Written for and given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC On June 23, 2002… One of my Very First ‘talks’!!

The main Scripture is from the Gospel of Matthew 10: 24-39

 

The house on the farm that we bought outside of Edwardsville in 1965 was a big, old, two-story affair. It looked to me like it had been built with just the front four rooms, two on top of the other with a chimney at either end and the stairway in the middle, while the dining room and kitchen, with an unfinished attic, were added as an ‘L’ shape later on. I say this because the basement was also a two-room affair underneath the front part of the house. The stairs to this went down directly under the stairs that led to the second floor, but there was also another set of stairs that led directly outside. So a routine was developed of going into the basement after working outside and keeping all of our chore cloths, coats, hats, and boots, out of the main house. This worked like a charm for all of the years that we lived there.

          Alfred Hitchcock made movies. To be exact, he made very high quality thrillers! Movies that would keep you on the edge of your seat and could still make you jump out of it at any time. One of these was the story surrounding a small town somewhere on the west coast where the birds had somehow decided to team up and drive out the interfering humans. And there were hundreds and thousands of birds. When they were in flight the sky seemed to darken. In one scene they filled the playground equipment, fences, and electric lines outside of a school. In another, they had broken into a house and filled the attic and rooms. Each time they gathered like that, the people would slowly try to move to safety, and each time the birds would watch them and wait until they were too far away to run back to where they had come from and would then attack ‘en masse. The problem was that I could relate, somewhat, to all of this.

          During the first spring at our new farm, and for some years after, the barn swallows would invade. They filled all of the wires running to the outbuildings, lined the roofs and fences, and built numerous nests in all of the barns and sheds. Our cats must have learned how to get to at least some of the nests, because anytime one of them strolled across the yard, the swallows would begin screeching out warnings and threats and masses of them would start swooping down at the feline. Generally, the cat was unperturbed and would just keep walking nonchalantly on towards its’ destination with a string of ‘dive-bombers’ strafing it all the way. Occasionally we or our guests would also be strafed as we went to and from the house. So for a time I was taking my brothers B-B gun and shooting them off of the lines. After a while the noise and disturbances did seem to thin them out a bit.

Sometime in the late ‘60’s I chanced to see ‘The Birds’ on TV one night. And even though I KNEW it was just a movie…I KNEW that nothing like that could ever really happen…the thought of our birds somehow wanting to ‘even the score’ with me was in the back of my mind. That very next morning I was up to do chores as usual and headed down the stairs into the basement. As I sat on the stairs to put my boots on I heard a rustling of wings coming from the other room!

Have you ever been afraid…I mean really afraid? The rational side of me was trying to say that there was a logical explanation for the noise, but the irrational side was screaming, “THERE ARE BIRDS IN THAT ROOM!!” My face has always been a road map for my emotions, and I’m sure that if anyone had seen me right then they would have feared for my health, my sanity, or both! The nape of my neck and the short hair I had back then had to both be standing on end, and I’m sure that I looked as white as a ghost! The knot in my stomach felt like it was trying to escape on its’ own!

But…there was only one thing to do…I had to go see what it was! I stood up and walked toward the doorway separating the two rooms, listening to the rustling growing more and more agitated. As I approached, step-by-step, I had no idea what I was going to see. And when I rounded the corner and walked into the room I saw…NOTHING! But I still heard the rustling! It was coming from the furnace! Somehow a bird had come down the chimney and managed to get into the burner area but couldn’t find his way back out. Mystery solved! But…then again…why had it been trying to come down the chimney?

I want to talk a little bit about fear, today. In verse 28 of today’s’ reading, Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill you. They can only kill your body.” Well, DUHH! I don’t know about you but that’s the part that I would least like to have killed! But there’s a lot more to it than that!

In this chapter, Jesus has been giving instructions to the apostles. We join in about halfway through as He says, “A student is not greater than his teacher. A servant is not above his master.”  And that seems pretty straightforward. We humans take pride in our ability to learn. And yes, as humans we have the potential of exceeding the learning of our human teachers. But we can never learn more from any one teacher than THAT teacher knows! Since Jesus is the ultimate ‘knower of knowledge’ we could never learn more than what He teaches us. In Luke 6:40 Jesus says, “A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.” So if each of us seek to become fully trained disciples of Jesus, our lives should reflect His! And if our lives truly reflect His, He warns us that we will be subject to the same treatment as He. Adam Clarke’s Commentary puts it this way…

          Can any…scholar or disciple of Jesus Christ, expect to be treated well by the world? Will not the world love it’s own, and them only? If you want the honour that comes from it, abandon Jesus Christ, and it will again receive you into its bosom. But you will, no doubt, count the cost before you do this.

What is the cost of abandoning God? In 2 Chron 12:1-5 we read…

After Rehoboam’s position as king was established and he had become strong, he and all Israel with him abandoned the law of the LORD. Because they had been unfaithful to the LORD, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem…

Then the prophet Shemaiah came to Rehoboam and to the leaders of Judah who had assembled in Jerusalem for fear of Shishak, and he said to them, “This is what the LORD says, ‘You have abandoned me; therefore, I now abandon you to Shishak.'”

But here we’re still talking about ‘the body’…that is, earthly matters. What other cost might there be in abandoning our beliefs and following the call of ‘the world’? In Luke 16 Jesus tells us a parable about a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus:

” The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’”

From most pulpits in today’s world we hear about a God who is loving and forgiving. A god who, Jesus tells us, cares about even the smallest sparrow! A Jewish legend relates how a certain Rabbi had been hiding in a cave for thirteen years from his persecutors, where he was miraculously fed. After a time, he observed that when he laid his snare, the bird escaped or was caught, according as a voice from heaven proclaimed “Mercy” or “Destruction.” Jesus says that if even a sparrow cannot be caught without heaven’s bidding, how much more is your life worth to God, who knows ‘even the number of hairs on your head’? And all of this is very real and very true. God loves each of us so much that He sent Jesus to die on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins! But it seems to me that we lose a little bit of our reverence…our respect…our deep-seated awe of God… when we loose our fear of Him!

          If God were to suddenly appear in the fellowship hall and let His presence be known, I’m sure that I would have the same ashen look on my face, the same knots in my stomach, the same feeling of irrational fear that overcame me as I was walking towards the rustling noise I heard in the basement those many years ago. But that fear would be based on a fear of the unknown. We have been conditioned to believe that there has to be a logical, explainable, scientific answer to everything in the universe. And frankly, God doesn’t have a logical, scientific explanation! God is God! And yes, my knees would be shaking as I walked into that room! But that’s not the kind of fear that Jesus is referring to in today’s verses.

          Jesus tells his disciples that even though people might be able to kill the body, they are not be able to kill the soul. Only God can destroy both soul and body in hell. It is far more fearful to disobey God than to face martyrdom. The worst that people can do (kill the body) does not compare with the worst that God can do.

Keith Miller says, “It has never ceased to amaze me that we Christians have developed a kind of selective vision which allows us to be deeply and sincerely involved in worship and church activities and yet almost totally pagan in the day-in, day-out guts of our business lives . . . and never realize it.” If we see God only as a loving, forgiving God then the temptation to partake of some of the worlds’ offerings is a lot easier to give in to. After all, we can just pray for forgiveness afterwards and everything will be alright, right?

          Jesus says NO! In Matt 16:24-28 he says, “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. What profit is there if you gain the whole world-and lose eternal life” Which ties in to today’s verses. “If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will find it.”

          Being a Christian isn’t always easy. We want to be a part of and accepted by the world that we live in. So if God is so understanding, what’s the harm in being a little worldly? We have lost our fear of God…our fear of hell! Teddy Roosevelt said to “Talk softly and carry a big stick.” And when we listen to the loving words of Jesus…when we hear how much God knows us and loves us…and we know that His fairness and judgment is not the same as our own…we too often forget that there is also that ‘big stick’ in the background…Hell!

          The Life Application Commentary says that “The gospel takes us by surprise. We think we have life pretty well figured; then God upsets our schemes. For example, ambitious life goals are without a doubt one of the strongest aspirations a person can have — incentive, drive, challenge, direction. Then God announces, “Wrong! This is not my way!” Without Christ, ambition is pointless and challenge misdirected. But a life surrendered to Christ gains eternal focus and divine incentive.”

          Our God is an Awesome God. He does, indeed, reign from heaven above. He knows when a sparrow falls from the sky. He knows how many hairs are on your head. And He knows when you are being faithful to Him and when your not! And to some people, that should be VERY frightening!