Scripture: Matthew 28:1-11; Psalm 27; Isaiah 35:1-7,10
It’s funny how small, chance happenings can connect to different parts of your life sometimes and cause you to see things in different ways. You don’t know what’s causing me to say that, so let me tell you.
After Christmas last year Ava and I decided to spend a few days in Washington, D. C. visiting a few museums and such. We were mainly interested in seeing the new Museum of the American Indian, which we did, and which we enjoyed, but which was also very crowded and difficult to get around and see things, so eventually we ran out of energy and patience and headed off down Independence Ave. toward some other places we had in mind. The Hirschhorn Museum of Sculpture was not one of them, but as it happened we found ourselves passing the Hirschhorn, and as we did we were struck by a large mural on the upper part of the building that consisted of what appeared to be writings in different languages. It made us curious but we had no clue what any of it said.
We went on to visit the other places we wanted to see but eventually came back to the Hirschhorn where Ava located the explanation of what the mural was all about. It was a work done by an artist named Jim Hodges from New York City and what he had done was to approach each one of the delegates to the United Nations and asked them to write something in their own handwriting using the words and the script of their native language. He didn’t just ask them to write something. He asked them all to write the same thing, and what he asked them all to write was this: “Don’t be afraid.” And then after he collected back these “don’t be afraid” sayings in the language, script, and personal handwriting of UN delegates from all over the world, he put them all together and turned them into a work of art, digitalized so that it could be small billboard or, as it was in this case, an enormous banner or mural spread out over the streets of Washington.
“Don’t be afraid.” Hmmm! Interesting, I thought. Not sure what he had in mind, which is often the case for me, looking at a work of art—not sure what he or she had in mind there. In this case there were come clues though. Since he had approached the United Nations delegates with this idea, I figured maybe it had something to do with world peace, a variation on the Christmas card that has the word peace printed in several different languages, in this case a little more creative than that and carrying the additional message that maybe what stands most of all in the way of peace is our fear of one another. Don’t be afraid could be an encouragement to others not to be afraid, not to act out of fear. It could have the connotation of “don’t be afraid of me…I mean you no harm.” In one case, I later found out, a delegate chose to interpret the phrase as “I am not frightened.” The idea apparently resonated with the delegates. More than 90 contributed their personal version of “don’t be afraid”. A few didn’t respond at all. The one office that officially declined sent back the template that was supposed to have been written on along with a brief letter that concluded, “federal ethics regulations, however, prohibit the Ambassador from participating in this project.” I will leave you to imagine what country that might have been.
Now of course this is not a new area of thought, the idea that we live in an atmosphere of fear and that we need encouragement not to be afraid. As far as world politics and world peace goes we live in a time when terror and terrorism is the topic of the day. It ought to be the case, but too seldom is the case, that when we talk about how to deal with terrorism, we talk not just about how to prevent violent attacks against civilian populations but also talk about how to deal with the fear that terrorism is meant to instill, and has largely succeeded in instilling. In that context, “don’t be afraid” seems like a rather simplistic admonition. Easier said than done.
But however that may be, I think it would be hard to deny that fear is a major theme in our public life at just about every level. People engage in the politics of fear, supporting candidates and advocating for policies based not so much on positive visions but on the fear of what might happen and the need to protect ourselves. Movies trade on the fear of various kinds of possible disasters. So does so called reality tv and tv news which influences so much our view of reality. I’ve read that the most effective approach for fund raising is an appeal based on fear, the terrible things that might happen if we don’t give to this organization or that cause, and I’ve certainly received plenty of appeals myself with just that approach, many of them from organizations I am otherwise sympathetic to. None of this is new territory for me. It’s long been apparent that there’s way too much fear in the air these days, and that it’s not good for us. It’s not good for our politics. It’s not good for our culture. It’s not good for our physical or emotional health. And it’s not good for our souls.
So OK. In one sense…”Don’t be afraid.”…nice sentiment. But nothing new really. Nothing dramatic in a way that would make you sit up and pay attention. Except that it did for me in a quiet sort of way. It caught my attention. Maybe it was the fact that it was the Christmas season and I was still hearing the scriptures from Christmas and that the message “Don’t be afraid” was an echo of angels, angels telling Joseph not to be afraid, or saying to shepherds, “do not be afraid, for I bring you good news of great joy which shall come to all the people.” And then I started hearing echoes of all the other places in scripture where the message is “do not be afraid”. You heard three of them this morning, in the story of the empty tomb and in the readings from the Hebrew scriptures. I did some research on this. There are 67 places just in the New Testament where it is written, “Do not be afraid,” not counting other phrases that may mean essentially the same thing but say it in a different way. One writer noted that the most frequently repeated commandment in scripture is not one of the original 10. It is, “do not be afraid”. Anyway, without knowing all that at the time, I started thinking, over the course of several days in December, how often that phrase cropped up in scripture, how important that message seemed to be, how it would crop up again at Easter as angels and Jesus himself would speak to the women at the empty grave and later to other disciples with the message, “Do not be afraid.” In fact I began to think that this is the heart of the Easter message, and so far as the Easter message is at the heart of Christianity, “do not be afraid” may be one of the core messages of our faith. And so it came to be, I have to confess this to you, that I thought to myself, “I think this may need to be my Easter sermon this year.” This is a curse of being a preacher that you can be enjoying a work of art, reading a good novel, or doing just about anything, and the thought can pop into your head: “I think I could use that in a sermon”. So this work of art, based on the simple thought “don’t be afraid”, actually ended up helping me think about my faith and experience my faith in a way that I sort of had before, but sort of hadn’t before.
One reason that message may not have taken on quite that much importance to me in the past is that I had always thought of it as a part of the Christian message that was not quite “real”, in the sense that you hear it and say to yourself, “oh, c’mon, let’s get real here.” Fear is not a feeling anyone wants to have. It comes naturally and spontaneously and just saying “don’t be afraid” doesn’t make it go away. Any more than telling someone not to be depressed is likely to make them less depressed. If the feeling is there, it’s there. And you don’t just sort of wish it away or even command it away. And there are plenty of times when there is good reason for fear, when it’s understandable and maybe even serves a good purpose. So I’ve always sort of skimmed over those sayings when I encountered them in scripture, not taken them really seriously. “Do not be anxious,” Jesus says, “about your life, what you shall eat or drink or wear”, and I sort of think to myself, “yeah, right”. He doesn’t really mean it. He means don’t let your anxiety get in the way of considering the lilies. He means don’t let your anxiety get in the way of knowing God’s love for you, or in the way of your love for others. He means don’t let your anxiety get in the way of your seeking the kingdom of God. Put first things first. It’s one of my favorite passages, but Jesus doesn’t really mean it when he says, “Do not be anxious.” Nor do the scriptures really mean it any time when they tell us not to be afraid. What they really mean is “don’t let your fears get the best of you”. What they really mean is “don’t let your fears control your life”. What they really mean is “face your fears, name your fears, then deal with your fears”, not don’t have any.
Well, I’ve been reconsidering just a little bit. Not reconsidering what I just said about not letting fears get the best of you and the need to identify and confront our fears. All that’s legitimate. But reconsidering the importance of the simple message “do not be afraid”. And that process started, I think, with the mural in Washington. The artist didn’t choose to create a work of art that carried the message: “understand and confront your fears and try to keep them in proper perspective and make sure they don’t get the best of you”. That would be an ok message, a good message, a true message, an important message. It was not what he chose. Do not be afraid. At some deeper level that is also a message I need to hear. It is at a deep level the message we perhaps most need to hear.
And to speak. As the church we need to create an environment of faith not in which fear is kept in its proper place but in which fear has no place. In which the threat of hell or of being “left behind” has no role to play. In which people are not threatened or frightened into believing but are loved into believing. In which the point is not to be saved from damnation or destruction but is to move toward a greater wholeness. In which God is not just more loving than punishing but is not a God of threat or punishment at all. In which the message is clearly spoken: Do not be afraid. There is no need to be afraid.
To get back to the artist for a moment—I don’t know whether he’s a Christian or not or how he would feel about my referring to him so much in an Easter sermon, but he’ll just have to put up with the fact that his art sparked some thoughts in this Christian—I learned a little later after seeing the mural that he had first used the idea in a very personal way, had created a small sign that said “don’t be afraid” and put it in his studio so that it would remind him every day as he was working, to work, to do his art, without fear. And it does occur to me that in some way we probably all need to hear that message, to have it constantly before us. I don’t know where Jim Hodges thinks that message comes from. For those of us who are people of faith, it is a message that comes from the heart of God. It echoes through the scriptures and if we are able to hear it, it will resound in our spirits. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid.
It is not a commandment in the end. When spoken from beyond, or from someplace deep within, when the source of the words is the heart of God, it is more like an assurance. Things may not be ok, the world may not be ok, I may not be ok, whatever it is that’s on my mind that worries me may not turn out ok, but in another sense, in the most basic sense, it is ok and it will be ok. It’s alright. It’s all alright. Because whatever happens, God will be there. Even if it is the worst that could happen, crucifixion, for instance, God will be there. Don’t be afraid, God says, I am with you. Be not dismayed. I am your God. Don’t be afraid; there is nothing that can separate us. Nothing. Don’t be afraid.
And when we speak it to each other, which is also important—that we find ways to do that—when we speak it to each other it is also not a command, but more like a prayer. When we say to someone “have a good time”, it is of course not a command but a wish. I wish enjoyment for you. In like manner, when we say to someone, do not be afraid, it is not a command; it is a prayer—and an act of love. Do not be afraid. I wish you no harm. I wish for you, I pray for you, a life that is without fear.
Which is also what God says to us. It is what the angel said to the women at the tomb, and what God says to all of us. Do not be afraid. In a Good Friday world, those words don’t make much sense, because there is so much to be afraid of. In a resurrection world, it is God’s prayer for us and God’s assurance to us. Christ is risen. Don’t be afraid. May we hear those words, understand their truth, and join our voices in a chorus of praying for one another: Don’t be afraid. Amen.
Jim Bundy
April 19. 2006