Pastor's Message - MAY 2009

I once read a list of do nots: “Don’t teach people how to swim because it makes them over-confident in the water and they drown. Don’t teach arithmetic and they won’t cheat on taxes. Don’t climb mountains because you might fall down. Don’t learn to fly because you might crash your airplane. Don’t learn how to run your own business because you might go bankrupt. Don’t build a dam, it might break.” The list could go on and on, and one we might add: “Don’t expose people to religion because they could be persecuted.” And we could back up that warning with the words of Jesus in St. Matthew’s Gospel. The passage begins calmly enough with a word of caution: “…Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Then these dire words on the dangers of discipleship: `Beware of men; for they will deliver you up to councils, and flog you … and you will be dragged before governors and kings … brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated … When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next …` (17-23). That’s a religion of considerable risk.

To be sure, life is a risk itself. Newspapers, radio, and television and all other media are constantly emphasizing in one form or another so-called hazards and risks of daily living. The moment we climb out of bed we start taking risks. There are a myriad of risks to be encountered by people living in an industrialized society as we go about our daily affairs: guns, tobacco, alcohol and other drugs, pesticides, automobiles, motorcycles, dangerous working places, contaminated water and foodstuffs.

But it’s a risk of a different sort that our Lord is talking to His disciples about – one wilfully chosen, the risk of the adventurer, the risk of faith, the necessary chance one must take in order to fulfill one’s purpose and God-sparked mission in life.

The Gospel includes the necessary word of courage. After reciting the types who build the sand traps and lay the land mines, Jesus offers the encouraging word: `to have no fear in them … and do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul … ` (Matthew 10: 26 – 28). The rewards outweigh the risks, and courage is there for those who step out in trust.

This is a needed Word in today’s clamour for fail-safe society and to the many for whom ``risk`` is a four letter word. Faith and risk go together; Jesus made that abundantly clear. A risk-free religion is no religion at all.

Sometimes those of us who fight the battle all the time get a little discouraged with those who risk nothing and call themselves Christian. We know that it is not possible to have faith without risking all and our human nature gets the better of us and in our sin we have little time for those who risk nothing. We doubt their faith in spite of our Spirit given understanding that faith is a gift and not something we can do of ourselves. We may also get angry because we know that when a gift of faith is wasted that there is monumental waste. This is an understandable reaction and one for which we seek forgiveness and are granted absolution. But we are still sad. Sad that people want not to take the only risk that is worth something. Follow the lead of your faith. Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is? Take hold of life. Real life is eternal life from Jesus Christ and His gift of faith to you. Faith is the belief that Jesus Christ died and rose that you might live forever. Faith is a risk because the world hates it and the Giver of Faith and so the world will hate you. You cannot love God and the world and you have to love something – the one is a risk and the other is a killer. Take the leap of faith and resist the no-risk love of the world. Risk all in the power and love of God, Why not?! He gave His all for you and besides – if you don’t you die forever! Seems like faith is not such a big risk after all.