The Fear Factor

I'm an attorney. To be more precise, I'm a civil litigator ... the kind of lawyer who fights to win disputes, in court and out, between my client and others. In the movie Clueless, the character Cher put it well when she said, "Daddy's a litigator. Those are the scariest kind of lawyer."

This past week was a big one for this litigator. I was able to settle a major class action lawsuit for a fraction of the very large demand for money that was made by my adversary. I had been working hard on this case for well over a year, chipping away at my adversary's claims, positioning the case for the best possible outcome for my client. It had kept me up nights. It had been the source of much worry for me in my waking hours.  And now, it was over ... done ... finished. I could relax.

But I couldn't relax. Within a day or two of reaching this great settlement, worries crept in: What about my other cases that received less than my full attention while this big one was going on? What time-bombs might be ticking in those neglected files? Somehow, a week for celebration became just another week of worries. How did I manage to do that to myself? If I'm the scariest kind of lawyer, why am I running scared?

Munch's The Scream

I'm not alone as a worrier. I know that my father battled anxieties. He wrote at least six sermons I've found in the barrel talking about worry. My dad described my past week to a T when he wrote, "[I]f we don't have big things to worry about, we find little things to worry about. If there is nothing at all, then we usually find ourselves being anxious over what might happen. This all goes to prove that anxiety is a basic human condition. On the surface, it shows itself in many ways, attaches itself to many concerns -- whether they be large or small or nonexistent -- but underneath it is a condition of spiritual insufficiency that wells up within us, finding its expression within us in these many ways. ... [I]f we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that we are not just afraid of this or that, but that we are simply afraid, period. We are by nature fearful."

Why are we, by nature, so fearful? There is "a condition of sin that infests every one of us ... a basic defiant spirit in us that causes us to misuse our God-given freedom and to think that we are self-reliant and independent ... a persistent drive that tells us that life will be better if we assume total responsibility for ourselves. That is sin; that is rebellion against God. [I]t results in fear and anxiety because, try as we may, we can't take care of ourselves. Time and again we flub, or we get tired of holding up the front of self-sufficiency, and anxiety creeps in. We discover that by our own choice we are out there all alone, and we're just not equal to it." 

Jesus had something to say to us as we struggle with our anxieties. My father paraphrased Jesus' words from the Sermon on the Mount this way:

• Of course if things you value are perishable, you're always going to be in a quandary over them. Why not value imperishable spiritual values which can never be taken away from you?
• And, of course, you're going to be up tight if you try to serve two competing loyalties. Then you can't be true to either one. Make up your mind. Will it be God or money?
• How ridiculous it is to worry about food and drink and clothing and houses and cars and the rest. Tend to the important things first, and God will give you what you really need. Would he have created you without providing the means for your care?
• And don't be anxious about tomorrow.  Just do your best to plan for it; tackle it with all you've got, and then step back and leave the results up to God. With all the worrying everybody ever did, when has it ever done them any good? 

"How do you find this simple faith that lets you be at peace? ... This is what it takes: No more struggle and work on your part. Just a simple realization that God is always there, all the time, supporting your very existence. Your beauty and security as a person -- the full flowering of your humanity -- is found in the simple acceptance of your total dependence upon God. [It is found] in recognizing the fact that you are God's child, and then just being it -- just as a bird is a bird and a lily is a lily -- with no thought of trying to be more. This is faith."

From: "Crippled By Anxiety"

Scripture: Matthew 6:19-34

The Peaceable Kingdom

When I moved recently to Newtown, Pennsylvania, I was pleasantly surprised to learn of this little borough's rich history. Among other things, Newtown was the home of Edward Hicks, a Quaker preacher and sign-painter who became a well-known American primitive artist. To be more accurate, I should say Hicks is well-known to some. Not so much to my dad. In a sermon I found in his barrel, Dad wrote, "Last month on vacation I observed some paintings by an early American artist -- Hunter or Harris, I don't remember his name -- whose favorite theme was what he called 'The Peaceable Kingdom,' taken from the great peace text in Isaiah 11:6-8 about the lion and the lamb lying down together. He painted many variations of this theme" -- more than sixty by some counts.  Here's an example from a museum I visited last year, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco:

The Peaceable Kingdom - Edward Hicks

While my dad forgot Mr. Hicks' name, the people of Newtown never did. In fact, they erected a statue in his honor at a local playground, giving three dimensions to Hicks' famously flat depiction of the lion lying down with the lamb:

  

My father was drawn to Hicks' Peaceable Kingdom for a reason that isn't evident in the Newtown statue his paintings inspired. Hicks painted many varied images of this prophetic scene that many Christians associate with the end of time, "but always somewhere on the picture was a minute scene of William Penn signing a treaty with the Indians. Why? Because the artist was absolutely convinced that Penn's Treaty with the Indians marked the beginning of God's reign of peace on earth. ... [P]eople have been making incorrect identifications of [historic] events with Biblical predictions for centuries. ... This kind of [end times] speculation is still going on today, and it is just as spurious. It may seem harmless enough in itself, and it may be an interesting pastime, but the danger in it is the do-nothing attitude it creates as we sit and wait for God to do his thing. This approach [to the notion of peace on earth] has consciously or unconsciously rubbed off on many of us. It claims to be Biblical, but it is not."

"From beginning to end, the Bible sees the people of God as working strenuously to bring reconciliation and peace to the relationships between persons and God, between individual persons, and between groups of persons. In fact, there is a sense in which reconciliation of man to God and man to man is the whole mission and message of the Church. There is no reason for any of us to stand by looking at the terror and destruction in our world with a pious, smug attitude that this is the way it must be. The Bible never counsels this."

"In the Bible, peace, like the Kingdom of God in which it flourishes, is both a present reality and a future hope. When Jesus spoke about the Kingdom, he described it as if it were the early minutes of a beautiful sunrise. The first rays, perhaps even a hint of the sun itself, is clearly visible, but the viewer knows that soon the whole brilliant fiery ball itself will be above the horizon. And so peace is something for the here and now as well as for there and then. We have it here and now within our hearts through knowing God, and we also see it around us in significant islands and pockets, wherever love is being shown person to person."

"With all the hate and degradation there is in the world today, it is truly amazing how much good will and mercy we can see all around us if we are really looking for the Kingdom of God. Look at the lives that are being changed; look at all the many movements there are today promoting freedom and development and human[ dignity.] These are the first rays of the sunrise; the first fruits of the Kingdom. We know not when or how [peace] will finally come in all its glory, but we do know that for now, at least, God chooses to make it happen through us. Whether God continues to use us in this great work will depend on how faithful we will be. We can never rest or withdraw. The People of God, spurred by the first rays of the sun, are committed to action and involved in peacemaking because we believe peace is possible. Yes, even more, we know peace is coming. We know this because we follow the Prince of Peace."  

From "Is Peace Possible?"
Texts: Micah 4:1-4, Isaiah 11:6-8
Preached at Grace UMC, Millersville, PA

A Labor Day Chat With Bill

I dug through the barrel this weekend to see what my dad had to say about Labor Day. It turns out he had preached no less than six sermons on the subject of work. These sermons had a common theme -- that work done right is an act of worship. Dad put it this way: "Work done in the best possible way, with the best possible attitude, is a vital part of our worship of God." 

2014 Newtown UM Church Youth Mission Team
Hard At Work! 

To flesh this out further, here's my interview of Bill Newcomer on the subject of work. The questions are mine. The answers are his (from his sermons of course). 

Q. Bill, I mean Dad, when you say that work is a vital part of our worship, what does that mean? 

A. "[We must begin by examining our] definition of worship. ... Worship is, first and foremost, coming into the awesome presence of Almighty God and offering to Him all the praise and honor and glory we can muster. [We've] thought of worship as a theraputic counseling session where problems are solved ... [or] as a time of spiritual refueling for another week ahead ... [or as] a way to atone for sins[.] ... But none of these is the primary meaning of worship. Worship is not directed to ourselves for our own benefit. Rather, it is a spontaneous outpouring of praise and gratitude toward God. ... It is in this sense of the word 'worship' -- praise directed toward God -- that our daily work can become part of our worship."

Q. But isn't worship something we do on the Sabbath, when we rest from our work?

A. "Here's where the fallacy of this way of thinking lies. God is not the creator and sustainer of the religious realm only but also of the secular life; Indeed, [it is a fallacy] to speak of two different realms such as the religious and the secular. ... God created everything -- secular and sacred -- and He pronounced it good. God is as interested in the man swinging a hammer or adding a column of figures as God is in the man singing a hymn or repeating a prayer. What's more, the religious acts of praise we express in our church worship services are meaningless and hypocritical unless they are accompanied by our daily works of praise. ... [W]e must come to the place where we see that no vocation is really performed well unless it is performed in the knowledge that it is a service to God, that it is meant to glorify Him, that it is an act of worship."

Q. There are days, more than I care to admit, when my work feels less like an act of praise to God and more like a burden, or a series of frustrations, or even drudgery. Why is work like this?

A. "Even the most highly dedicated individual cannot get away at times from feeling like his or her vocation is a hardship or a drudgery. But you see, this is where sin enters the picture. Sin is the thing that infects and perverts our attitude towards work. ... When in his sin, man chose to ignore God and  be a god unto himself, his work took on a new, frantic tone. Before the Fall, work was man's way of thanking God; now, without God, it is his way of self-preservation, self-salvation, actually. Man had to build his own security, so he worked harder and harder, longer and longer. Work became a defiant act of independence, where before it had been a loving act of dependence. And this drained away the joy. Work became a curse."

Q. Well, that's depressing. What hope is there of re-capturing a sense of worship in my work when work has become our curse?

A. "Thank God, this [curse] is not the end of the story. For God did not leave us in our sin. He prepared a way of salvation in his son, Jesus. He is the Redeemer who sets us free from the clutches of sin. By his cross and his resurrection, he sets life right again. Both gradually and instantaneously, we begin to experience life as it was meant to be lived under his Lordship. Every area of our life can be changed. This means our work life can be changed too."

Q. How does our work life change? How does Jesus redeem our work life?

A. "[Our] gratitude to God for the undeserved gift of salvation constrains us to offer up our daily work as a holy and acceptable sacrifice and to direct it in accordance with God's will in the service of one another. Work then is no loner an idolatrous end-in-itself, and it no longer involves us in the vanity of seeking to gratify our own selfish ambitions because it is directed to the service of God and is an expression of gratitude to God. ... [Work is redeemed] simply by doing your task competently for the good of humanity as a fellow worker with God in the preservation and development of God's creation. ... [Then,] when we enter the church door on Sunday morning, and we bring with us the accomplishments and experiences that have been ours over the past week, it is as though they are all spread out before God along with our prayers and hymns and sermons and anthems. It is as if we are laying our lives on the table, saying, 'Here, Lord, is my 24-hour-a-day life. All of it. It is the greatest gift -- the greatest act of praise I can render to Thee. It is what I spend most of my time and talent and energy doing. It is my highest worship.'"   

-from "Worshipful Work" & "Work in God's Plan"
Scripture Lesson: Genesis 1:24-2:3