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What Are You Afraid Of?
Text: John 4:18; Luke 1:30
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Advent IV, December 20, 1992
Transcription of the spoken sermon
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. I John 4:18
Do not be afraid, Mary... Luke 1:30
In Advent, 1992, we’re asking significant questions that have to do with our
human existence and our relationship to God: Do you really think that he will
come - this one who came? Will he come again? Do you expect that? Is there life
after life? Hell? In these weeks, although we have answered those questions in
less than traditional ways, we have affirmed again our Christian faith. We have
affirmed that the God of our beginning is the God of our end, and the God of our
meantime, that God is with us and that the last word is Grace. And if that is the
case, then, “What Are You Afraid of?” What are the fears that dog your steps?
What are the fears that haunt the inner sanctum of your heart? Fear, Henri
Nouwen says, is so characteristic of our lives today that one could speak of our
living in “a house of fear.” Fears that are very personal. Fears that are connected
with those we love. Fears connected with the situation of the world and the
destiny of the cosmos. Category after category of fearful thoughts that often take
possession of us. We live in “a house of fear.” Nouwen, in his little book Lifesigns,
invites us to move from “a house of fear” into a house of love - the house
constituted by Jesus Christ, our Lord, the one who came at Christmas and whose
Advent we celebrate again, and whose birth we will remember this week. To move
from the house of fear to the house of love is the invitation of the Christmas
Gospel.
Easier said than done perhaps, but let’s for just a bit of time think about the
perspective of the writer of this first letter of John, for he tells us that fear and
love cannot coexist. Oh well, I suppose that’s too strong a statement. As a matter
of fact they do coexist in the hearts of us all. But to the extent that there is love,
there will be an absence of fear. And to the extent that there is fear, there will be
an absence of love.
If we did a little word association, if I gave you a word and you were to come up
with the opposite… if I said, “high,” I suppose you would say, “low.” And if I said,
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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“black” you would say, “white.” If I said, “hot” you would say, “cold.” If I said,
“love,” what would you say? Hate? I think there was a time when I would have
said that hate is the opposite of love, but I don’t think so any more. I think,
according to John in this letter, the opposite of love is fear. Perfect love, he says,
“casts out fear.” Love and fear are at enmity with one another. It’s like light and
darkness. To the extent that the light is there, the darkness is absent. To extent
that it is dark, the light is absent. To the extent that the heart is filled with love,
fear is absent. To the extent that fear controls the heart, love is absent. The
opposite of love is fear. Fear is the root of all that destructive behavior, of evil and
darkness. Destructive behavior, born of fear, impinges upon our selves and
reaches out to all of those whose lives we touch. When we are afraid we are
destructive. When we are afraid we cannot love, and we cannot live lovingly. So
John in a very interesting association suggests that love casts out fear. He says,
“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 in the Day
of Judgment, because as He is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love.
Perfect love casts out fear.
In this Advent season when we have been talking about the last things - the last
events - that final encounter - judgment - Hell? -I find it rather interesting that
John associates love as the absence of fear, fear particularly related to the Day of
Judgment. Now you say to me, “Well, fear of the day of judgment. There isn’t a
lot of that around today. Most people have kicked that habit. We don’t have to
fear eternal punishment or damnation or hell - we talked about that last week!”
Most moderns, our neighbors, have put that idea to rest. It isn’t that terrifying
threat that it once was, and yet John says that fear has to do with the experience
of punishment and the fear of punishment. He says that love comes in in order
that we might have confidence and boldness in the Day of Judgment. John seems
to relate our present possibility of living in love without fear in relationship to the
end event.
I just wonder - I wonder if he might be right. I wonder if there is something about
us as human beings that would on a willed, conscious level rid ourselves of the
idea of punishment and judgment, but that fear of it simply goes underground
and in a kind of gorilla warfare disables us, so that much of our action that we
would not directly relate to a fear of judgment and punishment is nonetheless
precisely that. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we know that we are people
who will be held accountable, that there will be a time of reckoning, that there
will be that final encounter. Maybe down in the depths of our being we know that,
so that it doesn’t matter to what extent we may pooh-pooh that final encounter,
that day of judgment; nonetheless, there is something perhaps in the very fact
that we are human that causes us consciously or unconsciously to feel a bit of disease and thus produce in us fear – fear, whose root we don’t understand, but
whose consequences are felt in all of our relationships and all of our doings.
Could that be? John says, “God is love. The one who abides in love, abides in God,
and this love is what gives us confidence in the Day of Judgment because there is
© Grand Valley State University
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no fear in love.” Hm-m-m. Rather interesting association of ideas isn’t it? I
wonder if there could be something to that?
Harold Ellens, the psychiatrist, theologian and pastor, has spoken about the
human condition as a condition of anxiety. I mentioned this a few weeks ago, I
forget in what connection, but that human anxiety is not the consequence of our
sin, it is the consequence of our being human. He speaks of a kind of generic
anxiety which is the consequence of spending nine months all safe and secure in
the darkness and warmth of the womb, only to come splashing and bouncing
down the birth canal into the bright lights of the delivery room to respond to a
whap on the bottom side with a wail! We come into this world wailing. Scared to
death. Fragile. That’s anxiety producing. And then he goes to the Genesis stories
and shows that even in that setting, the human couple there is anxious - there is
an anxiety producing set of circumstances, so that to be human is to be anxious.
Then he goes on to say, and I think quite rightly, that the greatest anxiety
reducing mechanism in the world is religion. Religion is a universal
phenomenon. Stamp it out here and it will pop up there. You can’t seem to get rid
of it. Any place you go in any age, any people, there is some kind of religious
ritual, some form of religious practice. We who are simply a little farther along on
the human story and a little more sophisticated in our religious experience,
nonetheless, crave the basics - a kind of cultic practice. That is, a ritual. The
prayers we offer. The gestures we make, and a certain mode or code of behavior
that we follow, certain creeds that we assent to. They all constitute cult for
worship. A creed to lead, a moral code to follow - those are the ingredients of
religion, whatever the religion may be. And religion, by and large, is a universal
phenomenon which has been a great anxiety reducing mechanism. It is how we
anxious people try to come to terms with our anxiety. It is a way we come to curry
favor with God, to appease God.
There is something endemic in us that knows that we write with crooked lines.
And, accountable people that we are, because we are human, we feel a need for
some kind of buffer against that final moment, that examination, that judgment
day, when God might hold us accountable. So our life is fraught with anxiety. And
Ellens says that we try to devise means by which we can buffer ourselves against
that anxiety, a way by which we may find ourselves acceptable to that all
examining eye of the Eternal God - and so we turn to religion.
That is the story of most religion. That is very much what most religion has been
about. But the problem with most religion is that it becomes the tyranny of the
should and the ought and the must. It becomes a prescription to follow. It
becomes a matter of performance - of doing things, of gaining favor through
ritual acts, creedal belief, and moral behavior. And any time you are in the
business of gaining peace through performance you never make it. We can never
satisfy the demands, the infinite demands. We will always fall short. We will
always come up wanting. We will always be weighed in the balance and found
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Richard A. Rhem
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wanting and we know it. There is no peace! Rather, that anxiety reducing
mechanism that we call religion becomes an exacerbation of the anxiety with
which we came into this world, and our religion all too often binds us and makes
us seven-fold more the child of hell than when we began. Religion is too often
binding, controlling, coercive, manipulative. It is not too often good news, but
bad news. And the threat of hell and of judgment, and of damnation and of
condemnation broadly used in the religions of the world, do not reduce anxiety,
but increase it. But, of course, the people cowering in fear are manageable at
least.
John has quite a different thing to say. What he says isn’t the Bible’s only
message, but if we could only hear this. Do you hear it with me? “God is love.” He
has said it before. He doesn’t say “God loves,” he said, “God is love.” That is
whatever God is, whatever God does, God does it in a loving fashion because 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 in the day of
judgment.” It would seem that what John is trying to say is that if you could get a
glimpse of the love of God, if you could get a grasp of the love of God, then that
intrinsic human guilt and cowering before that final moment of judgment would
dissolve. Because John says that, “there is no fear in love. God is love.” And, love
has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of
judgment because as he is so are we in the world.”
As Christ is. How is Christ? Christ is one with God. Christ is in the presence of
God - crucified, resurrected, received in the presence of God. “As he is so are we
in this world.” Earlier he has said, “Beloved, behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God, and
such we are now. And it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but when He
appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. Beloved, what matter of
love, we are now, children of God.” If we could only believe it. If we could only lay
hold of it. If we could only know that there is no record that stands against us. If
we could only know that the love of God somehow or other has embraced us so
that the record has been expunged and we are embraced in an everlasting love, so
that there is no need for fear in judgment. I think that’s what John is talking
about. Do you sense that’s about one hundred eighty degrees from where most
religion would take you? From the place of the tyranny of the ought and the
should and the must.
People have challenged me about my promiscuous offer of grace, about the
prodigality of God’s love, about the unconditional love of God that embraces us.
Is that not dangerous? they ask. Will not people exploit that? Will not people take
advantage of that? If that is true - if we are loved already, if we are embraced
already, if judgment is passed already - then why worship? Then why live in
praise and wonder?
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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Why? Precisely because of that! Precisely because of a love so amazing, so divine
that it demands my life, my soul, my all! There is no fear in love. Most of the time
the Church has not dared preach it. Too radical. The people cannot handle it.
They will take advantage of it. Nonsense! Preach fear to the people and you bind
them in fear. Preach fear and you increase resentment. Preach fear and you
exacerbate anger - hostility. Dare to preach love - and you transform. God is love.
And love is perfected in this - that we have boldness before the thought of
judgment. There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear. The one who fears
is not perfected in love. Most of the time the Church would keep you afraid. It’s
safer that way - for the masses. Nonsense. Dear, serious, sincere, religious people
have been forced to cower before the demands of an angry God rather than
hearing the word of the Christmas Gospel. The covenant of grace instituted with
Abraham began when God came to Abraham and said, “Do not be afraid.” Old
Zacharias was in the temple doing his thing and the angel came and said, “Do not
be afraid.” Mary, a young Hebrew maiden doing her cross-stitching was
encountered by an angel who began, “Don’t be afraid.” And Joseph, concerned
about this situation that confronted him, heard from the angel saying, “Fear not.”
The Christmas Gospel is Good News pure and simple. You don’t have to be afraid.
God is love. And love casts out fear and so that endemic human sense of
accountability that causes you to cower has been dissolved by the chemistry of
God’s eternal love.
Preaching on this text one day, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about the time of
the Montgomery, Alabama bus protest. After one particularly horrendous week in
which he had been arrested and he had received phone calls threatening his life,
and everything seemed impossible, he had to speak to a mass rally. When he was
done speaking he came down from the podium and old Mother Pollard came
forward. She was an old, black woman, uneducated and wise, who marched and
marched, and marched in many protests. She came up to him after he had
finished speaking and said, “Son, come here.” He went to her and gave her a hug
and she said, “What’s wrong with you tonight?” He said, “Nothing, I’m fine.” She
said, “You don’t talk strong tonight. Something’s wrong. Is it that we ain’t
followin’ you enough? Or is it them white folk?” And then she looked at him and
said, “Son, whether we follow you or not, God’s gonna take care of you.” And
Martin Luther King said that from that day, because of the words of old Mother
Pollard, he was able to live without fear. You say, “Well, that’s just fine. He said it
that way at 8:30 but if you remember he died by an assassin’s bullet.” He was
killed after all. Yes, that’s true. The Christmas Gospel does not say that life is not
perilous, that human existence is not fragile, that there is not tragedy and
suffering. Bullets cut us down. Cancer cuts us down. There is brokenness and
pain enough to go around. But Martin Luther King lived the rest of his days
without fear. That is to say, he lived until he died. But when fear enwraps our
hearts we never live before we die.
We will all die one way or another. And we will meet the Lord face to face. The
question is whether we will have truly lived before we die - lived without fear.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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So what are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? Name it. Speak it before the
face of God - and let it go. Just let it go.
© Grand Valley State University
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
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Creator
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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Event
Advent IV
Scripture Text
I John 4:18, Luke 1:30
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-19921220
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1992-12-20
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What Are You Afraid Of?
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
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Sound
Text
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 20, 1992 entitled "What Are You Afraid Of?", on the occasion of Advent IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I John 4:18, Luke 1:30.
Fear
Judgment
Trust
Way of Love
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PDF Text
Text
Loving is Living Without Fear
Text: Luke 1:30; Matthew 1:20; Luke 2:10; I John 4:18
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
January 4, 1987
Transcription of the spoken sermon
... Do not be afraid, Mary for you have found favor with God. Luke 1:30
... Joseph ... do not be afraid to take Mary home with you as your wife...
Matthew 1:20
And the angel said to them [the shepherds), "Be not afraid; for behold I bring
you good news of a great joy ..." Luke. 2:10
There is no room for fear in love; perfect love banishes fear. I John 4:18
If we did a little word association game and we were looking for pairs of
opposites, and I said "black," you would probably say, "white," and if I said "hot,"
you would say, "cold," and if I said "war," you'd say, "peace," and if I said "love,"
you'd say, "hate." And you would be wrong. Love and hate seem like a pair of
opposites, but when you really stop to think about it, it's not really love and hate,
but love and fear.
That's an insight which has been brought to light by a psychiatrist named Gerald
Jampolsky. He shared that on the Hour of Power, and it was an insight that Bob
Schuller appreciated so much that he got to know Jerry Jampolsky and last year,
in March, when we were on Maui at a theological conference with Bob Schuller,
Jerry was there. I must say that he lives his creed. He's written a little book, Love
Is Letting Go Of Fear. It's a simple book; it's almost a simplistic book. It has
cartoon characters and bold-type declarations that one can memorize, but in
spite of the fact that it seems like an elementary treatment, he does have hold of
something, and there is a profound truth there. He has had, in his own
experience, life transformation through the insight. On reflection, I got to
thinking, "Well, Jerry, you're not so smart. The Apostle John in the First Century
said that a long tine ago!" He said there's no room for fear in love. Perfect love
banishes fear. And so, what has been rediscovered in our day is simply an old
truth, and, as a matter of fact, it's at the very heart of the Gospel; it is at the very
root of what God has done for us at Christmas in the incarnation of the Word, in
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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the revelation of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. The Christmas message, at
its very core, says that loving is living without fear.
Love and fear, according to John, are mutually exclusive. Love and fear cannot
coexist in the same heart. Well, I suppose our hearts are always living in a
balance of love and fear, but to the extent that we are loving, we are not fearing,
and to the extent that we are fearing, we are not loving. And the battle is to get
hold of the insight of Christmas and begin to love and not fear. Loving is living
without fear, and that is a life-transforming truth if we'd ever let it grip our souls.
We do have some control over the ingredients of our minds and the stuff of our
life. We can make some conscious and deliberate choices, and those conscious
and deliberate choices can be made, for a Christian, on the basis of a foundation
of truth rooted in the Gospel, rooted in the Christmas Gospel. John says the
greatest reality is that God is love. It is repeated over again in that fourth chapter
- God is love. God is love. The ultimate reality is love. At the heart and center of
things is love. Reality, history, human experience, the transcendent ground of
everything is not love, among other things - it is love. That's John's grasp of the
truth that he discovered in Jesus Christ. God is love.
And so, when he says that there is no room for fear in love, but rather that perfect
love casts out fear, he is giving a very practical prescription for living and that
prescription can really transform our human experience. At the heart and center
of reality there is love, and he says that love came to manifestation. If you want
next week's word, Epiphany, the word is in this text. God showed or God
manifested His love to us in that He sent His son. Jesus was the gift of God by
which he signaled to the world that He is love. The Gospel of Jesus is the good
news that the heart of God is the heart of love, and that the great, basic, ultimate,
final, supreme reality of everything, of human life and of the world and of the
whole of the cosmic scope of things is love. That's the Christmas message. The
Christmas message is meant to enable us to live with love and to be done with
fear. That is very, very elemental; it speaks to the root of our problem. God
displayed love that casts out fear.
I was rather surprised as I began to think about the story, this wonderful
Christmas story that we've just lived through again. Mary gets a marvelous
announcement from Gabriel. I suppose it would strike fear into one's heart.
Gabriel's words to Mary were, "Mary, fear not. Fear not. Don't worry about the
fact that you're engaged and the marriage hasn't been consummated. Don't worry
about what the community will say. Don't worry about the fact that you might
lose Joseph and lose everything and have all your dreams shattered."
Easy to say, Good Old Gabriel - "Don't be afraid." But that was his word, because
that was Mary's problem. It's always our problem. We're always afraid. Who
knows what this new year will bring? Sometimes we grow anxious. How will our
new business do? How about the new practice we've just started? How about the
new relationship we've just established? How about the new child in our home, or
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Richard A. Rhem
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grandchild? What about all the scary possibilities of this new year, in this world
that is going with such a whirl, on its way, always teetering on the brink of
disaster? Fear fills the human heart. "Don't be afraid, Mary."
And then, there's Joseph. Joseph is a decent sort of person. What will he do? Will
he be willing to risk being made the laughingstock of the community? Will he
expose Mary to that ridicule? Will he be so put off and offended at Mary? "Yeah,
sure, Mary, a dove. I know, a dove." The angel comes and says, "Joseph, don't be
afraid. Don't be afraid to take Mary." He would be afraid. Who wouldn't be
afraid? And so the Word of God always has to come through His angelic
messenger. "Don't be afraid."
And then this marvelous event is broadcast to the world, brought personally to
shepherds. Good News! And what did the angels have to say? "Don't be afraid.
Fear not. Good news of a great joy that shall be to all people. Settle down. Calm
yourselves. Don't be afraid." It must be that there is something intrinsic,
something at the very core of our being; there is something about being human
that makes us react to life with fear. It's very elemental. It's a very primitive
response to life. I suppose it's because of our connection with the whole animal
kingdom, our connectedness with all of Creation, that survival instinct. Did you
ever watch a bird in the grass looking for a worm, cocking its head, listening? I'm
never sure if it's listening for a worm rattling down in the clay, or whether it's
cocking its head to see if I have a slingshot in my hand. I think it's always worried
about a BB gun. Here, there, all over the place. A parable of a human being.
Always looking around for the next threat, the next attack.
Life is viewed as threatening, and people's relationship is often viewed as an
attack, and we live our lives in an adversarial environment with others. Always
feeling that we have something to protect, something to hold onto, something to
possess, something to guard. Fear is a very primitive human response. So, all of
our lives we go about being afraid and interpreting the behavior of others as an
attack. And it happens all over the place.
Did you ever go in for a nice meal in a restaurant and the waitress begins by
spilling your ice water over the table, pours hot coffee down your back, and
snarls, "What do you want?" And you've just come in, expecting a pleasant
evening with a waiter to be at your service, and he turns out to be grouchy, and so
you say to the people with you, "Well, I'll fix him. We'll give him a little tip."
(Don't leave out the tip completely, because then the waiter will interpret that as
though you forgot to leave a tip.) Leave a quarter when it should have been a tendollar bill. That will get the message across. Then he'll know that I am saying to
him that I am displeased with the service. And, of course, that will make his day,
won't it? And maybe the man's wife was just laid off with the prospect of
unemployment for months. Maybe his son was just taken to the Emergency
Room, having been struck down with an automobile. Maybe he is about to go in
for emergency surgery with a bleeding ulcer that's about to burst in the next two
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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or three hours, and maybe you were able to add to all the anxiety that will bring it
to a head. We do it to each other all the time. Never stop to ask, "Why? Wow, that
person must be struggling with something." Rather, we say, "Who do you think
you are? And I'll fix you. I'll get my own back." And so, we get this adversarial
kind of relationship going, static sparks between us, and we go around through
life like a bull in a china shop, we go around causing sparks to fly all over, and
sparks fly all over the landscape.
What does it do to us? It leaves us more deeply entrenched than ever before in
that which has shackled us and gripped our spirit. The pall of darkness is heavier;
the loneliness, the isolation is more extreme. And the reaction of fear and anger is
all the more intense. We do that to each other, and it's one thing when we do that
to each other, but we do it also as peoples and as clans and as ethnic groups and
as races and as nations, so that the whole world, the whole human story is a
violent story of action and reaction, charge and counter charge. Attack and fearful
response, and attack again. There must be something deep down in us that causes
us to respond with fear – basic insecurity that makes us go through life always
interpreting everything as an attack to which we, out of fear, respond in anger.
Attack and anger and attack and anger and the static grows and the sparks grow
and the conflagration explodes on the earth.
Now, God wants to get through to us. Why don't you do what would be so obvious
to do, God, for rebellious subjects like we are? Why don't you come in and
clobber us? Why don't you come in with a 2 by 4 to get our attention, beat us over
the head? Why don't you come in as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, with
angel hosts and flashing lights and great power? Why don't you climb on a
bulldozer and move through history? Get our attention! Show us who we are! Put
us in our place!
Well, that's what He decided to do. But He figured, if He did it that way, He'd
make us more of what we were already. Oh, He could get our attention. He could
make us cower in the corner. He could probably even get our grudging
conformity to His will, but it would be full of hostility. It would be full of anger.
And it would be the kind of relationship that is characterized by coercion and
manipulation.
Well, He had a problem, didn't He? So, He decided to come in the vulnerability of
a child. Because what He really wanted was not our subservience. What He really
wanted was not our obedience, not our cowering, groveling before the presence of
His glory. What He wanted us to do was look Him in the face so that He could say
to us, "All I am is love, and I love you." So that we might be able to look Him in
the face and say, "I love You, too." And how do you get that kind of thing going?
You only get that kind of thing going when you take the risk of vulnerability. So
there he lies in a cradle, in a child, in all of the harmless vulnerability of a child there's the Lord of glory, there's the everlasting God, the Prince of Peace. And you
can handle Him and you can run roughshod over Him and you can put Him up
© Grand Valley State University
�Loving is Living Without Fear
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
on a cross and do away with Him. But He'll have the last word – it's Love. And
every once in a while – out of our intense fear and anger that frequently lashes
out from us, at various times or inappropriately – every once in a while,
somebody looks up and says, "Why am I fighting and full of anger if God is
Love?" Every once in a while, somebody gets disarmed by love.
That really is what Christmas is all about. God is love. He didn't write that in the
sky. John says, "In this the love of God is manifested in that He sent His son."
Then John says, "Beloved, if God so loved us..." Well, obviously, again, in our
human understanding of things, we know the concluding clause will be, "We
ought to love God," because we expect that love will be responded to with love. If
God loves us, we love God. How neat. We can go through life with this nice,
personal relationship with God and create Hell the rest of the time. But that's not
what John says. "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another." Isn't
that amazing?
The Gospel is radical. The word "radical" comes from the root, "radix," which
means "root." God addressed the root of our problem at Christmas. The root of
our problem is that we're insecure and we're afraid, and so we live always on the
attack, interpreting everything as threat, and we create Hell on earth. The Gospel
is the radical solution to the human dilemma. The Gospel is God's move into the
vulnerability of a child by which He signals to us, "I am love. Be not afraid."
Loving, is living without fear, because there is no room for fear in love; perfect
love casts out fear. Every once in a while somebody wakes up to that radical story
and says, "Wow," and finds the hostility and the anger melt away and life
absolutely transformed.
One set free - free from fear, free to love. That is a radical message. That is the
Christmas message. That is the truth, and in a moment like this, if one could just
be grasped by it, it could change one's life. One could go out for dinner and get illserved and smile at the person and give them a gentle touch, and leave a large tip
and turn their life upside down. They'll tell you that this won't work. This won't
work in Washington, of course. Nor in Moscow. Or Beijing. It won't work in
Geneva. It won't work at City Hall. It won't work at the boardrooms of industry.
Well, as a matter of fact, it really won't work anywhere without the possibility of
one being taken advantage of, made a fool of, maybe even crucified. So, it
probably won't work. But, to be honest, nothing else works; we only compound
the problems: fear, threat, anger, attack, leaving all parties more deeply
entrenched in fear.
Nice going, God. We're going to try it on our own. We've got a couple more
techniques up our sleeve. But, to be honest, what we need is a miracle of love.
I wonder if it would work. I am, on the first Sunday of 1987, going to make a
public pledge to try it, intentionally, in that little circle of my life. I invite you to
join me, for loving is living without fear. And I suspect that's really living.
© Grand Valley State University
�Loving is Living Without Fear
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
Let us pray.
Father, forgive us for all of the common sense rationalization of our failure to live
the Gospel. Release us from our fears. Help us to hear Your word, "Be not afraid."
Enable us to respond to Your love by loving. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Christmastide II
Scripture Text
Luke 1:30, 2:10, Matt. 1:20, I John 4:18
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01_RA-0-19870104
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1987-01-04
Title
A name given to the resource
Loving is Living Without Fear
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 4, 1987 entitled "Loving is Living Without Fear", on the occasion of Christmastide II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 1:30, 2:10, Matt. 1:20, I John 4:18.
Community of Grace
Fear
God is Love
Incarnation
Love at the Core
of Reality
Transforming Love