Being Fearless, Being Light: Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, year A

This week by a fluke I discovered a wonderful little book, called The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, by Charlie Mackesy. It’s a simple book, hand illustrated and written in brush strokes, so you might think it is for children—and it is. But it is also for adults, too—and it’s categorized as ethics. I want to share part of it with you.

The book starts off with a boy, who meets a mole. 
“Hello,” the boy says, and the boy and the mole look at each other. 
“I’m so small,” said the mole.
“Yes,” said the boy, picking up the mole. “But you make a huge difference.”
The boy then places the mole on a low-hanging branch on as tree, and climbs up to join the mole. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked the mole. 
“Kind,” replied the boy, and he is shown holding an umbrella over the mile as it rains in the tree. 
“What do you think success is?” asked the boy
 “To love,” said the mole. 

**** 

The mole is then shown looking at a beautiful three-tiered cake. “Well hello,” the mole murmurs to the cake. 

The boy and the mole are then shown walking and talking. 
“Do you have a favourite saying?” asked the boy. 
“Yes,” said the mole. “If at first you don’t succeed, have some cake.” 
“I see. Does it work?" asks the boy. 
“Every time,” the mole replied. 

****

The mole is then shown carrying a cake, setting it down and looking at it. “Just a tiny taste,” the mole says to himself, and in a series of images, we see the cake disappearing and the mole getting rounder. 

The boy and mole are walking and talking together again.
“I got you a delicious cake,” said the mole. 
“Did you?” 
 “Yes.” 
“Where is it?” 
“I ate it,” said the mole. 
“Oh.”
“But I got you another.”
“Did you? Where is that one?”
“The same thing seems to have happened,” the mole observes.

****

The boy and the mole are back sitting on the branch in the tree, facing each other. The boy speaks: “What do you think is the biggest waste of time?”
“Comparing yourself to others,” said the mole. 
“I wonder if there is a school of unlearning."
We see a picture of a mole with glasses and a cane. The mole continues, “Most of the old moles I know wish they had listened less to their fears and more to their dreams.” 

****

The boy and the mole are shown sitting on a rock, looking out at a field or moor. 
“What is that over there?” asks the boy. 
“It’s the wild,” said the mole. “Don’t fear it.” 
The two friends begin walking in the moor alongside a stream, and the mole remarks, “Imagine how we would be if we were less afraid.” (1)

****

“Imagine how we would be if we were less afraid.”

What an amazing observation. It’s actually what the gospel is all about, too. And I was thinking about this observation in light of the fact that today is also Scouting Sunday, and so, although I don’t want to put our Scouts on the spot, I was wondering if you would care to share the Scout Oath with us?

On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.  

I am struck by the similarity of the principles of Scouting and the principles of being a faithful person. Scouts are also called to be dedicated, brave, loyal, and engaged with the community around them. You don’t become a Scout just for yourself, or just to collect merit badges. You also don’t just become a Scout for a season of your life. Scouting and groups like it are a lifelong community of people dedicated to working for the good of the greater community. It’s a life dedicated to sacrifice, in the best sense. Just like in our religious lives, being committed to a cause greater than yourself and selfish concerns makes a Scout brave, as well as reverent.

“Imagine how we would be if we were less afraid."

Our reading from Mr. Mackesy’s book and the principles of Scouting support the point of our readings today. As an observer of human nature and child of the Bible Belt, I learned early on that a lot of times people engaged in religious behavior when they are afraid—I noticed this when I was a little kid. When the tornado flew over our house when I was ten, and landed the next block over, as we huddled under the mattresses—except for my dad, who was keeping company with some guy named Jack Daniels, some guy named Marlboro, and our collie dog out in the garage—we certainly engaged in some prayer. Probably even my dad with that Jack guy and Marlboro guy.

Then as I grew older, I realized that some people were going to church out of fear. My Catholic friend told me about Holy Days of Obligation, and Confession, and dying in a state of mortal sin—and it scared me, and I was just a little towheaded Protestant. The preachers in some of the churches my mother took us to did an awful lot of describing of the Devil, and the fires of Hell, and being tossed into a lake of fire.

And I knew people who didn’t worship God so much as fear Him—and yes they always called God “Him” with a catch of fear in their voice. And it made me sad—the majority of Jesus’s words to us are meant to allay our fears, because a heart filled with fear has no room in it for love. 

Jesus spends a huge amount of his time reminding us of God’s abundance, of God’s generous love and gift of grace, probably because we live most of our lives being told to see everyone around us as competition for scarce resources, and see strangers as potential “takers of our stuff.”

In religious practice, this fear and hardheartedness often leads people to constantly try to find some magic formula that will keep God from smiting us, some calculated exchange where we try to find the least we can give so that we can still maintain the illusion that we are in control of our lives. And so they check off boxes like going to church—without ever moving to BEING the church out in the world. And it all starts out of hard-heartedness—which is almost always rooted in anger and fear.

Our readings today address those kinds of issues too. Our reading from Isaiah deals with how we can offer a sacrifice to God—what Isaiah calls a “fast”-- that would truly be holy and pleasing. At the root of Isaiah’s call to renewal is this question: How important is it to put your heart into what you do? Or is it more important to simply follow the rules and checklists of our “to-do” lists?

Fasts, especially in our world of cheap fast food, certainly are not a common practice—unless you are a religious person. Many of us have at least encountered religious people who fast at some point in the religious year. But the reading here questions empty observance of ritual without allowing true repentance to take root in our hearts. We are coming up on the season of fasting, and so it’s a good time to ask ourselves what purpose fasting serves.

It’s important to note that fasting isn’t just a Christian religious practice. Jews observe a ta’anit, or fast, on Yom Kippur and on Tisha B’Av, a day in July or August that mourns the two terrible destructions of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians and then the Romans. Muslims fast as part of the Five Pillars of Islam during the daylight hours in Ramadan, unless they are sick, pregnant, or traveling. Many Buddhists fast from meat and animal products by observing a strict diet of vegetarianism. 

Isaiah admonishes those who are using their fast to try to manipulate God without allowing God to transform them and their actions and values. This passage addresses the problem of empty worship—worship that makes the worshiper appear to be righteous, but instead is just camouflage, ultimately an empty gesture because it does not lead to a conversion of the heart and the soul.

It’s a trap that hangs there in front of all of us in this time, too. It’s easy to claim to be a Christian, or a Scout, or as a member of any other voluntary association, especially if that label gives you access to power and influence. It’s easy to claim that label but also resist or actually refuse being changed by the ideals the group stands for, such as following those commandments Christ gives, like loving your neighbor and praying for your enemies. 

I mean, who here has had a neighbor who was really hard to love? We did—Mrs. Mayes, who would call the cops on us when we flew our kites in front of her house. I kid you not. Who does that?? So loving your neighbor and praying for your enemies--THOSE are real sacrifices, too. But in Isaiah, God points out that the people are not truly engaging in sacrifice but merely participating in that same kind of magical thinking that pretends that by doing X, we can make God do Y.

Dear ones, God is NOT a puppet dancing on our strings. But the good news is, we aren’t supposed to be puppets, either. God doesn’t want empty shows of deprivation. God wants all of us—heart and soul, because God adores us that much. 

There certainly are times when our actions seem outwardly correct, but lack a conviction of the heart. This is also a common theme in scripture. Thus Isaiah reorients the term “fast” here in an unusual way—turning the concept of sacrifice on its head. Basically God is saying this: Don’t fast to me out of fear—offer your best to me and those around you out of love. Be fearless in giving to others. Be fearless in fighting wrong, even if it costs you. Don’t make a show of doing without if, after you end your fast, you continue to engage in activities that ignore the plight of the suffering, or even adds to that suffering.

Do you want to make a sacrifice that pleases me? God asks. Fight injustice and oppression. Feed the hungry and bring the poor into your home just as eagerly as you would an honored guest—which was a very serious obligation in the Mediterranean culture of that time. Clothe those who are naked. Help your family members rather than try to hide from those who need help. And do it all not out of fear, but out of love. Be fearless in living out of love, and your light will shine out for all to see. 

Through Isaiah’s words, God continues offering practical advice for those who want to LIVE as children of God in word, name, and example: Stop gossiping about others or pointing the finger of blame or shame at others. Satisfy the needs of the afflicted—those who lack safety, who are fleeing from slavery, oppression, warfare, lawlessness, racial or religious oppression, or violence. 

God makes it clear that the observation of religious ritual is empty if it does not bring about changes in one’s daily life, such as in how one treats others, as this reading points out. Ultimately God further clarifies the point of sacrifices: they are meant to give us the blessing of being holy, of being part of something larger than ourselves. Sacrifices are meant to give us the blessing of living without fear. 

And what is the result of following these kinds of sacrifices—the kind that make the person doing these kinds of sacrifices holy, blameless, and even blessed in the sight of God? Isaiah tells us that by being generous and openhearted in our own lives, God will pour out abundance within our hearts, making us joyful and even fearless in all we do in the name of God. Isaiah also promises that by offering our true fast to God, “Our lights will shine out for all to see.” Just as Jesus assures his followers in our gospel today. 

In our gospel, Jesus has just giving the Sermon on the Mount, and we hear the words right after the Beatitudes. Notice that Jesus also pointedly compares his disciples to light, just as the Isaiah reading did. Light helps us to see, and in seeing, gain knowledge and wisdom. Light is directly associated with wisdom in the word “enlightenment”—which is why we talk about “our eyes being opened” whenever we come to a new understanding, or epiphany. 

The point of enlightenment is not selfish—it’s not a “get out of hell free” card, although some people would lead you to believe so. No, truly enlightened discipleship doesn’t mean staying cloistered amongst true believers, who already live in light. Rather, Christian enlightenment calls us to go out where people dwell in darkness, and to work for their enlightenment, which in turn will build our own.

Letting your light be seen can mean not hiding your talents or beliefs, but also being authentic in your actions as well as words, and living with integrity, as Isaiah described in that first reading. 

Jesus constantly asks us to imagine how we would be if we were less afraid. Jesus’s message throughout Matthew is that kingdom of heaven is already upon us—not just somewhere off in the future. Our time to truly live as disciples is NOW, and Jesus seeks our response if we are to truly follow him and obey God’s commandments to love fearlessly and give fearlessly in heart as well as action. 

 Just like in that little book of ethical teachings about the Boy and the Mole, Jesus himself offers us a school of unlearning, as we heard in our story. Jesus challenges us to attend his school of unlearning—to unlearn the belief that we are awash in darkness, and that there is no way out. The belief that it is better to grab all you can than share what you have. The fear that there is never enough. 

Jesus calls us to turn our lives around first by denying the sway that common contempt and cruelty has in the world—and instead calling us to grow up to be kind. And then keep going in being more deeply transformed by Jesus’s radical gospel of love the more we practice true worship of God outside these doors and out in our everyday lives.

Be fearless. Be the light. Living as lights to the world is a call to be fearless in allowing Jesus’s gospel of love to transform us inwardly, and then to let that light shine through our care of each other and even people we’ve never met. It means saying yes to Jesus’s invitation to let go of fear and anxiety, to actually believe his promises of transformation, and then act of that ongoing transformation with the least of those around us.

Be fearless. Be the light.

Amen.

Preached at the 505 on February 8, and at the 8:00 and 10:30 Eucharists at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.


Readings:
Isaiah 58:1-9a, [9b-12]
Psalm 112:1-9, (10) 
1 Corinthians 2:1-12, [13-16]
Matthew 5:13-20


Citations:
1) Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, 2019. You can buy a copy of this amazing, beautiful book here.