March 17th sermon- What's in the wind

What’s in the wind?

Wednesday WOW #d

March 17, 2010

Everybody knows about the Fujita Scale, which measures the power of tornados. But nobody really knows what all those types of twisters do to COWS. So here is the MOOJITA Scale...
MOOJITA SCALE

M0 Tornado- Cows in an open field are spun around parallel to the wind flow and become mildly annoyed
M1 Tornado- Cows are tipped over and can't get up
M2 Tornado- Cows begin rolling with the wind
M3 Tornado- Cows tumble and bounce
M4 Tornado- Cows are AIRBORN
M5 Tornado- S T E A K ! ! ! 

We don’t know that kind of wind Peter saw.  Maybe he saw a cow blow  by, we don’t  know.   But we do know it was scary. It was scary enough to shake his faith. Scary enough to make him doubt.

I remember when I lead the scaffolding crew at 3M we were asked to build scaffolding  on the edge of a roof, cantilever it out over the side to a pipe on the side of an exhaust  structure that needed to be replaced.  As long as I focused on the roof and the pipe, I was fine.  When someone dropped a knuckle and we all watched it fall and fall and fall and fall, it got us to think about the fact that  we were building this thing hanging 120’ off the ground up another 30’ to the pipe.  The project suddenly got a lot harder.  Nothing had changed.  We were sitting in exactly the same place doing exactly the same thing, but it became a lot harder.

I remember driving across Minnesota one night.  It seems like it was the middle of the night.  Robyn and I started talking about how you would explain someone who had never seen a car that we were hurling ourselves through the dark, across the countryside at 70 miles per hour in a little steel, glass and plastic cage.  And at the same time other people were hurling themselves through the dark across the countryside at 70 miles per hour in similar cages and we were all trusting that we could come within 6 feet of one another without crashing.   Suddenly what  seemed like a routine drive seemed a lot more exciting.

Can you relate?  Can you think of a time that you were doing something- maybe something you had done before and suddenly you noticed something, felt something, learned something, saw something that changed everything?

That’s what happened to peter.  He was doing just fine walking on the water- which is no small feat mind you!  But he was doing just fine until what. . . until he saw the wind.  It was really there all the time.  He just got to thinking about it.   And suddenly a routine stroll across the Sea of Galilee became a life a death struggle to keep his head above the waves, and offered the opportunity for Jesus to reveal his saving power once again.

Tonight I want us to take a few minutes to get in touch with the things that make us afraid.  What is it that gives you butterflies in the stomach, that makes you heart be fast and you palms sweat?  What gives  you get that sinking feeling like Peter had.

Many of you can identify little things that make you afraid.  Snakes are one of mine.  Snakes and germs.  It isn’t too hard to stay away from snakes.  Germs are a little more of a challenge because you can’t see them and they are everywhere.  Mind you, I am not phobic of germs- I can shake hands and all that stuff.  But if someone has the stomach flu, I’m otta’ here.

What is it for you?  Mice? Spiders? Heights? Closed spaces? Hospitals?  Public toilets?  The list of possibilities is virtually endless.

But those are generally not the things that keep us from walking on water.  Those are not usually the things that keep us from responding to God’s call in our lives.  Those phobias are just little inconveniences.  When your heart beats faster and you begin to sweat, it just reminds you that you are alive.

The fear I am talking about tonight is more what I would call deeper fears; soul fears.   There are three types of soul fears that I think do keep us from responding in faith to God.

The first we might call existential fear.  Fear that our existence might be in jeopardy or might be changed.   It is the fear that something bad will happen to me: illness, accident, death, disability, loss of money, job, time, or security.  If something changes or challenges or even threatens our physical existence or the status quo, it generates fear.   On a simple level, it is existential fear that made us more cautious when we were working on that scaffolding.

It is existential fear that might keep us from becoming a missionary in Communist china.  Missionaries in China have a tendency to disappear suddenly.  Their bodies may be found or they may not.

It is existential fear that might keep us from leaving our nice comfortable lazy boy to reach out to a homeless person.  Who knows in this day and age what their intentions are, what kind of neighborhood we might have to park in or what else we might find.

It was existential fear for her child that got me in trouble in Losantville.  The first church I served had a sign in the front yard of the parsonage:  “Methodist parsonage always welcome.”  So we would have strangers drop by to ask for food, or gas or whatever.   That was fine. I did my thing haply, until Amber was born.  I casually told Robyn that we had given a guy a ride to Newcastle and bought him some things at the grocery store that day and she was absolutely livid.  I had invited a stranger into our house with our infant child sleeping in the next room, and even worse put her in the car with him.  Who knows what could have happened!   Well I had to change the way I responded to God’s call to provide mercy and compassion to those people because of an existential fear for Amber.

I think existential fear might not just be for our physical existence, but for our financial existence.  Fear of cost or having to give up a job for instance might keep us from answering God’s call.  It might threaten our financial existence.  I also think we might think the same way about being afraid of how much time something might take, or what else we might have to give up.  Anything that changes the way we exist- or live I think makes it hard for us to respond.  Not impossible.  It just sets up our primitive fear of change or loss of existence.

The second type of fear I think keeps us in our boats is fear of rejection.  Sunday we talks about God’s faithfulness and that we need not fear God’s abandonment.     However, we do often fear abandonment or rejection by others. 

You might say, Oh, I don’t fear rejection of abandonment.  But let me ask you.  If you fall on the ice for instance, what is the first thing you do?  Look around to see who is looking.

Why?  Not because we literally fear abandonment, but because we fear an emotional abandonment.  Being on the small end of the finger when people are laughing.  Being labeled.  Being mocked, those are all included in what psychologists describe as emotional abandonment.  No one likes to be thought of as a fool, and sometimes God asks us to do things that look to our friends like they are foolish.  NO one wants to be pigeonholed as a Bible-thumper, but people sometimes do that.  Just ask the professional Bible thumper if people sometimes treat him differently.  No matter what we SAY, we do really care what other people think!

Other  forms of abandonment are a little clearer.  The fear that  a loved one will die is a type of fear of abandonment.   You can see that can’t you.  Fear of isolation,  fear of loneliness, fear of loss of friendship,  just about any fear that has to do with relationships  is categorized as fear of abandonment.

Finally, Psychologists tell us that the third category is fear of negative self-esteem.  This has been called fear of failure, but it is not just failure that is involved.   Remember Ortberg says failure is not  an objective event- it is our interpretation of an event. 

Likewise, fear of negative self-esteem is not just fear that we will fail, but fear that we will judge ourselves as failures.   That is an important distinction because we also have to extend it to our interpretation of how others feel about us.  It is one thing to be afraid that your friends to laugh at you and call you a Jesus freak.  That is fear of abandonment.  It is another thing to be afraid that you are a freak because they laugh at you.  That is fear of negative self-esteem.  I know, this one is a little harder to get a handle on. 

To put this in the simplest terms I can this is the fear that deep down inside, the truth is that we are not good, or good enough. 

·         You fall down and ask, “What if they are right and I really am a klutz.”

·         You lose a job and ask, “What if they really are right and deep down I am not worth my paycheck?”

·         You start a program and it doesn’t  take off like gangbusters, and you say, “Maybe I am a failure.”

It is the fear that deep down inside God is wrong and we are not worthy of love,  not worthy of grace, not worthy of salvation, not loving, not kind, not important, not at all what we would like to be.

Fear of negative self-esteem

Fear of abandonment

Existential fear.

Have you seen yourself tonight?  Putting it in these terms helped me to identify my own fear that might be holding me back from fully responding to God’s invitation to get out of the boat.  How about you.  Do you see yourself in any of these types of fear?  Or a little bit in all of them?

What will it take to get you out of the grip of your fear?  Do you want out?
What will it take to get you to loosen your grasp on your fear? Do you want to let go of it?

David Crowder invites us to let go of our fears and reservations with a raucous song called “undignified.”  In it, he says I will dance, I will sing, to be mad for my king.  Nothing else is hindering this passion in my soul.”  What is hindering the passion in your soul?  What is hindering your response to the call to get out of your boat?  For the next 3 minutes and 29 seconds, I invite you to let it go.  Let it go, and sing for your king.  Jesus said, be not afraid.