whom shall I fear?

The psalm we read today, begins with :

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?”

 

‘The Lord is my light’, for the people who first heard this, light was the sun, or moon and stars. Other than natural light it was a small lamp that burnt oil.

 

One article I read this week commented that : God gives us just a pottery lamp’s worth of light, just enough to take a few more steps.[i]

 

Just enough light to see to take the next step, and sometimes not quite enough to see where our foot will land.

 

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?”

For many, the fear is the unknown, the not knowing two, or twenty, steps ahead. 

 

We have this idea in our western culture that we can plan for the future, that we can decide what we will and won’t do; to a certain extent that is true. I decided what I ate for breakfast this morning, cereal and toast, but I didn’t get to decide what the weather would be like. And no-one knows when our lives will take a dramatic turn.

 

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?”

Some of us fear looking foolish, making mistakes; so we resist trying anything a little different.

Some of us fear death, some of us fear life.

 

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?

 

But then I noticed it is whom, not what, shall I fear? So a person or group?

Reading the paper, watching the news, and checking out some social media websites, I think we fear people we don’t know. In this country we fear refugees, we fear indigenous people, we fear Muslims, we fear young people. Except for the ones we know.

 

 

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?”

 

This isn’t to suggest that there aren’t risky places in our community, though Engadine and Heathcote are quite safe places to live; and it isn’t to suggest that there are not risky places and situations in our country and the world. But if we find our place in this life, and in whatever comes after this life, in God; what do we really have to fear?

 

….

 

Looking at the reading from Matthew’s gospel for a moment.  we hear about ordinary people amidst their ordinary everyday world, when Jesus calls them to do something extraordinary. He calls the four fishermen to follow him. In the midst of our everyday activities, Jesus calls us to follow him.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to leave everything behind and follow Jesus, a travelling Rabbi, then try and work out what it means to follow Jesus while living in a community, paying a mortgage, raising children, going to work and school, going about the ordinary everyday tasks that come with life.

Often with this passage we talk about call, and particular calls, but to me this passage is about the call to discipleship.

Jesus called the four fishermen to follow him, no altar call for eternal life, no dangling carrot of the reward of heaven or the terror of an eternity in hell. Jesus said : follow me.

And they followed, and saw Jesus teaching,  proclaiming and healing.  We too can follow Jesus, we can listen to his teaching, we can proclaim the good news of God’s love and we can witness to the healing power of love and hope.

I wonder what it means to you, and what it has meant to you, to follow Jesus, to be a disciple, a learner , an apprentice in the kingdom of God?

 

Young men would go to a Rabbi, in hope of being his student, a bit like applying to university. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus doesn’t wait for people to come to him, he invites people, even people who caught fish for a living, to come and learn and live in a  new way.

 

We too are invited to live this new way, we are invited to follow Jesus, to be disciples, to learn, to welcome, to offer healing. And to be changed, because we can’t be in a relationship with Jesus and not be changed.

 

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?”

I wonder if we fear Jesus, if we fear his call to follow, the call to follow one whose life was offered for the transforming of the world.

…

Earlier I showed you the picture of all the finalists in the Australian of the year awards; The Chair of the National Australia Day Council, Adam Gilchrist said:

"In Adam, Fred, Jacqueline and Tim we have fellow Australians who live their values every day, who have achieved great success and also use their success to help others and make a difference.

"They inspire us to be better Australians and their contributions make Australia a better place to live." [http://www.australianoftheyear.org.au/]

 

What were the values that Jesus lived every day?

In what ways do we live these values every day?

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[i] James Howell; Working Preacher