A Non-Anxious Presence
Children's sermon
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Object:
This week’s primary Old Testament and gospel passages each provide vivid illustrations of how many of us react in the face of existential fear -- and in contrast, the unflinching response of the truly faithful. When the heavily armored Philistine champion Goliath challenges the Israelites to select someone to fight him, Saul and his warriors are paralyzed by their anxiety. Given Goliath’s apparently overwhelming advantages, that seems like a sensible response -- but David steps into the fray anyway, asserting that “the Lord, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.” Likewise, the disciples fear for their lives when a violent storm threatens to sink their boat. They wake up Jesus, who immediately calms the sea -- and while the disciples are still quaking in their boots, he asks them: “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Dean Feldmeyer notes that in times of crisis the normal human reaction is to let anxiety cloud our judgment. Our emotions take over, and we wonder whether others (and God) truly understand and care about the gravity of the situation. But as Dean points out, Jesus (as well as David) presents us with another option -- when we rely on faith to help us cope with our fear, we are liberated and thus able to take productive action which a more risk-averse mindset might prevent us from pursuing. And as Dean reminds us, that’s a vitally important lesson for the church: in light of declining membership numbers, we might well hear denominational and congregational leaders asking Jesus the same question as the disciples: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Dean suggests that fear brings us together -- and that faith helps keep us from being paralyzed by our fear and allows us to defeat seemingly intractable problems.
Team member Mary Austin shares some additional thoughts on the David and Goliath story through the lens of author Malcolm Gladwell’s insights in his book David and Goliath. Gladwell notes that the story has transcended its biblical origins to become common shorthand for unlikely victory -- but he also suggests that if we focus there we’re missing its real meaning and message. Instead, Gladwell maintains, it’s about “how fundamentally we misunderstand the true meaning of advantages and disadvantages” -- indeed, “it is because of, and not despite, David’s size and unorthodox choice of weapon that he is able to slay the lumbering giant.” Mary notes that as the church, we too need to think about our strengths and weaknesses -- and to perhaps avoid being tied down by the Goliath-like armor of institutionalism. She suggests that we need to “think outside the box” to better understand our real (and often hidden) assets.
A Non-Anxious Presence
by Dean Feldmeyer
Mark 4:35-41
In his book A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, rabbi and psychologist Edwin Friedman defines the effective leader as the person who is able to maintain a “non-anxious presence” in an anxious system.
He goes on to say that all systems (organizations) are, by nature, anxious. Families are anxious. Companies are anxious. Baseball teams are anxious. Boards of directors are anxious. Armies, committees, card clubs, charities, and churches are all anxious... especially churches.
Their anxiety arises from the possibility that things will change, and the fear that things won’t change. It arises from their lack of vision. And where there is a vision, it arises from the demands that the vision places upon them.
In all of these cases, Friedman says, the leader will be the person who is able to be calm in the midst of other people’s anxiety.
Unfortunately, people often see this lack of anxiety on the part of the leader as a lack of caring.
This week’s gospel lesson gives us a perfect test of Friedman’s theories. The boat and those within it constitute an understandably anxious system. Jesus is the non-anxious, well-differentiated leader whose lack of fear is mistaken for apathy by those within the system: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
In his answer to this question, Jesus tells us how to be that non-anxious, well-differentiated leader that is so desperately needed in our current “culture of fear.”
In the News
“Do you not care that we are perishing?”
It has become the existential question of our age. We ask it of our leaders, our police officers, our military, our pastors, teachers, politicians, and each other. We ask it even though the assumption upon which it is based is not true.
We are not perishing.
The crime rate is down. Joblessness is down. The stock market is higher than it has ever been. The economy is in a slow but steady recovery. The highways are safer, air travel is safer, our food is safer, and our medicine is safer than ever before in the history of our country. Thanks to modern technology, our questions are being answered and problems are being solved at rates never dreamed of.
But none of that has changed our perception that the world is more dangerous today than it has ever been. We live in a culture of fear. Julie Hanus, writing for Utne Reader in 2009, put it this way:
The dangers of modern life have a stranglehold on people’s imaginations. Sociologists call the phenomenon risk society, describing cultures increasingly preoccupied with threats to safety, both real and perceived. And while the human species is prone to miscalculating risk, there’s more at work here than frazzled modern nerves: Americans are fearful. Truly fearful. When they’re asked, a majority say with certainty that the world is more dangerous than ever before. Even in the face of evidence that negates this misperception, there is no relief. We lock our doors, say our prayers, and still can’t get to sleep. For the first time in history, fear is tearing society apart.
Unscrupulous politicians and greedy capitalists find our fears -- warranted or not -- to be fertile ground for reaping votes and profits. New laws based on zero-tolerance and requiring longer prison terms are mandated, while more guns, more survival gear, and more security systems get sold.
Meanwhile, we lock ourselves in our homes, or as a nation within our borders -- paralyzed with anxiety, unable to think or act beyond the limits of our own fears.
Last week USA Today ran an editorial which weighs the toll that paralyzing fear had during the recent Ebola wars. It enumerated four lessons to be learned from that experience (emphases mine):
1. Delay is deadly: “By the time WHO finally declared Ebola a global public health emergency, nearly 1,000 people were dead and a chance to get ahead of the lethal virus had been squandered.” World Health Organization leaders were so afraid of “disrupting the economies of poor West African countries” that they sacrificed the public health.
2. Calmness counts: “When the first U.S. Ebola patients -- two missionaries stricken while working with victims in Liberia -- arrived in Atlanta for treatment last August, some politicians and news media outlets seemed to be vying to see who could create the most panic. By October, after a tourist from Liberia was diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas, much of the country had been whipped into full freak-out mode.” As we learned from Edwin Friedman, what was needed was a non-anxious presence in the midst of the anxiety and fear.
3. Let science lead: In this case, that non-anxious presence was best represented by the scientific minds at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). While they made some mistakes, theirs was the most measured and rational response of all who sought to stand before the cameras.
4. Be prepared: We can no longer allow ourselves to be taken by surprise. Resources must be allocated to those scientific agencies and centers that are best able to respond quickly and decisively to the threat of modern disease outbreaks. Policy-wise, the safest place to be is squarely in the middle, a well-measured distance between paralyzing fear and blind complacency.
Interestingly, this is exactly where we find Jesus in this week’s gospel lection.
In the Scriptures
The preacher would be well-advised to treat this text as not so much a story about Jesus as a parable about the nature of faith and its relationship to fear.
A literal approach is likely to leave us bogged down in questions about how it is possible for one to sleep in a small boat that is filling with water, why Jesus is so crabby and short with his disciples (whose fear seems to be altogether reasonable), and whether a “dead calm” is really an improvement over a choppy sea.
Commentators John Donahue and Daniel Harrington point out that the introductory phrase “on that day” reminds us that this story comes at the end of a day that has been filled with teaching parables (The Gospel of Mark: Sacra Pagina series [Liturgical Press, 2002], pg. 159). It bids us keep our eyes and minds open for still more teaching, for (as is usually the case in Mark’s gospel) the miracles are not merely demonstrations of power. They are more often demonstrations of meaning and occasions for teaching.
The Sea of Galilee was at that time about 15 miles long and 8 miles across, and was known for its sudden and unexpected storms. Only the most adroit sailors dared go beyond where they could see the shore, so a direct crossing was always risky. At night, it bordered on foolish. Yet this is what Jesus asks of his disciples, and they comply without dissent.
The question does not come until they are out in the middle of the lake and a storm has appeared, a storm so violent that the boat is filling with water and in danger of sinking. And the question is -- as we have said, the existential question of all who suffer and are afraid: “Don’t you care that we are perishing?”
Jesus, who has been asleep on a sailor’s cushion or sandbags used for ballast lying on a raised platform in the back (stern) of the boat, awakes and stills the storm with a couple of words as a parent might rebuke a fussy child. “Peace. Be still.”
If the text was simply a miracle story, told to demonstrate the power of Jesus over nature, it might end here -- but it does not. There is another rebuke to come, and this one is for the disciples.
“Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
The real subjects of this story, it turns out, are faith and fear.
Again, Donahue and Harrington inform us that the adjective translated “afraid” holds several meanings, including “timid” or “fearful,” and “conveys not simply fear but timidity and lack of courage.” They conclude: “From the rebuke, it is clear that faith in Mark... is not simply intellectual conviction, but also trust in God along with bold action when faced with serious threats to life and well-being” (pg. 159).
In the Pulpit
The lesson taught in this simple story has been, for the most part, ignored by the church.
We Christians have been taught, and we have passed on the erroneous lesson, that faith has to do with believing things that are hard to believe, things for which there is no physical evidence, things that seem to defy objective, scientific explanation.
We have equated faith with belief. Unfaith, we have said, is the refusal to believe a thing that “should” be believed, as though we can force ourselves to believe things that for all the world seem to us unbelievable. This disbelief, we have been told, is nothing more than willful rebellion against God and God’s word.
Mark’s story of Jesus in the storm exposes this notion of faith being simple belief as utter nonsense.
For Mark, faith is not believing that a proposition is true but rather acting as though it is true whether we accept it to be so intellectually or not. Faith is acting, risking, doing -- even in the face of admitted doubts. Faith is not propositional. It is not intellectual assent. Intellectual assent requires nothing of us -- no risk, no courage, no action. Faith requires action. The opposite of faith is not disbelief. The opposite of faith is paralyzing fear, the inability to move or to act in the face of danger on those things that we claim to believe.
I can believe that you are able to push me across Niagara Falls on a tightrope in a wheelbarrow -- and that belief requires nothing of me. Faith, however, requires me to actually get into the wheelbarrow.
Faith is that which allows persons and institutions to be a non-anxious presence in the midst of anxiety and fear. It allows us as individuals to act decisively when others are frozen. It allows the church to calmly lead when the culture is mired in anxiety, or wandering aimlessly like sheep without a shepherd, or flailing about in a headlong panic.
As Hanus points out in Utne Reader, fear can divide and separate us -- as it has our current Congress. It can cause us to become so cemented into our political or theological positions that we are incapable of moving, that we become irrationally defensive, that we treat anyone who does not fall into total agreement with us as our mortal enemies.
Certainly we saw that during the “satanic panic” of the 1980s when the myth of repressed memory fueled unfounded fears of secret satanic cults sexually abusing women and children all over the world. Scores of innocent people were convicted and imprisoned by fearful, ill-informed juries and judges (Jeffrey S. Victor, Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend[Open Court, 1993]; Elizabeth Loftus & Katherine Ketcham, The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse [St. Martin’s Griffin, 1994]).
But fear, properly informed and considered in a rational, non-anxious way, can also bring us together.
Probably nowhere is this better illustrated than in Nina Gilden Seavey’s documentary film A Paralyzing Fear: The Story of Polio in America. (The complete 90-minute film can be viewed online here or here.)
The polio virus afflicted tens of thousands of children in the United States and around the world from about 1915 until 1952, when the number peaked at 59,000 in America. In 1954 Jonas Salk invented the first polio vaccine, and within two years -- thanks to a mass campaign to inoculate schoolchildren -- the incidence of the disease had declined by 80 percent. Today, it has been virtually eradicated.
All this is thanks in large part to people working together to raise the money necessary for fighting this fearful, crippling, and often fatal disease. The “March of Dimes,” created to raise money for fighting polio and treating its victims, still stands as the largest private charity in history.
While the government did little in this cause, most of the work was accomplished by private grass-roots organizations whose solidarity in purpose allowed them to overcome what many imagined to be an undefeatable foe.
The number of foes facing us has not decreased since 1950, when parents in Phoenix organized the first “Mother’s March on Polio” and raised $45,000 in a matter of minutes.
Disease continues to steal the lives of not just children, but many whom we love. War now seems to be our default setting. Violence in our streets is still a threat. Drug abuse still lurks in the darkness.
But these foes will not be defeated by paralyzing fear and anxiety. If they can be defeated, it will happen through the efforts of passionate, well-ordered, and committed people, led by non-anxious, faith-driven leaders.
The gospel writer Mark would, it seems, agree fully with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who famously said in his first inaugural address: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
SECOND THOUGHTS
by Mary Austin
1 Samuel 17:32-49
The battle between David and Goliath seems like the classic story of the underdog hero taking on a mighty opposing force, and somehow miraculously winning the contest. But David has an uncommon kind of wisdom. Before the battle starts, when Saul tries to outfit David with his armor, David understands right away that this isn’t going to work for him. He knows his own weaknesses and his own strengths, and he decides to fight in his own way. Goliath throws down the challenge, and David takes it up in his own way.
In contrast to the disciples in the boat with Jesus in this week’s reading from Mark’s gospel (4:35-41), David doesn’t seem to be afraid. He approaches the battle with confidence, saying: “The Lord, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.” The church is a kind of David in a secular society, standing against the huge forces of consumerism, inattention to the inner life, and what Garrison Keillor calls “elephantine vanity and greed.” If we, as people of faith, are like David, then our first lesson from him is not to be afraid. Fear is paralyzing, and David is able to move into action.
Even more than the image of the shepherd defeating the warrior, I love the way David reshapes the contest. What if we learned to look at our challenges from a different viewpoint? The news is full of stories about the decline of organized religion in America, and the dwindling number of people who make time to go to church. We react to these stories -- understandably -- by thinking we need to get more people to come to church. But what if we’re seeing the question all wrong? Can we, like David, recast the challenge?
What if the battle for us is not about the number of people in the pews? What if we stopped caring about our own survival? Could it be that our challenge is about keeping the voice of justice alive in a self-centered society? Or about making a home for the marginalized, instead of the prosperous? Is our calling really to reach out with light and grace to the schools and nonprofits within a mile of our churches?
Author Malcolm Gladwell has deepened my understanding of the David and Goliath story. In his book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, Gladwell posits that what we commonly understand about advantages and disadvantages is wrong. Getting into the best college? Not always such a good thing. Huge, well-armed country against a guerilla army? Advantage to the insurgents. And David and Goliath? Perhaps David really did come into the contest with more advantages.
In an interview with Inc. magazine, Gladwell explains his understanding of the story: “David’s sling is a devastating weapon. It’s one of the most feared weapons in the ancient world. The stone that comes from his sling has the stopping power equivalent to a bullet from a .45 caliber pistol. It’s a serious weapon. And second, there are many medical experts who believe that Goliath was suffering from acromegaly, which causes you to grow. Many giants have acromegaly, but it has a side effect -- which is it causes restrictive sight. Goliath in the biblical story does, if you look closely, sound like a guy who can’t see.” David had more plusses in the battle than we think he did, Gladwell suggests.
If David has unseen advantages, do we have some too?
Being irrelevant to most people in our culture gives us a kind of freedom to do whatever we think is right. Being small means we can create deeper bonds between people. Not having money forces us to rely more deeply on God. The church can learn from David’s story -- not just that the smaller person can win, but how not to be afraid, and how to use the strengths we have.
Clayton Christensen, a professor of business at Harvard, has applied a similar theory to the business world with his theory of “disruptive innovation.” In one of his books, The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen describes how most companies end up developing products that are larger, more sophisticated, or more expensive than their customers need or can afford. That opens the way for smaller companies to develop products that fit a niche of unserved customers. The big company thinks the niche is too small to bother with, or that the profits are too small. Eventually the upstart company unsettles the giant. Some examples of disruptive innovation include personal computers replacing mainframe computers, cellphones replacing landlines, and community colleges taking students from four-year colleges. (You can read more here.)
As one innovation website describes it, “Disruptive innovation, on the other hand, will often have characteristics that traditional customer segments may not want, at least initially. Such innovations will appear as cheaper, simpler, and even with inferior quality if compared to existing products, but some marginal or new segment will value it.” Perhaps the church could think of ourselves as disruptive innovators, going where giants don’t want to go and serving people unserved by the bigger society around us.
As Gladwell says in his book, “The very thing that gave the giant his size was also the source of his greatest weakness.... The powerful and the strong are not always what they seem.” At the beginning of the story, David says to Saul: “Let no one’s heart fail... your servant will go and fight.” Let our hearts not fail too, as we go and fight God’s fight with the surprising strengths that we have.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Chris Keating:
1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23) 32-49
Power Belongs to the Youngest
David, the younger sibling, was called upon to tackle the colossal Goliath. It’s a similar story for the United States soccer team now competing at the Women’s World Cup -- 17 of the 23 players on the roster have older soccer-playing siblings. It’s a common occurrence. The United States Soccer Federation reports that 74 percent of its women’s youth soccer players have older siblings who also play soccer.
There’s no clear reason why younger siblings are better competitors than their older siblings, but like David, it’s possible that the younger ones spent a lot of time watching their older sisters or brothers compete. According to the New York Times:
Older brothers and sisters often introduce younger siblings to a sport; teach them how to play; and serve as inspirations, training partners, or competitors. Younger siblings must quickly develop skill and creativity to compete against older, bigger family members. And they may feel a need, and be willing to take more risks, to try to outperform their older siblings, create their own niches, and attract greater attention from their parents.
Or as David puts it, “Your servant has killed both lions and bears.” The paw of the bear missed him, the Lord preserved his life -- and it was this younger sibling who was able to sink the winning shot.
*****
1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23) 32-49
Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My...
As if torrential rain and severe flooding were not enough, residents in the Georgian capital city of Tbilisi endured a hunt for dangerous animals who escaped from the city’s flood-ravaged zoo. The animals caused waves of panic to sweep across the city.
Bears, wolves, and monkeys were among the escaped animals that ran when their enclosures were destroyed by floodwaters. A beloved young white lion was found shot in the head, causing zoo officials to worry that unnecessary force might be used against the animals. Still, many of the 1.1 million residents of Tbilisi remain fearful.
“The daytime wasn’t bad,” said resident Khariton Gabashvili, “but tonight everyone has to be very careful because all the beasts haven’t been captured. They haven’t been fed, and in their hungry state they might attack people.”
*****
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
Speaking Frankly
Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change will be issued Thursday, the first major teaching letter of his papacy. As he has done throughout his time as pontiff, Francis is expected to speak frankly about the need to show better stewardship of creation. The pope has not shied away from controversial topics. In this encyclical, Francis, who has a master’s degree in chemistry, is hoping to place the Catholic church at the forefront of an emerging conversation between faith and science. Long an advocate of the environment, the pope recently spoke of how environmental issues impact the poor. He has said that the encyclical is “aimed at everyone,” and that it is a call for all to grow in their responsibility toward the earth. The teaching will be released in a ceremony that includes a Catholic cardinal, a leader from the Orthodox church, and a climate scientist whom the Vatican described as an atheist.
*****
Mark 4:35-41
Stillness in Motion
For the disciples it was the trip from, well, you know where. It’s an experience many travelers have -- the long lines through security, flights that are delayed, crowds constantly moving. How is it possible to discover, as Jesus did, a sense of calm in spite of the chaos?
Essayist and former professor Pico Iyer believes that the full benefits of travel cannot be reaped until one has also experienced stillness. Iyer, who is author of The Art of Stillness, offered strategies for seeking calm and stillness in a TED talk last year. The talk prompted Delta Airlines to create an art experience for this year’s TED conference in Vancouver. The exhibit, “Stillness in Motion,” included a chamber where biometric sensors matched the rhythms of the participant’s heartbeat.
After experiencing the exhibit, Iyer noted how the experience prompted him to discover stillness and calm while traveling:
As I emerged from the remarkable “Stillness in Motion” installation at TED, I thought back to a conversation I’d had with a French Buddhist monk who is constantly on his way to the next World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, or TED talk. A 210-minute functional MRI, after all, had found Matthieu Ricard to have scores for peace of mind and joy that had never before been seen in neurological literature; the media had promptly dubbed him “the happiest man alive.”
“How do you deal with all the travel?” I asked the red-robed wanderer. He looked at me, astonished. “When I’m on a plane,” he said, “there’s nowhere else I can be. Everything is brought to me in my seat. I can enjoy a view no human had seen in my grandparents’ time -- of boundless blue skies, or the mountains below. It’s like a perfect mini-retreat in the heavens!”
***************
From team member Ron Love:
A recent report by the Pew Research Center stated that the country is significantly less Christian than it was seven years ago. Those who called themselves Christian fell eight percentage points, from 78.4% to 70.6%. The fastest-growing group was the “nones” who declared having no religion, which is now 22.8% of the population.
Application: When it is time for a “none” to pick up a rock before Goliath or calm a stormy sea, will they be able to do it?
*****
John Waggoner recently wrote his last financial advice column for USA Today. For the first time he wrote about himself, and he shared advice from his worst investment. One thing he learned was that “Hope is not a great investment strategy.”
Application: Hope is not a good strategy for the stock market, but it is for faithful followers of God.
*****
Mount St. Helens erupted 35 years ago on May 18, 1980. The story has been told many times of Harry Truman, an 84-year-old lodge owner who died in the eruption because he did not heed warnings and leave the mountain. Shortly after the quake, Billy Graham used Truman in a sermon about being obedient.
Application: Faith also requires being prudent, not foolish.
*****
“So you understand the roaring wave of fear that swept through the greatest city in the world just as Monday was dawning -- the stream of flight rising swiftly to a torrent, lashing in a foaming tumult round the railway stations, banked up into a horrible struggle about the shipping in the Thames and hurrying by every available channel northward and eastward.” In this descriptive passage from his book The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells describes the fear of Londoners as the Martians approach their city. Terrorized, the residents scurry to leave the city. Their movement is so fast and furious it is as if the people have become a tidal wave of a rushing water of fear. All of us have experienced a fear so great we felt ourselves out of control. All of us have experienced a problem so massive we imagined it to be insurmountable. All of us have experienced a tragedy so severe that we knew we could never recover. All of us have experienced a disappointment so heart-rending we realized there was no future. The experience of having a life torn asunder cannot be minimized, yet for the student of the scriptures, in the midst of this travail there dwells a message of deliverance.
Application: The promise we have from the scriptures is that God will never abandon us. Even in the most desperate of times when God seems furthest from us, we know he is still with us as we experience suffering and disillusionment.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: God is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.
People: Sing praises to God, who dwells in Zion.
Leader: Declare God’s deeds among the peoples.
People: For God does not forget the cry of the afflicted.
Leader: The needy shall not be forgotten.
People: The hope of the poor remains forever.
OR
Leader: Come into the presence of God with all that you are.
People: We come battered by life and afraid.
Leader: God wants to give you peace that is everlasting.
People: We need peace not only today but all of our days.
Leader: God comes to us in the midst of the storms of our lives.
People: We will trust in our God, who comes to calm our fears.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“All Creatures of Our God and King”
found in:
UMH: 62
H82: 400
PH: 455
AAHH: 147
NNBH: 33
NCH: 17
CH: 22
LBW: 527
ELA: 835
W&P: 23
AMEC: 50
STLT: 203
Renew: 47
“He Leadeth Me, O Blessed Thought”
found in:
UMH: 128
AAHH: 142
NNBH: 235
CH: 545
LBW: 501
W&P: 499
AMEC: 395
“All My Hope Is Firmly Grounded”
found in:
UMH: 132
H82: 665
NCH: 408
CH: 88
ELA: 757
“Great Is Thy Faithfulness”
found in:
UMH: 140
AAHH: 158
NNBH: 45
NCH: 423
CH: 86
ELA: 733
W&P: 72
AMEC: 84
Renew: 249
“Spirit Song”
found in:
UMH: 347
AAHH: 321
CH: 352
W&P: 352
CCB: 51
Renew: 248
“Pues Si Vivimos” (“When We Are Living”)
found in:
UMH: 356
PH: 400
NCH: 499
CH: 536
ELA: 639
W&P: 415
“Standing on the Promises”
found in:
UMH: 374
AAHH: 373
NNBH: 257
CH: 552
AMEC: 424
“It Is Well with My Soul”
found in:
UMH: 377
AAHH: 377
NNBH: 255
NCH: 438
CH: 561
ELA: 785
W&P: 428
AMEC: 448
“You Are Mine” (“Do Not Be Afraid”)
found in:
CCB: 58
“Through It All”
found in:
CCB: 61
“You Are My Hiding Place”
Renew: 107
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who created us out of love and a desire to commune with us: Grant us the faith to trust in you and your love that we might live joyfully in your peace; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We worship you, O God, and praise your Name. We come in our distress and in our fears, needing your healing touch. Give us faith to trust in you that we might release our fears and accept your peace. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our failure to trust God.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. Like the disciples in the boat during the storm, we are afraid and we suspect that you do not care about us. We even speak of our troubles as being “your will” when you have told us that you love us and desire for us to have wholeness and life. Forgive us our lack of trust in your love and grace. Help us to find peace in the midst of life’s troubles by holding you in our hearts. Amen.
Leader: God in love desires our wholeness and blessing. Receive the peace of God which nothing can destroy as we trust in God’s love.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
We praise you, O God, for the glory of your Name. We adore you for the radiance of your loving presence.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. Like the disciples in the boat during the storm, we are afraid and we suspect that you do not care about us. We even speak of our troubles as being “your will” when you have told us that you love us and desire for us to have wholeness and life. Forgive us our lack of trust in your love and grace. Help us to find peace in the midst of life’s troubles by holding you in our hearts.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which you bless us with your loving presence. We thank you for the beauty of our world and the joy of being your children. We thank you for those who share your love with us so that we can know peace and set aside our fears.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our needs. We ask that as you move among us, calling us to wholeness and healing, we would find the grace to truly trust in you. Help us to be your loving presence to all whom we encounter this week.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Hold up a thread and ask the children if they would trust it to hold them up over a pit of nasty slime. Show them a thin string, and then a thicker one. Finally show them a very large rope or even a large chain. Would they trust that to hold them up? Fear comes when we can’t trust someone or something. When we trust in God, we do not need to be afraid.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
by Robin Lostetter
1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23) 32-49; Mark 4:35-41
This week’s scriptures provide three possible options for a children’s message:
* One, based on the 1 Samuel reading, is a safe message for children of various ages. Its purpose is to encourage children to not necessarily consider their size as a detriment, but to know their strengths and their weaknesses in order to be the most effective disciple.
* Another, based on Mark, deals with our fears and tools to help calm those fears. This option would be appropriate in some situations, but not others. It’s up to the pastor to know his/her congregation’s children and the context of the day. To adjust to different ages, some extra material for slightly older children, or for a longer message, is shown in [brackets].
* And a third is a book to read with the children.
1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23) 32-49 -- David and Goliath
with
Jeremiah 1:6-7a:
Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy.’ ”
Items needed:
a slingshot (if available)
a picture that contrasts David’s and Goliath’s size
Message:
(Retell as much of the story as is needed.) Many people know this story of David and Goliath. They know that Goliath was a warrior, and he was about 6'5" tall. In fact his name, Goliath, has even become a word that means a big and powerful person.
Now, David was a shepherd -- and how big was he? (See if the children can answer -- short, young.) That’s right, he was just a young boy, not very tall... maybe just like some of you. How would you feel, coming up to a very tall, very powerful man wearing armor all over his body? And if your only weapon was a sling with 5 small stones? (Again, give the children time to answer if they wish.)
But David knew something. Everyone knew David’s weakness -- that he was very small, and even too small to walk while wearing armor! But David knew his strength. Can anyone guess what that was? (Again, give them time to answer.)
David knew that he was very good with the slingshot. As a shepherd he had protected his sheep, even taking a lamb back from a lion or a bear. He was skilled with the slingshot. And that gave him courage! And one other thing gave him courage: he knew that God was with him. David even knew that God had strengthened and helped another young boy -- Jeremiah -- long ago. He had said to Jeremiah, “Do not say ‘I am only a boy.’ ” So David had a skill, and David knew that God had confidence in him. And with just that knowledge -- and a slingshot -- he was able to take down Goliath. He had such good aim with the stones in his sling that he was even able to hit Goliath in the forehead even though Goliath was wearing a helmet. Can you imagine having that good aim?
Now, you are young boys and girls, and each of you has a strength. Someone may say you’re weak because you’re young and small. But it helps to know that and to know what your strengths are -- because sometime you may be called upon to do something really brave. So if that time comes, remember David. Think about how you can use your strength, and remember that God is with you.
Prayer: Loving God, you know all about us. Help us learn what our strengths are. And give us courage to use them in service to you. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
*****
Mark 4:35-41
with
Mark 4:21:
He said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand?”
Items needed:
copies of “Fear Not”
familiarity with the song “This Little Light of Mine”
Message:
(Assume a “non-anxious presence,” and be prepared for responses from “monsters under the bed” to serious fears. Then proceed.) In our Bible story today, Jesus and the disciples get into a boat and go out on the Sea of Galilee. While they’re out on the water, a really bad storm comes up. The disciples are really scared of the high waves and the wind. But where is Jesus? Does anyone remember? Why, he’s in the back of the boat asleep! He’s not afraid at all. So the disciples wake him up and ask him to help them, because they are afraid. And Jesus calms the storm, and they feel safe again.
Have you ever been scared or frightened? What scared you? (Allow for answers, and respond as needed. Use your judgment: you may want to adjust how you proceed.) To feel better, did you ask an adult for reassurance -- sort of like the disciples asked Jesus for help? (Again, allow for answers and respond as needed.)
You know, you could also ask Jesus for help by saying a prayer. Or you could turn to the Bible and read where it says over 100 times, “Fear not.” In the Bible we read that God sent angels, messengers, to people in scary situations. And the message was always “Fear not” or “Don’t be afraid.” [You might remember that in the Christmas story, where the angels tell the shepherds not to be afraid; or from the Easter story, where the angel tells the women not to be afraid (Mark 16:5-6; Matthew 28:4-5).] God doesn’t want us to be afraid.
Here’s a page that lists all the times we find “Don’t fear” in the Bible. You could keep this in your family’s Bible and ask a grownup or an older sister or brother to look up “Fear not” in the Bible and read it to you. (Give each child a copy of “Fear not” that you have printed. You could end here, or you could go on, depending upon time and how the children are reacting.)
So there are a couple of things that can help calm us when we’re afraid. We can call on a grownup; we can turn to the Bible; we can pray; or we can even sing a song!
In fact, I know a song that can help -- especially if we’re scared in the nighttime, or if we’re alone. [It comes from the same Bible chapter as the boat story.] Jesus says to let our light shine [just like Jesus shines light into the world]. And there’s a song we can sing about that to help us be strong and unafraid:
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? No! I’m gonna let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? No! I’m gonna let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? No! I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Don’t let Satan [blow] it out! I’m gonna let it shine.
Don’t let Satan [blow] it out! I’m gonna let it shine.
Don’t let Satan [blow] it out! I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Prayer: Dear God, thank you for Jesus, who helped the disciples who were scared. Thank you for the Bible, and for all the times it says “Fear not.” Help us to remember that you love us and don’t want us to be afraid. Amen.
*****
Mark 4:35-41 (an additional resource or an alternate message)
The Berenstain Bears Do Not Fear, God Is Near. “Young readers will appreciate the lessons Sister Bear learns from Papa. Sister Bear has overcome many fears like bugs, big dogs, and storms. But even with the reminder that God is always watching over her, there are some things that still scare the young cub. Will Sister remember to trust in God when something spooky startles her?”
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, June 21, 2015, issue.
Copyright 2015 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Dean Feldmeyer notes that in times of crisis the normal human reaction is to let anxiety cloud our judgment. Our emotions take over, and we wonder whether others (and God) truly understand and care about the gravity of the situation. But as Dean points out, Jesus (as well as David) presents us with another option -- when we rely on faith to help us cope with our fear, we are liberated and thus able to take productive action which a more risk-averse mindset might prevent us from pursuing. And as Dean reminds us, that’s a vitally important lesson for the church: in light of declining membership numbers, we might well hear denominational and congregational leaders asking Jesus the same question as the disciples: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Dean suggests that fear brings us together -- and that faith helps keep us from being paralyzed by our fear and allows us to defeat seemingly intractable problems.
Team member Mary Austin shares some additional thoughts on the David and Goliath story through the lens of author Malcolm Gladwell’s insights in his book David and Goliath. Gladwell notes that the story has transcended its biblical origins to become common shorthand for unlikely victory -- but he also suggests that if we focus there we’re missing its real meaning and message. Instead, Gladwell maintains, it’s about “how fundamentally we misunderstand the true meaning of advantages and disadvantages” -- indeed, “it is because of, and not despite, David’s size and unorthodox choice of weapon that he is able to slay the lumbering giant.” Mary notes that as the church, we too need to think about our strengths and weaknesses -- and to perhaps avoid being tied down by the Goliath-like armor of institutionalism. She suggests that we need to “think outside the box” to better understand our real (and often hidden) assets.
A Non-Anxious Presence
by Dean Feldmeyer
Mark 4:35-41
In his book A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, rabbi and psychologist Edwin Friedman defines the effective leader as the person who is able to maintain a “non-anxious presence” in an anxious system.
He goes on to say that all systems (organizations) are, by nature, anxious. Families are anxious. Companies are anxious. Baseball teams are anxious. Boards of directors are anxious. Armies, committees, card clubs, charities, and churches are all anxious... especially churches.
Their anxiety arises from the possibility that things will change, and the fear that things won’t change. It arises from their lack of vision. And where there is a vision, it arises from the demands that the vision places upon them.
In all of these cases, Friedman says, the leader will be the person who is able to be calm in the midst of other people’s anxiety.
Unfortunately, people often see this lack of anxiety on the part of the leader as a lack of caring.
This week’s gospel lesson gives us a perfect test of Friedman’s theories. The boat and those within it constitute an understandably anxious system. Jesus is the non-anxious, well-differentiated leader whose lack of fear is mistaken for apathy by those within the system: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
In his answer to this question, Jesus tells us how to be that non-anxious, well-differentiated leader that is so desperately needed in our current “culture of fear.”
In the News
“Do you not care that we are perishing?”
It has become the existential question of our age. We ask it of our leaders, our police officers, our military, our pastors, teachers, politicians, and each other. We ask it even though the assumption upon which it is based is not true.
We are not perishing.
The crime rate is down. Joblessness is down. The stock market is higher than it has ever been. The economy is in a slow but steady recovery. The highways are safer, air travel is safer, our food is safer, and our medicine is safer than ever before in the history of our country. Thanks to modern technology, our questions are being answered and problems are being solved at rates never dreamed of.
But none of that has changed our perception that the world is more dangerous today than it has ever been. We live in a culture of fear. Julie Hanus, writing for Utne Reader in 2009, put it this way:
The dangers of modern life have a stranglehold on people’s imaginations. Sociologists call the phenomenon risk society, describing cultures increasingly preoccupied with threats to safety, both real and perceived. And while the human species is prone to miscalculating risk, there’s more at work here than frazzled modern nerves: Americans are fearful. Truly fearful. When they’re asked, a majority say with certainty that the world is more dangerous than ever before. Even in the face of evidence that negates this misperception, there is no relief. We lock our doors, say our prayers, and still can’t get to sleep. For the first time in history, fear is tearing society apart.
Unscrupulous politicians and greedy capitalists find our fears -- warranted or not -- to be fertile ground for reaping votes and profits. New laws based on zero-tolerance and requiring longer prison terms are mandated, while more guns, more survival gear, and more security systems get sold.
Meanwhile, we lock ourselves in our homes, or as a nation within our borders -- paralyzed with anxiety, unable to think or act beyond the limits of our own fears.
Last week USA Today ran an editorial which weighs the toll that paralyzing fear had during the recent Ebola wars. It enumerated four lessons to be learned from that experience (emphases mine):
1. Delay is deadly: “By the time WHO finally declared Ebola a global public health emergency, nearly 1,000 people were dead and a chance to get ahead of the lethal virus had been squandered.” World Health Organization leaders were so afraid of “disrupting the economies of poor West African countries” that they sacrificed the public health.
2. Calmness counts: “When the first U.S. Ebola patients -- two missionaries stricken while working with victims in Liberia -- arrived in Atlanta for treatment last August, some politicians and news media outlets seemed to be vying to see who could create the most panic. By October, after a tourist from Liberia was diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas, much of the country had been whipped into full freak-out mode.” As we learned from Edwin Friedman, what was needed was a non-anxious presence in the midst of the anxiety and fear.
3. Let science lead: In this case, that non-anxious presence was best represented by the scientific minds at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). While they made some mistakes, theirs was the most measured and rational response of all who sought to stand before the cameras.
4. Be prepared: We can no longer allow ourselves to be taken by surprise. Resources must be allocated to those scientific agencies and centers that are best able to respond quickly and decisively to the threat of modern disease outbreaks. Policy-wise, the safest place to be is squarely in the middle, a well-measured distance between paralyzing fear and blind complacency.
Interestingly, this is exactly where we find Jesus in this week’s gospel lection.
In the Scriptures
The preacher would be well-advised to treat this text as not so much a story about Jesus as a parable about the nature of faith and its relationship to fear.
A literal approach is likely to leave us bogged down in questions about how it is possible for one to sleep in a small boat that is filling with water, why Jesus is so crabby and short with his disciples (whose fear seems to be altogether reasonable), and whether a “dead calm” is really an improvement over a choppy sea.
Commentators John Donahue and Daniel Harrington point out that the introductory phrase “on that day” reminds us that this story comes at the end of a day that has been filled with teaching parables (The Gospel of Mark: Sacra Pagina series [Liturgical Press, 2002], pg. 159). It bids us keep our eyes and minds open for still more teaching, for (as is usually the case in Mark’s gospel) the miracles are not merely demonstrations of power. They are more often demonstrations of meaning and occasions for teaching.
The Sea of Galilee was at that time about 15 miles long and 8 miles across, and was known for its sudden and unexpected storms. Only the most adroit sailors dared go beyond where they could see the shore, so a direct crossing was always risky. At night, it bordered on foolish. Yet this is what Jesus asks of his disciples, and they comply without dissent.
The question does not come until they are out in the middle of the lake and a storm has appeared, a storm so violent that the boat is filling with water and in danger of sinking. And the question is -- as we have said, the existential question of all who suffer and are afraid: “Don’t you care that we are perishing?”
Jesus, who has been asleep on a sailor’s cushion or sandbags used for ballast lying on a raised platform in the back (stern) of the boat, awakes and stills the storm with a couple of words as a parent might rebuke a fussy child. “Peace. Be still.”
If the text was simply a miracle story, told to demonstrate the power of Jesus over nature, it might end here -- but it does not. There is another rebuke to come, and this one is for the disciples.
“Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
The real subjects of this story, it turns out, are faith and fear.
Again, Donahue and Harrington inform us that the adjective translated “afraid” holds several meanings, including “timid” or “fearful,” and “conveys not simply fear but timidity and lack of courage.” They conclude: “From the rebuke, it is clear that faith in Mark... is not simply intellectual conviction, but also trust in God along with bold action when faced with serious threats to life and well-being” (pg. 159).
In the Pulpit
The lesson taught in this simple story has been, for the most part, ignored by the church.
We Christians have been taught, and we have passed on the erroneous lesson, that faith has to do with believing things that are hard to believe, things for which there is no physical evidence, things that seem to defy objective, scientific explanation.
We have equated faith with belief. Unfaith, we have said, is the refusal to believe a thing that “should” be believed, as though we can force ourselves to believe things that for all the world seem to us unbelievable. This disbelief, we have been told, is nothing more than willful rebellion against God and God’s word.
Mark’s story of Jesus in the storm exposes this notion of faith being simple belief as utter nonsense.
For Mark, faith is not believing that a proposition is true but rather acting as though it is true whether we accept it to be so intellectually or not. Faith is acting, risking, doing -- even in the face of admitted doubts. Faith is not propositional. It is not intellectual assent. Intellectual assent requires nothing of us -- no risk, no courage, no action. Faith requires action. The opposite of faith is not disbelief. The opposite of faith is paralyzing fear, the inability to move or to act in the face of danger on those things that we claim to believe.
I can believe that you are able to push me across Niagara Falls on a tightrope in a wheelbarrow -- and that belief requires nothing of me. Faith, however, requires me to actually get into the wheelbarrow.
Faith is that which allows persons and institutions to be a non-anxious presence in the midst of anxiety and fear. It allows us as individuals to act decisively when others are frozen. It allows the church to calmly lead when the culture is mired in anxiety, or wandering aimlessly like sheep without a shepherd, or flailing about in a headlong panic.
As Hanus points out in Utne Reader, fear can divide and separate us -- as it has our current Congress. It can cause us to become so cemented into our political or theological positions that we are incapable of moving, that we become irrationally defensive, that we treat anyone who does not fall into total agreement with us as our mortal enemies.
Certainly we saw that during the “satanic panic” of the 1980s when the myth of repressed memory fueled unfounded fears of secret satanic cults sexually abusing women and children all over the world. Scores of innocent people were convicted and imprisoned by fearful, ill-informed juries and judges (Jeffrey S. Victor, Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend[Open Court, 1993]; Elizabeth Loftus & Katherine Ketcham, The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse [St. Martin’s Griffin, 1994]).
But fear, properly informed and considered in a rational, non-anxious way, can also bring us together.
Probably nowhere is this better illustrated than in Nina Gilden Seavey’s documentary film A Paralyzing Fear: The Story of Polio in America. (The complete 90-minute film can be viewed online here or here.)
The polio virus afflicted tens of thousands of children in the United States and around the world from about 1915 until 1952, when the number peaked at 59,000 in America. In 1954 Jonas Salk invented the first polio vaccine, and within two years -- thanks to a mass campaign to inoculate schoolchildren -- the incidence of the disease had declined by 80 percent. Today, it has been virtually eradicated.
All this is thanks in large part to people working together to raise the money necessary for fighting this fearful, crippling, and often fatal disease. The “March of Dimes,” created to raise money for fighting polio and treating its victims, still stands as the largest private charity in history.
While the government did little in this cause, most of the work was accomplished by private grass-roots organizations whose solidarity in purpose allowed them to overcome what many imagined to be an undefeatable foe.
The number of foes facing us has not decreased since 1950, when parents in Phoenix organized the first “Mother’s March on Polio” and raised $45,000 in a matter of minutes.
Disease continues to steal the lives of not just children, but many whom we love. War now seems to be our default setting. Violence in our streets is still a threat. Drug abuse still lurks in the darkness.
But these foes will not be defeated by paralyzing fear and anxiety. If they can be defeated, it will happen through the efforts of passionate, well-ordered, and committed people, led by non-anxious, faith-driven leaders.
The gospel writer Mark would, it seems, agree fully with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who famously said in his first inaugural address: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
SECOND THOUGHTS
by Mary Austin
1 Samuel 17:32-49
The battle between David and Goliath seems like the classic story of the underdog hero taking on a mighty opposing force, and somehow miraculously winning the contest. But David has an uncommon kind of wisdom. Before the battle starts, when Saul tries to outfit David with his armor, David understands right away that this isn’t going to work for him. He knows his own weaknesses and his own strengths, and he decides to fight in his own way. Goliath throws down the challenge, and David takes it up in his own way.
In contrast to the disciples in the boat with Jesus in this week’s reading from Mark’s gospel (4:35-41), David doesn’t seem to be afraid. He approaches the battle with confidence, saying: “The Lord, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.” The church is a kind of David in a secular society, standing against the huge forces of consumerism, inattention to the inner life, and what Garrison Keillor calls “elephantine vanity and greed.” If we, as people of faith, are like David, then our first lesson from him is not to be afraid. Fear is paralyzing, and David is able to move into action.
Even more than the image of the shepherd defeating the warrior, I love the way David reshapes the contest. What if we learned to look at our challenges from a different viewpoint? The news is full of stories about the decline of organized religion in America, and the dwindling number of people who make time to go to church. We react to these stories -- understandably -- by thinking we need to get more people to come to church. But what if we’re seeing the question all wrong? Can we, like David, recast the challenge?
What if the battle for us is not about the number of people in the pews? What if we stopped caring about our own survival? Could it be that our challenge is about keeping the voice of justice alive in a self-centered society? Or about making a home for the marginalized, instead of the prosperous? Is our calling really to reach out with light and grace to the schools and nonprofits within a mile of our churches?
Author Malcolm Gladwell has deepened my understanding of the David and Goliath story. In his book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, Gladwell posits that what we commonly understand about advantages and disadvantages is wrong. Getting into the best college? Not always such a good thing. Huge, well-armed country against a guerilla army? Advantage to the insurgents. And David and Goliath? Perhaps David really did come into the contest with more advantages.
In an interview with Inc. magazine, Gladwell explains his understanding of the story: “David’s sling is a devastating weapon. It’s one of the most feared weapons in the ancient world. The stone that comes from his sling has the stopping power equivalent to a bullet from a .45 caliber pistol. It’s a serious weapon. And second, there are many medical experts who believe that Goliath was suffering from acromegaly, which causes you to grow. Many giants have acromegaly, but it has a side effect -- which is it causes restrictive sight. Goliath in the biblical story does, if you look closely, sound like a guy who can’t see.” David had more plusses in the battle than we think he did, Gladwell suggests.
If David has unseen advantages, do we have some too?
Being irrelevant to most people in our culture gives us a kind of freedom to do whatever we think is right. Being small means we can create deeper bonds between people. Not having money forces us to rely more deeply on God. The church can learn from David’s story -- not just that the smaller person can win, but how not to be afraid, and how to use the strengths we have.
Clayton Christensen, a professor of business at Harvard, has applied a similar theory to the business world with his theory of “disruptive innovation.” In one of his books, The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen describes how most companies end up developing products that are larger, more sophisticated, or more expensive than their customers need or can afford. That opens the way for smaller companies to develop products that fit a niche of unserved customers. The big company thinks the niche is too small to bother with, or that the profits are too small. Eventually the upstart company unsettles the giant. Some examples of disruptive innovation include personal computers replacing mainframe computers, cellphones replacing landlines, and community colleges taking students from four-year colleges. (You can read more here.)
As one innovation website describes it, “Disruptive innovation, on the other hand, will often have characteristics that traditional customer segments may not want, at least initially. Such innovations will appear as cheaper, simpler, and even with inferior quality if compared to existing products, but some marginal or new segment will value it.” Perhaps the church could think of ourselves as disruptive innovators, going where giants don’t want to go and serving people unserved by the bigger society around us.
As Gladwell says in his book, “The very thing that gave the giant his size was also the source of his greatest weakness.... The powerful and the strong are not always what they seem.” At the beginning of the story, David says to Saul: “Let no one’s heart fail... your servant will go and fight.” Let our hearts not fail too, as we go and fight God’s fight with the surprising strengths that we have.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Chris Keating:
1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23) 32-49
Power Belongs to the Youngest
David, the younger sibling, was called upon to tackle the colossal Goliath. It’s a similar story for the United States soccer team now competing at the Women’s World Cup -- 17 of the 23 players on the roster have older soccer-playing siblings. It’s a common occurrence. The United States Soccer Federation reports that 74 percent of its women’s youth soccer players have older siblings who also play soccer.
There’s no clear reason why younger siblings are better competitors than their older siblings, but like David, it’s possible that the younger ones spent a lot of time watching their older sisters or brothers compete. According to the New York Times:
Older brothers and sisters often introduce younger siblings to a sport; teach them how to play; and serve as inspirations, training partners, or competitors. Younger siblings must quickly develop skill and creativity to compete against older, bigger family members. And they may feel a need, and be willing to take more risks, to try to outperform their older siblings, create their own niches, and attract greater attention from their parents.
Or as David puts it, “Your servant has killed both lions and bears.” The paw of the bear missed him, the Lord preserved his life -- and it was this younger sibling who was able to sink the winning shot.
*****
1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23) 32-49
Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My...
As if torrential rain and severe flooding were not enough, residents in the Georgian capital city of Tbilisi endured a hunt for dangerous animals who escaped from the city’s flood-ravaged zoo. The animals caused waves of panic to sweep across the city.
Bears, wolves, and monkeys were among the escaped animals that ran when their enclosures were destroyed by floodwaters. A beloved young white lion was found shot in the head, causing zoo officials to worry that unnecessary force might be used against the animals. Still, many of the 1.1 million residents of Tbilisi remain fearful.
“The daytime wasn’t bad,” said resident Khariton Gabashvili, “but tonight everyone has to be very careful because all the beasts haven’t been captured. They haven’t been fed, and in their hungry state they might attack people.”
*****
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
Speaking Frankly
Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change will be issued Thursday, the first major teaching letter of his papacy. As he has done throughout his time as pontiff, Francis is expected to speak frankly about the need to show better stewardship of creation. The pope has not shied away from controversial topics. In this encyclical, Francis, who has a master’s degree in chemistry, is hoping to place the Catholic church at the forefront of an emerging conversation between faith and science. Long an advocate of the environment, the pope recently spoke of how environmental issues impact the poor. He has said that the encyclical is “aimed at everyone,” and that it is a call for all to grow in their responsibility toward the earth. The teaching will be released in a ceremony that includes a Catholic cardinal, a leader from the Orthodox church, and a climate scientist whom the Vatican described as an atheist.
*****
Mark 4:35-41
Stillness in Motion
For the disciples it was the trip from, well, you know where. It’s an experience many travelers have -- the long lines through security, flights that are delayed, crowds constantly moving. How is it possible to discover, as Jesus did, a sense of calm in spite of the chaos?
Essayist and former professor Pico Iyer believes that the full benefits of travel cannot be reaped until one has also experienced stillness. Iyer, who is author of The Art of Stillness, offered strategies for seeking calm and stillness in a TED talk last year. The talk prompted Delta Airlines to create an art experience for this year’s TED conference in Vancouver. The exhibit, “Stillness in Motion,” included a chamber where biometric sensors matched the rhythms of the participant’s heartbeat.
After experiencing the exhibit, Iyer noted how the experience prompted him to discover stillness and calm while traveling:
As I emerged from the remarkable “Stillness in Motion” installation at TED, I thought back to a conversation I’d had with a French Buddhist monk who is constantly on his way to the next World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, or TED talk. A 210-minute functional MRI, after all, had found Matthieu Ricard to have scores for peace of mind and joy that had never before been seen in neurological literature; the media had promptly dubbed him “the happiest man alive.”
“How do you deal with all the travel?” I asked the red-robed wanderer. He looked at me, astonished. “When I’m on a plane,” he said, “there’s nowhere else I can be. Everything is brought to me in my seat. I can enjoy a view no human had seen in my grandparents’ time -- of boundless blue skies, or the mountains below. It’s like a perfect mini-retreat in the heavens!”
***************
From team member Ron Love:
A recent report by the Pew Research Center stated that the country is significantly less Christian than it was seven years ago. Those who called themselves Christian fell eight percentage points, from 78.4% to 70.6%. The fastest-growing group was the “nones” who declared having no religion, which is now 22.8% of the population.
Application: When it is time for a “none” to pick up a rock before Goliath or calm a stormy sea, will they be able to do it?
*****
John Waggoner recently wrote his last financial advice column for USA Today. For the first time he wrote about himself, and he shared advice from his worst investment. One thing he learned was that “Hope is not a great investment strategy.”
Application: Hope is not a good strategy for the stock market, but it is for faithful followers of God.
*****
Mount St. Helens erupted 35 years ago on May 18, 1980. The story has been told many times of Harry Truman, an 84-year-old lodge owner who died in the eruption because he did not heed warnings and leave the mountain. Shortly after the quake, Billy Graham used Truman in a sermon about being obedient.
Application: Faith also requires being prudent, not foolish.
*****
“So you understand the roaring wave of fear that swept through the greatest city in the world just as Monday was dawning -- the stream of flight rising swiftly to a torrent, lashing in a foaming tumult round the railway stations, banked up into a horrible struggle about the shipping in the Thames and hurrying by every available channel northward and eastward.” In this descriptive passage from his book The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells describes the fear of Londoners as the Martians approach their city. Terrorized, the residents scurry to leave the city. Their movement is so fast and furious it is as if the people have become a tidal wave of a rushing water of fear. All of us have experienced a fear so great we felt ourselves out of control. All of us have experienced a problem so massive we imagined it to be insurmountable. All of us have experienced a tragedy so severe that we knew we could never recover. All of us have experienced a disappointment so heart-rending we realized there was no future. The experience of having a life torn asunder cannot be minimized, yet for the student of the scriptures, in the midst of this travail there dwells a message of deliverance.
Application: The promise we have from the scriptures is that God will never abandon us. Even in the most desperate of times when God seems furthest from us, we know he is still with us as we experience suffering and disillusionment.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: God is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.
People: Sing praises to God, who dwells in Zion.
Leader: Declare God’s deeds among the peoples.
People: For God does not forget the cry of the afflicted.
Leader: The needy shall not be forgotten.
People: The hope of the poor remains forever.
OR
Leader: Come into the presence of God with all that you are.
People: We come battered by life and afraid.
Leader: God wants to give you peace that is everlasting.
People: We need peace not only today but all of our days.
Leader: God comes to us in the midst of the storms of our lives.
People: We will trust in our God, who comes to calm our fears.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“All Creatures of Our God and King”
found in:
UMH: 62
H82: 400
PH: 455
AAHH: 147
NNBH: 33
NCH: 17
CH: 22
LBW: 527
ELA: 835
W&P: 23
AMEC: 50
STLT: 203
Renew: 47
“He Leadeth Me, O Blessed Thought”
found in:
UMH: 128
AAHH: 142
NNBH: 235
CH: 545
LBW: 501
W&P: 499
AMEC: 395
“All My Hope Is Firmly Grounded”
found in:
UMH: 132
H82: 665
NCH: 408
CH: 88
ELA: 757
“Great Is Thy Faithfulness”
found in:
UMH: 140
AAHH: 158
NNBH: 45
NCH: 423
CH: 86
ELA: 733
W&P: 72
AMEC: 84
Renew: 249
“Spirit Song”
found in:
UMH: 347
AAHH: 321
CH: 352
W&P: 352
CCB: 51
Renew: 248
“Pues Si Vivimos” (“When We Are Living”)
found in:
UMH: 356
PH: 400
NCH: 499
CH: 536
ELA: 639
W&P: 415
“Standing on the Promises”
found in:
UMH: 374
AAHH: 373
NNBH: 257
CH: 552
AMEC: 424
“It Is Well with My Soul”
found in:
UMH: 377
AAHH: 377
NNBH: 255
NCH: 438
CH: 561
ELA: 785
W&P: 428
AMEC: 448
“You Are Mine” (“Do Not Be Afraid”)
found in:
CCB: 58
“Through It All”
found in:
CCB: 61
“You Are My Hiding Place”
Renew: 107
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who created us out of love and a desire to commune with us: Grant us the faith to trust in you and your love that we might live joyfully in your peace; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We worship you, O God, and praise your Name. We come in our distress and in our fears, needing your healing touch. Give us faith to trust in you that we might release our fears and accept your peace. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our failure to trust God.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. Like the disciples in the boat during the storm, we are afraid and we suspect that you do not care about us. We even speak of our troubles as being “your will” when you have told us that you love us and desire for us to have wholeness and life. Forgive us our lack of trust in your love and grace. Help us to find peace in the midst of life’s troubles by holding you in our hearts. Amen.
Leader: God in love desires our wholeness and blessing. Receive the peace of God which nothing can destroy as we trust in God’s love.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
We praise you, O God, for the glory of your Name. We adore you for the radiance of your loving presence.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. Like the disciples in the boat during the storm, we are afraid and we suspect that you do not care about us. We even speak of our troubles as being “your will” when you have told us that you love us and desire for us to have wholeness and life. Forgive us our lack of trust in your love and grace. Help us to find peace in the midst of life’s troubles by holding you in our hearts.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which you bless us with your loving presence. We thank you for the beauty of our world and the joy of being your children. We thank you for those who share your love with us so that we can know peace and set aside our fears.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our needs. We ask that as you move among us, calling us to wholeness and healing, we would find the grace to truly trust in you. Help us to be your loving presence to all whom we encounter this week.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Hold up a thread and ask the children if they would trust it to hold them up over a pit of nasty slime. Show them a thin string, and then a thicker one. Finally show them a very large rope or even a large chain. Would they trust that to hold them up? Fear comes when we can’t trust someone or something. When we trust in God, we do not need to be afraid.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
by Robin Lostetter
1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23) 32-49; Mark 4:35-41
This week’s scriptures provide three possible options for a children’s message:
* One, based on the 1 Samuel reading, is a safe message for children of various ages. Its purpose is to encourage children to not necessarily consider their size as a detriment, but to know their strengths and their weaknesses in order to be the most effective disciple.
* Another, based on Mark, deals with our fears and tools to help calm those fears. This option would be appropriate in some situations, but not others. It’s up to the pastor to know his/her congregation’s children and the context of the day. To adjust to different ages, some extra material for slightly older children, or for a longer message, is shown in [brackets].
* And a third is a book to read with the children.
1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23) 32-49 -- David and Goliath
with
Jeremiah 1:6-7a:
Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy.’ ”
Items needed:
a slingshot (if available)
a picture that contrasts David’s and Goliath’s size
Message:
(Retell as much of the story as is needed.) Many people know this story of David and Goliath. They know that Goliath was a warrior, and he was about 6'5" tall. In fact his name, Goliath, has even become a word that means a big and powerful person.
Now, David was a shepherd -- and how big was he? (See if the children can answer -- short, young.) That’s right, he was just a young boy, not very tall... maybe just like some of you. How would you feel, coming up to a very tall, very powerful man wearing armor all over his body? And if your only weapon was a sling with 5 small stones? (Again, give the children time to answer if they wish.)
But David knew something. Everyone knew David’s weakness -- that he was very small, and even too small to walk while wearing armor! But David knew his strength. Can anyone guess what that was? (Again, give them time to answer.)
David knew that he was very good with the slingshot. As a shepherd he had protected his sheep, even taking a lamb back from a lion or a bear. He was skilled with the slingshot. And that gave him courage! And one other thing gave him courage: he knew that God was with him. David even knew that God had strengthened and helped another young boy -- Jeremiah -- long ago. He had said to Jeremiah, “Do not say ‘I am only a boy.’ ” So David had a skill, and David knew that God had confidence in him. And with just that knowledge -- and a slingshot -- he was able to take down Goliath. He had such good aim with the stones in his sling that he was even able to hit Goliath in the forehead even though Goliath was wearing a helmet. Can you imagine having that good aim?
Now, you are young boys and girls, and each of you has a strength. Someone may say you’re weak because you’re young and small. But it helps to know that and to know what your strengths are -- because sometime you may be called upon to do something really brave. So if that time comes, remember David. Think about how you can use your strength, and remember that God is with you.
Prayer: Loving God, you know all about us. Help us learn what our strengths are. And give us courage to use them in service to you. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
*****
Mark 4:35-41
with
Mark 4:21:
He said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand?”
Items needed:
copies of “Fear Not”
familiarity with the song “This Little Light of Mine”
Message:
(Assume a “non-anxious presence,” and be prepared for responses from “monsters under the bed” to serious fears. Then proceed.) In our Bible story today, Jesus and the disciples get into a boat and go out on the Sea of Galilee. While they’re out on the water, a really bad storm comes up. The disciples are really scared of the high waves and the wind. But where is Jesus? Does anyone remember? Why, he’s in the back of the boat asleep! He’s not afraid at all. So the disciples wake him up and ask him to help them, because they are afraid. And Jesus calms the storm, and they feel safe again.
Have you ever been scared or frightened? What scared you? (Allow for answers, and respond as needed. Use your judgment: you may want to adjust how you proceed.) To feel better, did you ask an adult for reassurance -- sort of like the disciples asked Jesus for help? (Again, allow for answers and respond as needed.)
You know, you could also ask Jesus for help by saying a prayer. Or you could turn to the Bible and read where it says over 100 times, “Fear not.” In the Bible we read that God sent angels, messengers, to people in scary situations. And the message was always “Fear not” or “Don’t be afraid.” [You might remember that in the Christmas story, where the angels tell the shepherds not to be afraid; or from the Easter story, where the angel tells the women not to be afraid (Mark 16:5-6; Matthew 28:4-5).] God doesn’t want us to be afraid.
Here’s a page that lists all the times we find “Don’t fear” in the Bible. You could keep this in your family’s Bible and ask a grownup or an older sister or brother to look up “Fear not” in the Bible and read it to you. (Give each child a copy of “Fear not” that you have printed. You could end here, or you could go on, depending upon time and how the children are reacting.)
So there are a couple of things that can help calm us when we’re afraid. We can call on a grownup; we can turn to the Bible; we can pray; or we can even sing a song!
In fact, I know a song that can help -- especially if we’re scared in the nighttime, or if we’re alone. [It comes from the same Bible chapter as the boat story.] Jesus says to let our light shine [just like Jesus shines light into the world]. And there’s a song we can sing about that to help us be strong and unafraid:
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? No! I’m gonna let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? No! I’m gonna let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel? No! I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Don’t let Satan [blow] it out! I’m gonna let it shine.
Don’t let Satan [blow] it out! I’m gonna let it shine.
Don’t let Satan [blow] it out! I’m gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Prayer: Dear God, thank you for Jesus, who helped the disciples who were scared. Thank you for the Bible, and for all the times it says “Fear not.” Help us to remember that you love us and don’t want us to be afraid. Amen.
*****
Mark 4:35-41 (an additional resource or an alternate message)
The Berenstain Bears Do Not Fear, God Is Near. “Young readers will appreciate the lessons Sister Bear learns from Papa. Sister Bear has overcome many fears like bugs, big dogs, and storms. But even with the reminder that God is always watching over her, there are some things that still scare the young cub. Will Sister remember to trust in God when something spooky startles her?”
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, June 21, 2015, issue.
Copyright 2015 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
