Fear, Love, and Engagement

A Sermon Preached at Hanover Street Presbyterian Church

On Palm Sunday, March 20, 2005

By the Rev. Thomas C. Davis, Ph.D.

Texts:

Matthew 21: 1-11

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, ?Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me.  If anyone says anything to you, just say this, "The Lord needs them."  And he will send them immediately.  This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying ?Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'  The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.  A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.  The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, ?Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest heaven!' When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, saying, ?This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.'

Matthew 27: 11-38

Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, ?Are you the King of the Jews?'  Jesus said, ?You say so.'  But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer.  Then Pilate said to him, ?Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?'  But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.  Now at the festival the governor was accustomed to release a prisoner for the crowd, anyone whom they wanted.  At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Jesus Barabbas.  So after they had gathered, Pilate said to them, ?Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?'  For he realized that it was out of jealously that they had handed him over.  While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, ?Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for today I have suffered a great deal because of a dream about him.'  Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus killed.  The governor again said to them, ?Which of the two do you want me to release to you?'  And they said, ?Barabbas.'  Pilate said to them, ?Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?'  All of them said, ?Let him be crucified!'  Then he asked, ?Why, what evil has he done?'  But they shouted all the more, ?Let him be crucified!'  So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ?I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.'  Then the people as a whole answered, ?His blood be on us and on our children!'  So he released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.  Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole cohort around him.  They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on his head.  They put a reed in his right hand and knelt before him and mocked him, saying, ?Hail, King of the Jews!'  They spat on him, and took the reed and struck him on the head.  After mocking him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him.  Then they led him away to crucify him.  As they went out, they came upon a man from Cyrene named Simon; they compelled this man to carry his cross.  And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull), they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall; but when he tasted it, he would not drink it.  And when they had crucified him, they divided his clothes among themselves by casting lots; then they sat down there and kept watch over him.  Over his head they put the charge against him, which read, ?This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.'  Then two bandits were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. 

1 John 4: 16b-19

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.  Love has been perfected among us in this:  that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.  There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.  We love because he first loved us.

Sermon Text

Let me share one more reading, this one from last week's news, where Ashley Smith relates her conversation with Brian Nichols, after he allegedly shot a judge and a court reporter and a Sheriff's deputy in Atlanta, then beat a man, stole his car, and finally ended up at Ashley's apartment, where he held her hostage.  She said:

"He needed hope for his life. He told me that he was already dead. He said, "Look at me, look at my eyes. I am already dead."

And I said, "You are not dead. You are standing right in front of me. If you want to die, you can. It's your choice."

"But after I started to read to him, he saw -- I guess he saw my faith and what I really believed in. And I told him I was a child of God and that I wanted to do God's will. I guess he began to want to. That's what I think."

Usually on Palm Sunday we focus on the story about Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the one where an adoring crowd waves palm branches at Jesus as they sing:  ?Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'   But the Palm Sunday lectionary includes other stories, like the ones Richard read this morning--tragic stories, violent stories.  If you read these other stories carefully, something astonishing turns up:  Some of the same people who were praising and adoring Jesus the day he rode into Jerusalem, must have turned on him the very next day,  yelling "crucify him, crucify him!" 

Why do I say that some of the same people must have turned on him?  Well, look at the details.  The first story we heard this morning says that the whole city of Jerusalem was in turmoil over the arrival of the prophet from Nazareth. The Palm Sunday story suggests that a great many people, masses of people, were coming to adore Jesus.  Their enthusiasm was making other people nervous, namely, the ones in charge of maintaining public order.  You see, Rome had only so much patience.  The empire would nor tolerate religious disagreements that might flame up into revolution.  That had happened before, and Rome always reacted with an iron fist.  Rome preferred not to control people by force, because that made them angrier and more prone to revolt in the long run.  So, the Romans struck an agreement with influential Jews: You keep your people in line, and we'll let you practice your religion.  Jesus was beginning to threaten that delicate agreement, because his charismatic authority was undermining the official authority of Jewish priests and elders. So they decided to kill him before he had a chance to touch off an uprising that would surely bring a Roman backlash.

In the second story this morning we learn that "the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for the release of Barabbas, and have Jesus killed."  Why would the crowds do that?  Why would they turn so quickly on someone they admired and demand his death?   Well, you've heard about mob mentality.   Sociologists have observed that there is great volatility in masses of people.  A crowd can easily be swayed.  What swayed them in this instance?  How did the chief priests and the elders persuade many of Jesus' fans to turn on him?  Seems to me they must have used fear tactics.  They probably said something like this:  "People, we've got to nip this in the bud.  Some are starting to call this man ?King of the Jews,'  The Romans don't like that one bit.  Why, they're just looking for an excuse to come at us with their legions and tear down the temple!  This man Jesus is dangerous.  If you value your own safety, renounce him! You don't want to be on the wrong side if trouble starts, do you?

So, what got Jesus killed?  He died at the hands of angry people, obviously; but it wasn't just anger that killed him, it was fear.  And what is the motivation for terrorism today?  Anger, surely.  But under that anger lies fear?fear that one's way of life will be irretrievably lost, or that one will remain forever a displaced, marginal person, without work, without power, without hope, without dignity.  What tends to impress us most about violent persons is their fury and ruthless brutality, but their terrifying exterior masks a terrified, vulnerable interior.  The terror they inflict upon others is a counterbalance to their own terror within.  Example:  Men who beat their wives are absolute babies inside.  They are terrified of not being able to control their wives, and also terrified of being abandoned by them.

The mistake that society often makes with violent people is to try to eradicate their violence with counter violence.  Listen, oh citizens of Wilmington, a city plagued by killing:  We won't eradicate the root of violence, fear, by using more violence against the perpetrators.  That just throws fuel on the fire.  We can't banish fear by intimidation.  So, how can we cast fear out, then?  Our scripture today tells us how:  Perfect love casts out fear.  That and only that?love, so strong it makes fear--even for one's own life--less important.

When Brian Nichols walked into the court room, he must have been full of fear about his trial.  The evidence against him was strong.  It didn't look like he had any chance of getting off.  His fear made him do something violent and stupid.  He stole a woman bailiff's gun, shot a judge, and two other people in the courtroom, then stole a car after assaulting its owner, then escaped and finally invaded Ashley Smith's home,  threatening her with guns. 

Brian Nichols was governed by fear, but Ashley Smith was not.  Her compassion for him eventually outweighed her fear.  I guess by now you've heard the details of her story:  How she addressed him calmly and gently, how she asked him to spare her life so that she could visit her daughter who had no other caretaker and was expecting her visit on the morrow; how Ashley ended up reading to Brian and talking to him most of the night about God and what purpose his life might have; how in the morning she fixed pancakes for him; and how, in the end, he let her drive away, cell phone in hand, knowing that she would call the police.  "I am already dead inside," he had told her. " Look at my eyes.  I am already dead."  The tale makes your blood run cold.  But Ashley's faith in God and her compassion for a suffering soul was stronger than her fear.  Perfect love casts out fear, or can.  "You're not dead," she replied.  You're standing right in front of me.  If you want to die, you can.  It's your choice."  Brian didn't want to die.  When the police came, he gave up peacefully by waving a white T-shirt.  He could have gone down in a hail of bullets.  He chose not to.  It was Ashley's compassion for him that saved his life.  He had called her an angel. 

Now I know that kind and gentle people don't always succeed in disarming tortured souls who are demented by fear and anger .  The southern writer Flannery O'Conner wrote a chilling story about a crime victim who pleaded for her life and then got slaughtered.  I'm not saying that love always wins in this world.  For heaven's sake, consider Jesus!  He exhibited the most exemplary love; but still he did not succeed in diminishing the fear in his enemies; and they crucified him.  No, love does not always succeed in casting out fear.  People like Ashley Smith who love deeply are not motivated by prudence. There might indeed be good reason for them to fear, and they may still fear despite their loving, as Ashley did.  But what is different about them is that their love is stronger than any other emotion or concern.  They place themselves in God's hands and love extravagantly; one might even say illogically, and let be what will be.

I have called this sermon Fear, Love, and Engagement.  What I mean by engagement is that when a person loves enough to put his fear in the background, if not to purge it completely, then he or she may gain the ability to engage a threatening person, as Ashley did.  She got through to Brian because her compassion for him was stronger than her fear; and that made it possible for her to engage him in conversation that won his trust and diminished his fear to the point that he could begin thinking clearly, instead of just reacting.  If one is motivated primarily by fear one cannot possibly engage others in any sort of transforming conversation.  A soul beset by fear must either strike the other down, run away, or keep the other at arm's length.  To engage the other is unthinkable for such a frightened one.  But when love manages at least to put fear in the background, if not to purge it completely,  in other words, when fear is not one's primary motivator, then engagement and transformation may be possible, both for oneself and the other.

Now, I hope that these sermon reflections about fear and love and engagement don't encourage any person in an abusive relationship that's growing more and more  abusive to stick it out, hoping beyond hope that through self-sacrifice one will somehow pull off a miracle.  Relationships marked by fear and abuse that have been getting worse and worse for a long time are not likely to get better.  Instead, they are likely to end in serious injury or death.  Love for oneself dictates that there is a time to disengage, to seek protection, and leave the abuser to deal with his own insecurities. 

I have talked quite a bit about feelings this morning, how fear can make people hate, and how compassion for threatening people can sometimes shrink one's fear and make it possible to engage them.  But I hope that you haven't taken this sermon as a lecture on controlling your feelings.  Ashley didn't conquer her fear by being brave.  She was able to put her fear in the background and engage Brian because of her faith in God, because she was able to put herself in God's hands.  That's what gave her courage to engage a very frightening person.  The perfect love that casts out fear, about which the Bible speaks, is a love for God, who is the source of all compassion.  Paul said that whether we live or whether we die, we are in Christ.  That's the love that Ashley had foremost in her mind those seven hours that Brian was in her house.  That's the love that helped her pay more attention to Brian's hurt than to her fear.  That's the love that can work miracles.