Don’t Be Afraid!
Text: 2 Kings 18:17-37
They sure were cute! They were the children’s choir of the Colonial Beach Baptist Church. Each member of the choir was age five or younger. As they entered the choir loft they began to sing: Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Nobody knows my sorrow.
When the children finished their song, I thought to myself: “How much trouble can a five year old child experience?” I thought about that question again this past week while listening to the news story about the boy expelled from kindergarten—charged with sexual harassment—because he kissed a classmate on the cheek at school. As it turns out, a kindergartner can see a lot of sorrow and trouble, can’t they?
I spoke with a friend about this story. He said: “Bill, I just understand what’s happening in our world anymore! The world is changing—and sometimes it seems so frightening!”
Do you understand his feeling of fear? Do you ever watch the news and wonder what could happen next? Are any of you uneasy, troubled, or worried? Do you ever feel frightened by the massive changes taking place in our world?
What’s happening? What’s causing all of these changes to take place?
Maybe it started with TV. We were all warned about the dangers of television, weren’t we? I was going to ask how many of you remember a day when we only had three networks, but then I realized that some of you could remember a day when we didn’t even have televisions. Well, now, with the development of satellite and cable technology we have been told that most of us will have over 500 different channels to choose from by the twenty-first century. If you ask me, we already have too many. We have ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN, CNN, TNN, QVC, MTV, TNT, TBS, UPN, and FOX. We have access to premium channels like HBO, Showtime and Cinemax. Yet despite the increasing numbers of channels available to us, the quality of programming seems to be diminishing. Instead of Dragnet we have NYPD Blue. Instead of Leave it to Beaver we have Beavis and Butthead. I don’t know about you, but sometimes the stuff I see on TV makes me fearful for the future of our society.
Maybe it started with the electronic revolution—with computers, fax machines, the Internet and E-mail. We use to laugh when Captain Kirk grabbed his communicator to talk with “Scotty” aboard the Enterprise. “That will never happen,” we said. Well, nobody’s laughing anymore! Cellular phones have made science-fiction a reality. Yet despite these advancements in communication technology it still seems that we lost the art of talking to one another. Instead we only know how to talk at one another—or at one anothers machines.
Maybe it started with the fast-food industry. How many of you remember a time when entire families would sit down at the dinner table and enjoy each others company as they broke bread together? Everything has changed. Today the family dinner has been redefined as getting take-out via the drive-through window at McDonald’s, Hardees, or Pizza Hut.
Maybe it all started with instant coffee. That’s right, I said instant coffee—followed by instant pudding, instant rice, instant oatmeal and instant grits. What do these products say about our society? They say we are too impatient. Okay, I’ll admit it—sometimes I even complain that the microwave oven takes too long.
I’m not really sure what’s caused the massive changes in our world—but I am certain of one thing: Everything has changed. Things aren’t what they use to be.
The world is changing and the turmoil has sent tremors throughout every corner of human life—including the church. In his book Congregational Megatrends, Jeff Woods writes about the current predicament in which the church finds itself:
Things don’t work like they used to. The church is changing. Evangelism is different. Discipleship is different. Ministry is different. People don’t come to church for the same reasons they once did. People don’t worship like they use to. People don’t have the same loyalties, the same devotion, or the same sense of spirituality. At times, everything in the church appears to be different.
The world is changing. The church is changing. Everything is changing. This begs the question: How can the church fulfill its mission in this ever-changing world? I have found some help trying answering this question in an interpretation of 2 Kings 18-19 offered by Walter Brueggemann.
The Assyrian Empire had been running rough-shod over all opposition. Every monarchy that opposed them had been destroyed—their citizens carried off into exile. Now the Assyrian troops had arrived at the walls of Jerusalem. Judah was under siege.
Hezekiah, the King of Judah, tried to appease the Assyrian forces. He sent massive amounts of wealth to Sennacherib, the Assyrian King, in the hope of avoiding a conflict and preserving his reign. It was a futile gesture. Sennacherib wanted Jerusalem—nothing less would be sufficient.
Assyrian negotiators arrived at the walls of Jerusalem. They were accompanied by a massive regiment of troops. Their intentions were clear: to intimidate Judah into surrendering without a fight.
The Field Commander served as Assyrias chief negotiator. Speaking Hebrew he addressed the representatives of Judah. “By what rationalization does Hezekiah hope to oppose us?” he asked. “You don’t have a chance of defeating us! Your allies in Egypt are too weak to support you. Your military strength is insignificant. You say that your God will help you—but your God is no match for Assyria. You need to give up the fight. You need to give in to the inevitable. You need to surrender to our Empire.”
The envoys are Judah were angry. They were angry because the Field Commander had chosen to address them in the Hebrew language. “Please speak to us in Aramaic,” they said. “If you continue to speak in Hebrew the people standing behind the wall will hear what you are saying and we won’t be able to negotiate.”
Arrogantly the Assyrian negotiator continued to speak in Hebrew—only louder so that everyone inside the wall could hear him. “I have not come simply to speak to you and your King,” he said. “I have come to speak to all of those behind the wall. When my leader gives the order to attack everyone in Judah will be destroyed.
“Listen to me, people of Judah. Don’t trust Hezekiah—especially when he tells you to place your hope in the Lord your God. Your God cannot help you. Like all the other gods that have opposed us, your God will fail. Give up your fight. Give in to the inevitable. Surrender to my Master and he will bless you and protect you.”
The Field Commander’s arguments sound familiar. He argues for what seems rational, logical, and reasonable. “We are bigger. We are stronger. We are the dominate power in the region. Your allies cannot help you. Your leaders are not dependable. You cannot trust in your God. You are without hope. Give up. Give in. Surrender. Accommodate yourself to our ways of thinking.”
There have always been some in the church who have opted for this approach when dealing with the changes in our society. Their strategy is simple: accommodate and adapt in order to survive.
Our culture is driven by what Tex Sample has called an “ethic of self-fulfillment.” By this he means that we are increasingly becoming a self-centered and self-absorbed society. So, what has been the church’s response to the self-centeredness of our society? In many places the church has sounded a call to accommodation—a call to offer our self-centered culture a self-centered religion. In many churches today, individuals are not seen as potential converts to the kingdom, but rather as customers in search of a product to meet their needs. For example, consider this advertisement for a church leadership video:
“The church is trying to be member-based in a time that is customer-based,” says Margaret Novak.
“Today, people tend to choose what gives them the most value…They choose churches that meet their needs.”
(In her video Listen to the Customer) Novak, co-owner of Mike’s IGA grocery store, urges church leaders to see the parallels between serving customers in a retail business and meeting the needs of people who attend church.
Let me ask you something: Do you see any dangers in developing a consumer-driven church? I certainly do! I fear that if we see the gospel as merely a commodity to be offered to a consuming public then we will end up compromising the content of the gospel in order to make it more appealing and accommodating to our culture.
It’s already happening. Consider many of our evangelistic efforts. In his book The Call to Conversion, Jim Wallis points out that the most commonly asked question in evangelism today is, “What can Jesus do for me?”
Potential converts are told that Jesus can make them happier, more self-satisfied, better adjusted, and more prosperous. Jesus quickly becomes the supreme product, attractively packaged and aggressively sold to a consuming public. Complete with billboards, buttons, and bumper stickers, modern evangelistic campaigns advertise Jesus in a competitive market. Even better than Coca Cola, Jesus is ‘the Real Thing.’… Modern conversion attempt to bring Jesus into our lives rather than bringing us into his.
This approach to evangelism was personally illustrated for me by the Youth Evangelism Conferences I attended as a teenager. Thousands of young people would gather in a large auditorium. There they would experience a fast-paced, super-slick, and highly energized sales-pitch for Jesus. The high point for the gathering would always be the testimonials of satisfied customers—usually Joe Jock and Cherie Cheerleader. These two attractive, articulate, and popular young people would talk about the struggles of being a teenager and how Jesus had helped them to be so incredibly successful.
Now I never was the most athletic kid on campus. I never was the most articulate, best looking, or most popular kid on campus. This being the case, sometimes I wondered what was wrong. I had done what the preachers told me to do. I had acquired the product. I had made Jesus mine—but is wasn’t working. I was neither successful nor satisfied.
Do you know what the problem was? The problem was that some well-intentioned church leaders had accommodated the gospel to the prevailing wisdom of the world. As a result I had been sold a worthless bill of goods. I had been told that the gospel was about making Jesus mine—and then like Aladdin’s Genie he would give me the desires of my heart. In reality the gospel is about Jesus making me His. It was about Jesus’ call for me to deny myself, take up the cross, and follow.
The call to accommodation in the biblical story is clearly seen in the Field Commander’s use of the Hebrew language. Aramaic, you see, was the accepted language of commerce and diplomacy. It was the appropriate language for this situation. Hebrew, however, was the language of faith. In a wonderful sermon on this biblical story, Craig Loscalzo says that Hebrew “is the language that members of the community of faith use to speak to each other…to speak about God…(and) to speak to God.”
The Field Commander spoke Hebrew. He spoke Hebrew because he thought it would give him the upper hand in negotiations. He thought he could cast fear into the hearts of the people of Judah. Notice what happened. Those behind the wall refused to dignify the Field Commander’s ravings with a response. They knew that this Assyrian’s Hebrew was fake. He may have acquired the grammar and syntax, but he didn’t understand their culture and he certainly didn’t understand their faith. The people behind the wall remained defiantly silent. They refused to submit. They refused to surrender. They refused to yield to the Assyrian’s perceptions of reality.
After receiving word from his representatives about the comments of the Assyrian leader, Hezekiah goes to the temple. He commands his political advisors and temple priests to go to the prophet Isaiah and depict the situation. Isaiah’s response was direct: “Don’t worry! God is in control!” Such an assertion makes no sense to those at the wall, but it is the very spiritual lifeblood of those behind the wall.
At the wall the Assyrians seem to be in control. Their assumptions reign supreme. Their perceptions are commanding. Their world view seems dominant. At the wall Judah’s trust in God seems absurd. The only thing that make sense is accommodation to the whims of the Empire. Behind the wall, however, a different world view commands attention. Behind the wall a different set of values and perceptions are at work. Behind the wall the language of faith is spoken. Behind the wall no one doubts the power of God.
How does the church fulfill its mission and purpose in our ever-changing world? By remembering that its power and identity are found behind the wall—among the community of the faithful. Behind the wall the church speaks a language that seems absurd to our contemporary culture. The church speaks of grace, forgiveness, and redemption. The church speaks about the joy of sacrifice and the power of love. The church speaks about sharing and worshipping, about baptism and Eucharist, about cross-bearing and resurrection. Such conversations seem preposterous to those at the wall, but they are the very substance of life for those of us who live behind the wall.
The Empire calls for our surrender. The Empire says that to survive you must give up and give in—adapt and accommodate. Behind the wall, however, the call to accommodation is rejected. Behind the wall we hear another call that “teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” From behind the wall we hear a call “come ye out from among them and be ye separate.” Instead of accommodation the church chooses separation. Instead of surrendering to the whims and will of the Empire, the church affirms a world view that begins with one simple assertion: God is in control.
In their book Resident Aliens, Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon tell a story about a woman named Gladys who knows exactly what it means for the church to reject accommodation and choose instead to affirm its separateness.
The story begins with a young pastor trying to lead his congregation to begin a day-care center. The appropriate committee has met to discuss the pastor’s proposal. He explains that a day-care center would be good stewardship because it would make use of the church’s facilities throughout the week. In addition, the ministry might even attract some new members.
Gladys responded, “Why should the church be in the day-care business?”
Patiently the young pastor repeated his reasoning: the use of the building, attracting young families, another source of income, the Baptists down the street already have a day-care center.
“And besides,” said another member of the committee, “you know that it’s getting harder every day to put food on the table. It has become a necessity for both husband and wife to have full-time jobs.”
“That’s not true,” said Gladys. “At least its not true for anyone in this church or this neighborhood. Now there are people in this town for whom food on the table is quite a challenge, but I haven’t heard any talk about them. They wouldn’t be using this day-care center. They wouldn’t have a way to get their children here…No, what we’re talking about is ministry to those for whom it has become harder every day to have two cars, a VCR, a place at the lake, or a motor home. That’s why we are all working hard and leaving our children. I just hate to see the church buy into that value system. I hate to see the church telling these young couples that somehow their marriage will be better or their family life more fulfilling if they can only get another car, or a VCR, or some other piece of junk. Why doesn’t the church be the last place courageous enough to say. ‘That’s a lie. Things don’t make a family!’ This day-care center will encourage some of the worst aspects of our already warped values.”
Gladys is a church leader who refuses to allow the rationality of the world to accommodate the mission of the church. She understands that the church must be separate (unique). It must be a place where a different language, different world view, and a different set of values are at work.
Please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. The call to separate is not a call to withdrawal. It is not a call for use to remove ourselves from the world. Rather it is a call for us to affirm our identity in this world as the people of God. We must not be of the world, but we must reside in this world. The church may find its power and identity behind the wall, but it still must learn to communicate with those outside the wall.
That’s why in his commentary on this passage Walter Brueggemann calls for a bilingual Christianity. He says that it is of utmost importance that we learn to speak to one another, behind the wall, in the language of faith. We must affirm the values of the kingdom, the stories of the faith, and our identity as God’s covenant people. If we don’t, we will not have the resources to survive when the Empire arrives at the walls of the church. It is equally important, however, that we learn how to communicate the gospel in a language that can be understood by those outside the walls. That’s the mission and mandate of the church. We are to live under the rule of God and invite others to join us.
King Hezekiah was afraid. Imperial forces were at the walls of Jerusalem. The world around Judah was changing. Everything was different. We understand. We understand. Our world is also changing—and sometimes it seems a little frightening. Sometimes our seem to be a downright scary place.
Don’t be afraid.
God is in control.
