8-5-19 - Do Not Be Afraid

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

Next Sunday’s Gospel reading is not a story, but a list of instructions Jesus gives his followers. We’ll look at a section each day this week. Some of his images may connect better than others with us disciples in 2019 - we'll see!

The first invitation we encounter is: "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Jesus has been telling his followers not to worry, especially not about what they’re going to eat or wear (alas, the lectionary skips the poetic bits about sparrows and lilies). His “do not be afraid” is aimed at a clearly anxious bunch, many of whom have left families, communities and jobs to follow Jesus, never sure where they’ll find sustenance, sleep or safety.

Notice how often in the Bible people are told “Do not be afraid?” Anxiety runs in the human family, part of human nature. Jesus tells us, “You’re not stuck with human nature – your heavenly Father has given you a gift of God-nature.”

That’s as good a way as any to describe the Kingdom of God – the reality of God. The Kingdom of God, Jesus says, isn’t the kind you can see, but it’s realer than anything we call reality. I like to call it the “energy field of God. This “God-Reality” our God has seen fit to give us is something we become aware of by how it makes us feel, and by how we see it affecting things and people around us, just as we “see” the wind by the movement it causes in trees and objects. It’s a reality we perceive by faith. We help bring it into focus for each other by naming whenever we experience it.

Those early disciples saw that reality in the works of power that Jesus did – healings, miracles – and in the way people responded to him. How do YOU see the energy field of God at work in your life?
Where did you last brush up against the peace or power or presence of God that was beyond human nature?

And what about this gift – how does it feel to acknowledge that the power and presence and peace of God are already ours? At our fingertips? Here and now, not just “there” and “later?” How does that change what you have to do today?

Today as you pray, after some thank yous, bring up in your mind each of the things that worry you – and visualize an energy field. In your mind’s eye, place each of these worrying things into that field, to be transformed into blessing. Can you trust that each thing or person is in good hands? That you’re in good hands? I believe you are. Already. Welcome to a new week of blessedness.

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