Faith Trumps Fear!

This is a sermon I preached on Sunday, October 5th, 2008, World Communion Sunday....


Faith Trumps Fear!
Acts 8:26-40 (the story of Phillip meeting the Ethiopian Eunuch on the Gaza Road).


Fear fractures faith!

The tyranny of fear has been ruling our country certainly in the past two weeks as the world watches Wall Street collapse in historic proportion. Never would any of us have predicted that many of the staple names in the world of global economics no longer exist, or exist in a whole new era of tighter regulation and control.

Needless to say, our nation and perhaps even the world has tottered in fear ever since 9/11. Our lives changed forever on that day – or so many fear mongers would have us believe. Simply because, fear fractures faith, we need faith and hope to sustain us!

Several commentators I have read recently truly believe that the world, not just America, will be jettisoned back through a recession, at least into another Depression, this time dragging the rest of the world with us, and some say, we’ll go even as far as a new era Stone Age!

Clearly, I’m no financial forecaster, nor do I believe these Doomcasters! There are far better qualified people from whom to seek advice in times such as these – but I, for one, have not pulled my pension portfolio out of the various mutual funds within which they are invested!

One thing I can proclaim – and loud enough for the fear prognosticators to hear –

Faith Trumps Fear!

Fear may go a long way to fracture faith, but in the end, faith trumps fear! That needs to be our message and our hope for times such as these! We’ll be OK in the end! Our God is far greater than Lehman Brothers, far greater than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, even far greater than a 700 Billion dollar rescue plan!

In times when such terror freezes our sense of faith in the world around us, these are times when we, as communities of faith, need to be reminded that our God not just comforts us in times of trouble, our God literally comes to us in times of great need!

In times such as these and in the cold winter forecasted ahead (assuming you listen to the Farmer’s Almanac), we need to come together even more powerfully as a congregation of God’s people, of God’s Kingdom people to proclaim in our unity, a love that is more powerful than our greatest enemies, more stable and stronger than our financial markets, and more capable than our failing health systems to speak to one another and share what God has done for us – even in times such as these!

In a time when others in the newfound church were being persecuted and even killed for their faith, Phillip, most likely a newly ordained Deacon, finds himself – through the agency of the Holy Spirit, transported from one place of marginalized people (Samaria) to reaching out to an Ethiopian Eunuch, a man who is, we can surmise, almost completely opposite from himself and would have been seen as very ‘marginal’ in the eyes of the parent faith – Judaism. God’s message is clear in this text! God’s gospel, God’s Way was to be a way of radical inclusion! When the people of Philip’s time would have drawn a line at welcoming this stranger from a strange land into their midst, indeed, into their church, Philip is compelled and called by the Holy Spirit to baptize this seeker of faith from the margins!

Today is World Communion Sunday. How perfect a Sunday to share in light of all that has been happening around the world these past few weeks! We need to come together to share God’s good news with each other and to share that most precious of gifts our Lord gave to us – Holy Communion. It is the antidote to slogans of fear and terror that rock the night and grip us by day.

We are God’s communion of sojourners in life, called together in a radical inclusion as a safe harbor from all that would terrorize us ‘out there’!

Our faith trumps the fear of empires collapsing, of world markets rearranging, of high costs of heating our homes and driving our cars. When times get tough, our response needs to be bonding ourselves together in a communion of love, care and concern for one another, so that those still in the grip of fear may find a triumphant love which casts our fear perfectly!

Today, our God meets us here in this meal we will share. It is a powerful message for our day. Our God is greater than the daily news! Cling to this hope; this faith, and come home to this place, a place of radical welcome and inclusion – it is God’s Kingdom on earth!

Welcome to the table!

Amen.






Rev. John C. Weatherhogg
Grace Congregational United Church of Christ
Rutland, Vermont
October 5, 2008

In honor of my mother, who would have been 78 today! J