrow. Not a single sparrow falls to the earth without God’s knowledge. If God cares for the “worthless” sparrows,
how much more will God care for you and me?
Actually, some scholars argue for a different way of translating this passage. Instead of the fall of a sparrow, Jesus may have meant the landing of a sparrow.
Imagine that! Every time a sparrow comes in for a landing, God is there keeping an eye on things to make sure the landing goes smoothly.
How many times do you suppose a sparrow lands in the course of a day? If God is there every time a sparrow lights on a branch and or settles in the grass,
can you imagine any moment of your day when God is looking the other way? Do you think God is going to be absent during any trial or struggle or risk you
face this weak? God loves you down to the last hair on your head! The sum total of all the world’s evil and spite and violence can do no lasting harm to one
who is under God’s protection in the presence of Christ.
Don’t be afraid, says Jesus. Don’t be afraid for the truth. Don’t be afraid for yourselves. Don’t be afraid of enemies who threaten you with physical harm.
Instead, fear the one who can destroy body and soul in the flames of hell. If you must fear someone, fear God in whose hand is your whole eternal existence!
Fearing God, that’s a strange business, isn’t it? I grew up in a household where I got my share of spankings and assorted disciplines like standing in the
corner, losing TV privileges, and when I got that F in Spanish even six weeks without a single comic book. We had rules and when you broke the rules there
were consequences. I often had reason to dread whatever punishment was about to befall me, but in my whole life I can’t remember ever being afraid of my
parents. I respected them. I honored and mostly obeyed them. But I have never feared those people who love me so much.
Fearing God involves awe, humility, reverence, respect, worship and obedience—but for a Christian fearing God never means terror. God loves us, and love
casts out fear. There used to be a fellow who called me a couple of times a month, usually on a Sunday afternoon. He never told me his name. I’m good with
voices and I’m sure I never met this fellow in person. But he’d call and he’d want to talk about the unforgivable sin. He was convinced he had committed that
unpardonable sin and God was going to send him to hell.
I told him, “The unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.”
He said, “What is that?”
I said, “Well, the work of the Spirit is to make us aware of our sins and to lead us into God’s forgiveness. We blaspheme the Spirit when we refuse to let the
Spirit work in our lives. In other words, the unforgivable sin is the refusal to accept God’s forgiveness. That’s why it’s unforgivable. As long as we say no to
forgiveness, we can’t be forgiven. But as soon as we have a change of heart God is eager to set things right with us. Whether or not we are unforgivable is our
choice, not God’s.”
My telephone friend said, “But what if a guy got mad at God and left the church? What if a fellow went back to his old ways after becoming a Christian?
What if a person cursed God in his heart? Would God let someone like that come back?”
I said, “God is like a shepherd beating the bushed for a lost sheep. God is like woman turning her house upside down to find a lost quarter. God is like a
father welcoming home a runaway child. God will always take back the one who wants to come home, the one who is sorry and wants to be forgiven.”
I do not take this lightly. Jesus said, If you will acknowledge me before others then I will acknowledge you before God. But if you deny me, if you reject my
grace, if you refuse my forgiveness, than when you stand before God’s throne I will say, I never knew you.
Of that, my friends, we might well be afraid: afraid of the fear that shuns God’s grace, afraid of surrendering our claim to the death and resurrection of Jesus,
afraid of so thoroughly rejecting God that we leave God no choice but to let us have our own way. That we might well fear.
But we need not fear anything else. We don’t need to be afraid that the cause of Christ will fail. It cannot.
We need not fear that the love of Christ will run dry. It will not.
We need not fear that God would forsake us. God would never do that.
In fact, as long as we know that Jesus Christ is our Savior, we need fear absolutely nothing—nothing in heaven or on earth. For God has numbered the very
hairs on your head. God watches over even the landing of a sparrow. And you are worth more to God than many, many sparrows.
Soli Deo Gloria!