Not Just Another Church Blob: How St. Andrew's Tackles Fear
Blog. Sounds like blob. Sometimes blogs are blobs. They just sit there doing nothing. No one reads them. If they do, they can be quickly disregarded. That’s okay. I still love to blob, I mean blog. If nothing else it’s a chance for me to reflect on things that are on my mind, or in the news, or in our church.
On Wednesday evenings in Lent here at St. Andrew’s, we have been using dramas to explore the theme of “fear.” So often in scripture, God comes as an angel, or Jesus, and says: Fear not. Fear not, I am with you. Fear not, my promises will come true. Fear not, I’m not here to punish you, even though you probably deserve it. Truth is, we do fear. Maybe that is why it says “fear not” so often. God knows fear is a very real part of our lives. God really does know it. So we hear the words “fear not.”
Of course, what usually happens, if we are honest, is that people continue to fear. The women ran away from the empty tomb, Mark tells us, in fear, so much so that they told no one what they had seen and heard, including: Do not be afraid. Good, faithful people of faith do fear, and that’s okay.
In our first drama, we kinda set the stage and had a simple play about a husband and wife, with the husband deathly afraid of spiders. One of these evil monsters shows up in the kitchen, and the play ensues. The second play had to deal with how politicians use fear, “fear mongering”, in order to get people to support them. We avoided any familiar names from politics by having our candidate running for “animal control officer”, i.e, dog catcher. The point still got across. How can we in our lives, maybe online and elsewhere, not allow fear-mongering to shape our attitudes and even our votes? This past Wednesday, with humor, we explored the fear of death. Can you imagine someone with a casket in his spare bedroom, in which from time to time he sleeps, in order to overcome his fear of death?
The most delightful moment of the play was when he admits this, and quite clearly and loudly one of our attentive and delightful elementary scholars in the congregation said for all to hear: “WHAT????”
Yes, what?
I don’t want to preach here. That’s for Sunday and even Wednesday through the plays. What I want to blob…. Blog about… talk about, is how much I appreciate this community that is willing to explore together. We don’t have all the answers. We do have fears. We share them. We listen to one another. We even disagree about topics with one another. That’s okay. If you don’t do this in community, what happens to it? Well, it becomes a… you guessed it… a blob. Just sitting there.
This place is not a blob! Me? Well, sometimes. You know, everyone gets tired now and then.
-Pastor John Trump
