A year ago when I was at General Convention, I heard a new blessing that startled me. I imagine the first time you heard me give it, you were as surprised by it, as I was. “Fear not, for the Creator has made you holy, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother. Walk in the way of Jesus, trusting that the blessing of the Creator, the Savior, and the Spirit, is with you always.” I assumed that this blessing was written by a feminist theologian, specifically for the third Supplemental Eucharistic Prayer. After I started using it occasionally, our newsletter editor John Buck did a little research, and discovered it was a woman of the 13th century who wrote it: namely St. Clare of Assissi. Today’s readings tell us the source of her ideas.

The focus, in the readings from Hebrews and Luke, is on the relationship between faith, and the emotions of fear, worry and anxiety. I wonder how many of you realize that Jesus was concerned about such emotions? You might easily have missed this, because the Greek word for worry is often translated cares, and the Greek word for anxiety is translated taking thought. And the church has given much more attention to theology. In today’s Gospel, and in many other passages, Jesus was clearly concerned about emotions, and the attitudes of the heart. Depending on which translation you read, there are about 16 sentences where Jesus, or an angel says “fear not”, and at least 9 sentences where Jesus says, do not worry, do not be anxious. Why would Jesus be concerned about these feelings?

I think it is because our fears and worries are built on an assumption, either conscious or unconscious, that the world is a hostile and dangerous place, and therefore that our well-being is often at risk. In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus said “do not worry” and in today’s Gospel, he said, “do not be afraid”. At the heart of Jesus’ message is the claim that there is an invisible reality, namely the reign of God, which is present in the world, and which is loving, gracious, and abundant. That is very good news indeed, not only for first century folks, but also for us in the 21st century. It does not deny the reality of evil, or the clear evidence that bad things, terrible things, happen to people, but it asserts that the hostile, dangerous world, is not the whole story.

The good news Jesus proclaimed, was an invitation to look for the reign of God, and an assurance that when we seek it, we will find it, and be able to live in it. “This new world”, this reign, “is God’s project. The Loving God will make a present of it to you.” (Good As New: A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures, by John Hensen, 2004, O Books, page 212) These claims are represented in St. Clare’s blessing by the words, “Fear not, for the Creator has made you holy . . . and loves you as a mother”. St. Clare is saying that you already have a place in God’s new world, because that image of God within you is a family resemblance, and God’s love for you is similar to the love of a mother for the child to whom she has given birth. I think St. Clare used the metaphor of a mother’s love, not because she was a feminist, but rather because a mother’s love is often fiercely protective. So Jesus is telling us, and St. Clare is agreeing, that God the Father, loves us fiercely, and invites us to share in the new life he is creating.

In order for us to accept that invitation, we must make a significant shift within ourselves, a shift in our attention and perception. We must recognize that there are more important things than food and clothing; perhaps for most of us, that much is easy. But then we must go on to shift our attention away from the other things that cause us to worry: whether our health will continue, whether it is safe to use the toothpaste or drive over the bridge, whether our children will be able to find jobs, whether our investments are secure, whether our computers have a firewall . . .

In place of all that worry, anxiety and fear, Jesus invites us to turn our attention to the reality of God’s presence and love. What if we lived our lives on the assumption that God is with us all the time? What if we trusted that the reign of God is one of the forces actively at work in the world? Listen again to the crucial sentence in this Gospel reading: “it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom”. Jesus says nothing about whether we have believed the correct doctrine, whether we have obeyed the commandments, whether we have worshipped in the right way. The Father is not handing out rewards for righteousness; the Father is giving us gifts, out of his good pleasure.

Jesus is here talking about faith. He does not use the word faith in this passage, and I am almost grateful that he doesn’t. Too often we equate faith with acceptance of ideas or doctrines. When the word faith came up in our Wednesday Bible study last week, the first comment was about having faith in the Bible to give us answers: the open the Bible and point-to-a-verse approach, expecting it will be relevant. No, that has nothing to do with Jesus. He is guiding us toward a living relationship with God, in which we TRUST that God is with us.

In his book, The Heart of Christianity, (Harper, San Francisco, 2003) Marcus Borg used the metaphor of teaching a child to swim. The biggest hurdle for the child is her fear of the water; and the biggest challenge for the parent, is to help the child to feel her own buoyancy in the water. Only when the child stops thrashing around in fear, and is able to relax, will she feel that buoyancy. So it may be said, that “faith is . . . trusting in the buoyancy of God” (page 31). The metaphor is a good one, because a person’s buoyancy in the water will not prevent them from getting some water in their ears or eyes, and, also because a person has to cooperate with the buoyancy. Of course, we can always make ourselves sink to the bottom, if we really want to sink. And the metaphor works because the buoyancy is available whether or not you believe it exists! It is just there, and likewise, the reign of God, is just there. The question is, am I, and are you, prepared to cooperate with it? Could I stop thrashing around in my life, and relax into the awareness that God is here?

The way Jesus asked these questions, is, Are you going to put spiritual treasures into your purse? Will you be dressed for action when God comes? In response to similar questions, a participant in our Bible study asked on Wednesday, where do I find faith like that? How do I get it? Well, it helps to have a picture or a story, so that we can see what faith looks like in a person’s life. In chapter 11 of Hebrews, the author of that letter takes 40 verses to describe all the remarkable things people were able to do by faith. Abraham is the fourth in the series, who in his later years had the faith to leave his home and his country when God asked him to go to a new land. By faith Abraham accepted the promise that he would have numerous descendants, and they would inherit the land in which he lived only in tents. According to this author, Abraham had his attention fixed firmly on “the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God”.

As I think about Abraham’s life, and as I remember my own experiences of faith, there are two hints I can give you about where to find faith. The first hint is to act on the assumption the opposite of faith is not doubt, but rather anxiety is the opposite of faith. So trust that God is at work in your life, and take the huge step of letting go of your anxiety. This does not mean that you will be protected from disaster; it means that God will be with you, providing spiritual buoyancy in every circumstance of life, whatever happens. But it is not easy to let go of anxiety. I often think I have turned my back on it, and the next day it is back with me. Sometimes the only thing I can do is say to God, “there is nothing I can do about this awful situation: so you will have to take care of it”. Then I visualize myself handing off to Jesus the package of anxiety and worry that has burdened me. The next morning I may take that package of anxiety back from Jesus, and have to do through the process of giving it back to him a second time, and a third time.

> The second hint about where to find faith, is to remember how you learned to trust your best friend. We start out with the small matters: does she call back tomorrow as she said she would? Does he pick up sandwiches for lunch as he said he would? Then in time we go on to more significant matters: can I trust this person to tell me the truth? Can I trust her or him to be concerned about my well-being? Can I tell my friend a secret, and trust that it will never be made public? I think faith or trust in God is built out of such small steps. First I trust God to give me the strength to meet a deadline, or to manage a task. Then I ask God to guide me through a complicated conversation with someone who is upset with me. Then I trust God to show me whether I should do this, or that? There is one significant difference, however, between trusting my human friend, and trusting God. We must be prepared for God to strengthen us for, or guide us to, or give us, a circumstance far greater than we hoped or imagined. Jesus alluded to this when he said we should regard ourselves as servants of a bridegroom who is away on his honeymoon. “Be awake and ready to open the door when he arrives . . . lucky the servants whom the master finds on watch! He’ll put on an apron, sit them at the table, and serve them a meal, sharing his wedding feast with them”. I have quoted here from a very contemporary translation, The Message by Eugene Peterson, because of the startling, yet homely image of Jesus wearing an apron, and bringing plates of food out from the kitchen with the meal he has provided. To walk in the way of Jesus, is to approach all of life trusting in the buoyancy of God, ready to be generous and helpful to others, with part of your attention always on that better country, that city whose architect and builder is God.