Fixins: If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

If you google the phrase, "if it ain't broke don't fix it" you will find the following definition.

If something is reasonably successful or effective,

there is no need to change or replace it.

Can I get an amen?

Ironically how this old axiom is seen somewhat differently today in many circles. You will find people criticizing this saying and approach as obsolete saying in maintaining the status quo you stymie change. Take the quote from Bill Gates in the photo to the right.  Our culture has moved to embracing the idea that change for the sake of change is somehow necessarily better and that heritage is most likely obsolete, ineffective, likely even oppressive.  This author thinks this viewpoint is full of stuffing.


We could write a book about all the influences that are informing the drive for change. And this author is not arguing that change cannot lead to improvement.  But there is too often this rush to judgment of the heritage (what people will label the status quo) and a rush into change with the assumption it must lead to something better.

There is even a leadership model that is designed around deliberately shaking up the system to create change.  In this model the leader or leadership team deliberately introduce conflict, anxiety, or instability into the system to shake it up.   The assumption here is that the weak and ineffective aspects of the system will then either drop away or be destroyed allowing its stronger parts to flourish and bring in change and greater function.

The roots of this methodology are planted all the way in the middle 1800s with the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Darwin.  Nietzsche was a philosopher of culture examining how people live and make their lives together.  One of his most famous expressions is "will to power".  Now Nietzsche didn't have much appreciation for absolutes or outside authorities imposed on humanity and hence didn't have a great deal of appreciation for the Christian concept of God and our human relations to God.  In fact his statement "God is dead" is one of his most well known claims in which he sought to communicate the value of the concept of God for humanity had been gutted and was hence dead to the human race.  He believed all human behavior came down to one thing:  survival.  Hence the "will to power".   All human dynamics in his eyes were about people trying to come to power over the other.  He was critical of the herd instincts that he saw as people with power using to keep other people in their powerless and servant state.  It is a good thing according to him when people break free of the herd.   This uber mensch or "over man" will have his own independent and free values and he is free from all the influences that dominate most people (the herd) and creates independent thinking over against the herd instinct.   One can read in Nietzsche a justification that some are superior and not all are capable of breaking free of the herd so it is a good thing when the right "over man" is in charge.  We know from history that the fascists and Nazi party took his philosophy to heart and used it as a justification to build the theory of a master race.

Nietzsche came after Darwin who was a product of the earlier 1800s.  Darwin influenced Nietzsche in that Nietzsche was deeply shaped by Darwin's teaching that no species is unchanging, that the world is not built on eternal fixity but rather in pervasive change.  Out of Darwin we find the theory of evolution and the premise of the "survival of the fittest" as being in the best interest of life.  Hence again the seeds of the "over man."

Now we jump over many links in the chain of history to today.  There are many influences in today's culture that suggest change is superior to heritage.   New is better than old.  And unfortunately the idea "if it ain't broke, break it" is becoming more operative.  One influential philosopher of what has come to be known as the postmodern era is Jacques Derrida whose advocated for an approach to culture and society called deconstruction.  Now what follows is a simplistic explanation but in general Derrida and his proponents following the idea of "social evolution" and believing that humanity has fallen into locked and stagnant systems of doing things, call for the general deconstruction of social rules, norms and institutions.  It is not enough to destroy but to deconstruct.  They need to be taken apart down to their very base components so they leave a vacuum.  Only in this vacuum can something new and truly progressive be given birth.  What that would look like no one knows it is so radically new.  But in this postmodern revolt against absolutes, authorities, foundations, even truth itself for in their eyes nothing exists for how humans live their lives but what we have fabricated for ourselves, nothing is sacred. 


 Of course as Christians we see the lie and the danger in these ideas.  All of them.  For God is.  Truth is.  Foundations do exist.  Humanity is a created being and we live our lives within boundaries and parameters created and defined by God.  It is true that God gives us a great deal of wiggle room between the boundaries for how we build our lives together.  But only a person blind to the greater whole and to God Himself would think all things human are all things fabricated by humanity alone.


So we return to the idea of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".  I think back to my seminary days.  I didn't hear this phrase in seminary but it did inform my theological education.  Lutheran theology (at least in the LCMS) finds great value in its heritage and finds ultimate and unquestionable value in the given foundation of the truths of Holy Scripture.  You could sum up four years of seminary education with "this is the truth of God, it isn't broken so don't go trying to fix it!".   But unfortunately the seminary doesn't always do such a great job of teaching how this applies to coming into a congregation and shepherding a group of people.  That most pastors have to learn in the trenches.

Most pastors learn pretty quickly when they come into a new pastorate that its been there a lot longer than they have.  I started out with two small churches (a dual parish) of farming folk for the most part.  And they had their way of doing church.  They had their way of doing worship, fellowship, serving their community, even paying the bills.  We call this "congregational culture".  When a new pastor starts out with his shiny black clerical (its new) and his pristine white collar (hasn't gotten dirty yet) he comes in by virtue of his call and his being new with so many pastor points.  A smart pastor will invest those points in gaining more points (think influence points) through listening, learning, relationship building and respecting congregational culture.

Now I can hear the criticism almost immediately "but what if they are doing something wrong, shouldn't I correct it?"  There is a lot to this question. First, is it really wrong?  It is plain flat out wrong against Biblical teaching?  Or is it just not the way you the pastor are used to or have become convinced it must be done.  Now it is true Scripture lays out some clear do's and don'ts for human life even how we do church.  But sometimes we can confuse what we think is wrong with what is really our belief that this is better than that when in truth God has left the church a degree of freedom in that regard.  For example in one church I was a bit uncomfortable because for communion all they had were trays of singles, there was not even a chalice.  Now I could have made a big deal about it and soon but it would have required me to spend "pastor points" and started me off as being one critical of their culture.  Instead I recognizing that God doesn't really care as its not in His book, I adjusted my preferences and respected the culture and they never knew it was even a challenge for me.

When a pastor respects the culture of the congregation it shows respect for the people.  It was their church long before it was his.

When I came into my most recent congregation they were grieving a huge loss.  Their beloved pastor of thirty years had died suddenly.  But the congregation was healthy and stable and passed through this time of grief and loss well continuing to grow.  In my first years at the congregation I confirmed more adults than in twenty years of previous ministry.  The congregation had its act together.  I came to realize the culture was built around three main pillars that worked for people:   traditional liturgical worship without being too formal or high church, a strong emphasis on Christian education (lots of offerings and lots and lots of participation, more than I've ever seen in other churches), and a deep care and concern for one another.  Now of course they were a Biblical church thoroughly grounded in Scripture and Gospel.  But what made people stay and return when they visited was these three things creating a healthy and stable system.

When I first arrived I was newly retired from the military and serving as their vacancy pastor (it is a God story about how I became their Senior Pastor).  Now vacancy pastors almost by instinct knowit is not their place to create change.  They are to maintain stability and ministry until the new person is in place.   But even when I accepted the call I intentionally did not institute change. For instance they were in the process of changing the altar paraments when their pastor had died.  I asked them to wait for awhile to finish this to avoid a big change in a very visible cultural element so early in my pastorate.  Why?  To maintain stability and demonstrate respect.    I deliberately learned the congregational culture.  How do they worship?  What is said and when?  How is it said?  How does the pastor stand?  Where does he stand?  ?  (We had an associate who was trained by the former Senior so I took ques from him.)  What hymns do they sing?   How do they do the holy seasons of Lent and Advent, Easter and Christmas.  When are Bible classes offered?   And so forth.  Now of course I couldn't be the previous guy.  For one thing I didn't know him well enough and for another every pastor is their own person.  But you can learn the culture and your can respect it and by respecting it you respect the people and show you love them.

Now there is a big difference between a church and a business.  Bill Gates may have made a fortune and built a massive company by not listening to "if it ain't broke don't fix it".  As I understand it Google is intentional on not slipping into heritage and legacy ways of doing things.  Most leadership theory is geared around the creation of change.  But the church is built on something not built by human hands.  It is built on the Gospel.  It is not a business or a company.  It is not a social organization like a club.  The church is a family.  It is the family of God in a place and time.

The Father has loved us so much that we are called children of God. 

And we really are his children. 

1 John 1:3

If we are God's children that means like it or not we are family and our fellow Christian believers are our very real brothers and sisters.  Family by blood, the blood of Christ.  Healthy families are ones that have a degree of stability.  They can certainly adjust to change when it comes but they are very careful and intentional about change asking if that change brings value.  For families need something in common, some stable ground.  When a family system becomes to unstable it falls or even flies apart.

Many new pastors make the mistake of coming in and saying I know a better way.  Maybe you do.  Maybe you don't.  But the reality is the church you come into has a way of doing things.  Maybe it functions well and is healthy.  Maybe it functions but it isn't so healthy.  But the key is this:  knowing what should be changed and why, knowing when, and knowing what should be left alone because it works.  And a wise pastor will listen when the folks communicate they don't like a change or they would like a change. (in the area of adiaphora) There is a very big difference between changing the way a church does worship for example because you are convinced from your personal values, beliefs, or even training that their way isn't quite good enough to realizing the way the church does something excludes others and saying that might need to change.  But even when change is necessary, the wise pastor gets buy in from his flock.  Seeking to understand congregational culture, adapt oneself to it as a pastor, and respecting it and the people doesn't mean having to sign off on unhealthy dysfunction.  But it does mean going slow.  Gaining respect.  Gaining their love and letting them know you love them before you ask them to let go of things that maybe they need let go of and adopting some new ways of doing things.  But when they have learned you love them with a deep abiding and respectful love they will more like to hear and follow.  When you go to fast and push from a position of "I'm the pastor, you the parishioner" too often the wheels fall off and people get hurt.   A church is a family system.  Too much instability and it can fall apart at least to a degree.

And there is a flip side too.  It also means recognizing the difference in oneself as a pastor between personal preferences and God given necessities.  Too often we pastors fall into the trap of thinking our personal way has to be the best way.  It is understandable because our personal values have all sorts of reinforcing layers in our brains from experience and learning telling us this is the way the world (and the church) is supposed to be.

Yes change comes.  It is the nature of reality.  There are things that certainly don't change.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.  The Gospel does not change.  God's grace is ours through Word, Baptism and Communion.  But there is so very much about "how we do church" that falls into the area of not commanded nor forbidden (what theologians call adiaphora).  This author believes God left flexibility to the church on many matters so that we can build congregational cultures of ministry that communicate God's love to people.  Now this author has some strong opinions about what kinds of cultures are effective versus those that may be less effective born from years of theological study and ministry experience.  But this author recognizes none the less that in many things God has not says "thus says the Lord".  Congregations have their way of doing things and often they do indeed work well in that place.  Introducing new practices, eliminating old practices, creating anxiety and instability with the intent of creating change for this author sounds too much like the ungodly philosophies of postmodernism and less like the Godly philosophy of love of neighbor and the Godly revelation that indeed truth exists.  If its broke then indeed fix it.  But if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  Can I get an amen?

So about change I really like a fellow Lutheran's prayer here with a modification.

God,

grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change

or should not be changed; 

Courage to change the things I can

and should be changed

and

WISDOM

to know the difference.

Amen.

(based off Reinhold Niebur's Serenity Prayer)

Faith and Fear

2020 is become a year that is testing individuals and society in ways we have not experienced before.  I live in San Antonio.  Early in the Covid pandemic we watched as areas of the country where hit hard like New York City and we gave thanks that it appeared we were being spared.  Infections were few and not spreading in a concerning way.  But after Memorial Day and now July the 4th we cannot say the same in San Antonio.  Last night there were 2,202 new cases reported, the most in a single day pushing us over 30,000 cases 10x the number of just six weeks ago.  Some models from well respect health researchers are indicating the possibility of almost 150,000 infections by the end of August.  When I go out I have noticed that more and more people are wearing masks and being careful and keeping their distance from folks.  Truth is truth and reality is reality.  There is a new disease among us and for some it isn’t much and for others it is a real problem.  And it is a concern for many, a concern I sympathize with as an older person who is not 100% healthy whose doctor has told me that while he can’t know for certain how it would impact me it would be best to not find out.

Fear… what is the Christian’s response to fear or its cousins:  confused, concerned, nervous, anxious, worried, frantic, terrified, hysterical or its give up cousin despair.

Take Joshua 1:9  for instance.  “Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”   Fear is emotional information charged with energy that comes from our brain advising how we should respond to a stimulus that is perceived as a threat.  Now only an irrational person would say Covid isn’t a threat.  So a fear response in the face of Covid is to be honest understandable.  It is not a sign of a weak faith.  So if we are afraid does that mean we don’t believe?  We’ll come back to that.  But listening to Joshua here, he is recognizing a message that fear might say to us:  Run.

Fear originates in what I call the deeper areas of our brain that are less conscious to us.  There is a lot of ruminating that goes on down there that most times we are only vaguely aware of but sometimes when that part of our mind says, ok there is something to pay attention to it will kick a message up in the form of an emotion.  Fear is one of the strongest.  It is like the old TV show Lost in Space with robot suddenly yelling “danger Will Robinson, danger” but you don’t know exactly what.  But deep in your mind when you encounter a stimulus your subconscious is comparing it to what you know, what you have experienced before and asking is this like something we’ve seen before and is it good for us or bad for us.  If it is good for us you may get information flowing up in the form of warm and fuzzy emotions.  If it is dangerous to us, you may very well feel fear.  But the subconscious will send even more emotional information.  It has already in a matter of a split second faster than your consciousness can think evaluated the stimulus now identified as threat and decided what you should do. Flee!  Fight!  Appease!

You see the fear center of our brain is hardwired.  Its part of the design.  It’s a really good thing to have when you are in the woods and you walk around a bend and there is a bear.  That part of your brain will immediately reaction:  danger.  It will assess and recommend– run or fight.  If you can get away run.  If you can kill it fight.  If you can’t do either – play dead.  You might even pass out.  We call that appeasement.

Here Joshua is dealing with the run instinct.  Be strong.  Be courageous.  Don’t run.  Engage.  The Lord is with you.  Don’t pretend the problem doesn’t exist.  Don’t just run away from it.  Be strong.  Be courageous.

Let us hear the words of Jesus Himself.  “…do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  This is from the famous Lilly of the Fields passage and where Jesus reveals that God does so much to take care of us that we don’t even know the half of it.  And the message is the all encompassing overwhelming love of God.  

Now worry is a particular kind of fear.  That lingering sense of unease.  It wells up from the warning center in the brain saying there is a problem here (real or perceived –sometimes this part of our brain isn’t as smart as it thinks it is.) and down here in the basement the little problem solving elves don’t really know what to do with it.  We think more bad stuff is coming based on what we know of the past and present but we really don’t know how to fix it.  We don’t know how to run, you probably can’t run.  We don’t know how to fight it.  We are a little concerned you can’t fight it.  We think we are missing something.  All this wells up to our consciousness as a general sense of unease that just won’t go away.  Its like the elves are constantly texting us saying hey, we need your help figuring this out and they won't shut up.

Notice Jesus in the Lilly of the Fields passage doesn’t say there is not a problem.  Notice he also doesn’t say just pretend it will go away.  He does say God loves us.  We have to be honest here. There is no promises in Scripture that God will necessarily protect us from COVID and either keep us from catching it or preserve our life.  He might.  Behind the scenes He may very well.  But God does allow bad things to happen to Christians.  Recently I asked friends and family how many knew people who have Covid.  Most know someone.  Most of these folks identify as Christian.  I know Christian men who have contracted it.  Does that mean that aren’t really Christian? That their faith was deficient?  We know better than that.  We know God loves us because He promises so.  But we also know the fallenness of this world will have its way with us and one day we shall all die.  But because of God’s love we shall know grace and eternal life.

My radar goes up just a bit when I hear preachers proclaim if you have enough faith you won’t get sick and if you are sick it is because you are afraid and don’t believe, don’t trust, you are worrying, doubting. (I feel the same about any promises or demands that supposedly come from God but aren't in the Scripture.)   Years ago I heard a Pentecostal preacher in a chapel service tell his people this.  "If you have enough faith you won't get sick and if you get sick God will heal you."  And I thought to myself, so on their dying bed are they going to think they didn’t have enough faith, a right faith, they were not a Christian after all?  Friends, such thinking is a lie crafted by our enemy the devil.  It isn’t right.

I knew a young lady once, an Army soldier and she was rock star.  Great at her job.  She had a stomach ache that turned out to be widespread cancer.  I visited with her and she was absolutely convinced God was going to miraculously heal her to show people His power.  She got sicker.  Her faith never wavered until her final moments.   She realized God wasn't going to heal her.  Only then was she ready to listen not to all the false messages of comfort she had been given but to the real message of the Gospel as proclaimed in Scripture alone.

Reality is reality.  We live in a fallen sinful world that hurts us regardless of how much and how right or how wrong our faith is.  And the world isn’t fair.  Sometimes good people get hurt and sometimes not so good people come out smelling like a rose.  Scripture doesn’t promise you that if you pray right, if you don’t worry right, if you aren’t afraid right and have great great faith you won’t catch Covid.  There is not such promise.

So should we worry?  Should we linger in fear that leads us to run away or shut down, to quit or to pretend its isn't real?  

Fear sometimes sends another message:   fight.  Do what you can.   Now sometimes fighting is bad like when we think a person is a threat and we act out to harm them to preserve ourselves.  The Bible has a lot to say about that and we’ll talk about this in a little bit.  But when fear runs into a Godly mind you don't hear the message of hurt people or hurt yourself but rather:  “be strong and courageous.”  Jesus tells us we don’t have to get into that nagging fear/worry that saps our power as we focus on what is coming, but notice he doesn’t tell us not to deal with today.  “each day has enough trouble of its own”.   With God in our corner we can be bold and courageous.  God doesn’t say pretend the threat doesn’t exist. God doesn’t say sit around and do nothing.  God says be bold and courageous.  

The interesting thing about the emotions God has given us (think mad, sad, scared, glad) is we often feel lots of things at once like a grand symphony with many voices sometimes soothing, sometimes inspiring, sometimes crashing in discord with rising tempo.  It is not unusual to find love/fear in a dance together.  Fear/faith often dance together.

Because the Bible says a lot from God who loves us to comfort us in our fear so it doesn’t drown us,  many folks assume that faith and fear are polar opposites.  But the reality is more nuanced than that.  Fear serves a valuable function.  Sometimes it is wrong, but it is often right.  There is a reality out there than is dangerous for us.  You need to take some action.  When I was hiking the Appalachian trail and ran into bear by surprise and out of fear began to back away, I doubt anyone would say that was an unreasonable action or a sign of unbelief.  We all know there is not Bible passage that says go up and bonk it on the nose and an angel of the Lord will smite that bear for you.  Fear is an emotional response informing us of our brain’s assessment of a situation.  Faith is a God given gift (Rom 10:17) not earned or created by us (Eph 2:8-9) that informs us about the bigger picture because God is in it.  The information comes from God’s Word, its distinct promises, not the hopes of fantasy people are sometimes prone to create and call faith, like as above, “if you have enough faith God will heal you from every disease”.  Now God may very well do so.  He has sure intervened on my behalf any number of times.  But I still have no doubt that one day I shall die.  And I have no doubt that if I am not cautious but carelessly expose myself to Covid that I will contract this contagious disease.  God has not promised me that I can be reckless and He will protect me. I know of no such Scripture.

Fear and love dance together in the realm of faith.  Luther picked up on this.  We find it in his Small Catechism.  “Thou Shalt have no other gods.  What does this mean?   We should fear, love and trust in God above all things.”  Hmmm… fear, love, trust.   How about that?   Of course we understand this is a right kind of fear with a right and reasonable reaction.  It is not the fear that runs away as Adam and Eve did in the Garden seeking to ignore and hide from the truth. It is not the fear of the Pharisess who fearing Jesus sought to remove Him from the equation to protect themselves and their people.   It is a fear that recognizes reality, the real danger, and the real consequences of that danger. We live in a fallen world.  We have sinned.  We brought all this on ourselves.  And there are real consequences that can hurt us.  Illness is a real problem.  Infectious disease is a real problem.  God does judge sin.  God does send folks to hell when they tell Him no to His grace.   It is real.  But God is more than just judge.  And the world is more than just the place that can kill us.  It is the place were we can make friends and find love and know the joy of family and community.  It is the place where yes people hurt us, stab us in the back, even at times destroy us, but it is also a place where there is love and friendship and real trust and loyalty.  And so with God.  Yes, like Adam and Eve we have a real reason to fear.  We sin and we are accountable.  But we have a real and bigger reason to love and trust.  God loves us.   God wants good for us. 

So what about Covid?  What are we to do?  Are we to just pray it away?  Are we to just assume that because we are Christian God will protect us?  If we have enough right faith it will all be ok?  Are we to conclude that our friends and family who get sick or who die just weren’t very good Christians?

Lutherans have always understood that the above is baloney.  It is here that the revelation of God through Scripture of how He operates in this world is of great value to us. There is one king but several kingdoms.  There is the kingdom of the right hand of Christ what we call the kingdom of grace where His church resides.  Here God bestows love and mercy forgiving sin through His grace as proclaimed in the Gospel and provided in His chosen means of Baptism and Holy Communion.  (for my friend who are not sacramental you can still agree with me here – God has grace – God forgives.  It was His choice to forgive.  We love because He first loved us.)

Then there is the kingdom of the left hand of Christ which is His rulership over the world.  Romans 13 talks of this, the role of government to use the force of law and even when necessary punishment to keep peace.  In the left hand kingdom we find the doctrine of vocation – God empowers people to work together for the common good through the giving of gifts and abilities unique to each person. Everyone is good at something and when you find it and live it life can be grand indeed.  (Not sinless, but grand nonetheless.  Think Carpe Dieum. )  This is the realm not just of law and order but of art, and architecture, engineering and construction, and science and medicine.  This is the realm of social distancing and masks. And God has something to say about this to us as well.

The Fifth Commandment.  Thou shalt not kill. What does this mean?--Answer. We should fear and love God that we may not hurt nor harm our neighbor in his body, but help and befriend him in every bodily need [in every need and danger of life and body].

You see it is not just about us.  God has put us into this world together and we need each other. We depend on each other.  And truth is we are in each other’s power.  We all live in this nested system of networks that include family and friend and work and even society.  The decisions made by a few folks we shall never personally know on the Supreme Court can have big impacts on our lives.  But closer to home the folks we network with in our families, in our workplaces, in our communities have big impact on us.  What another person does can have serious impact on us.  What we do can have serious impact on others.  And God designed it that way.  He looked at Adam and said, it isn’t good for Him to be alone.  It is never just about “me”.  It is never not also about “me” but it is always about “us”.  Sometimes the other’s needs outweigh our own.  Sometimes fairness and justice would say my need has predominance in the “us”.  But the world isn’t always fair and people who have power in our lives are not always kind. 

So why do folks kill others?  Think about it.  What could motivate someone to actually kill another person?  Fear.  Anger.   That person is the ultimate threat.   None of us think we are capable of murder but we think other people are so capable.  I’ve known people who were killed for the dumbest of reasons.  Maybe you do too. But it is real problem, real enough that God knew He had to make a commandment about it.  Thou shalt not kill.   And Luther came at life with eyes wide open.  What does this mean?  We should fear and love God so that we don’t “hurt” and we don’t “harm” others.   But God loves us like children.  He sees us as His family and looks at us as brothers and sisters.  It is not enough to just not hurt and harm.  God want us to “help” and “befriend”.   

Fear is not necessarily the opposite of faith.  It can be.  If it comes to predominance the kingdom of the right so that we doubt God’s love for us (I didn’t have enough faith so I caught Covid, God must not love me.) then yes fear can be very detrimental to faith.

But if we have fear that says, wow, there is a reality out there that God has given us some ability to do something about together.  We can’t run away from it (the flee response) but maybe we do have some tools to resist it (the fight response) and together we can make a difference not just for ourselves but for everyone.

So are you afraid of Covid?  Are you afraid to catch it?  Are you afraid of what it will do to your body if you catch it?  Are you afraid for your spouse, your children, your grandparents, your aunts and uncles and your dearest friend?  That’s ok.  It’s a rational and reasonable response to a real situation.  You are seeing reality for what it is.  The question is what will you do with your fear.  Will you allow your subconscious to drive your action into worry, into hysterics, into despair and helplessness, will you turn to denial and fantasies, or… be bold and courageous.   Asking yourself what is in my power to help?   Looking at what God is making possible through knowledge of how the universe works, through the power of science and medicine in the left hand kingdom, Godly gifts of vocation for life in this world.  And never forgetting that truth is we shall all die.  No I’m not saying we should all just give up, take our chances, let the chips fall where they may.   We do what we can to help our neighbors and ourselves, but if in the end we still get sick and fall it wasn’t because we deserved it because we failed worse than others, we sinned worse than others, we didn’t have enough faith and others had better faith.  Life isn’t fair, it isn’t just.  God isn’t fair either.  He gives us what we don’t deserve.   The world and people often hurt us in ways we don’t deserve.  God gives us good things we don’t deserve.  And the greatest and never ending is the grace of Christ that guarantees us eternal life.  Our eternal destiny isn’t on us.  It has nothing to do with what we do.  Truth is there is nothing we can do to change how it is going to turn out.  Unbelief says that is true – we all die, we all fade from memory.  Life ultimately has no meaning or value.  God says buuuullllll hooockeeeey.  Life has meaning because God says it does.  Jesus said the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  Jesus says I have come that you might have life and that abundantly.  Life is ours because God says so.  Mercy.  Grace.  Love.   This is why ultimately we don’t have to be afraid.  I’m not saying we don’t do our part.  I’m not saying  pretend there isn’t a real threat to life and limb out there.  What I’m saying is in the end it will be ok, we will be with Jesus in the end.

But its ok to want to stick around to see you children grow up, to see your grandkids.   Its ok to want to keep having grandma and grandpa at the Thanksgiving table.  Its ok to not want to have to grieve the loss of your spouse.  Its ok to care about your neighbor and do what you can.  Why?  Because that is showing fear and love as Luther reminds us.  Facing the facts with love and concern.  That is Godly fear.  And that is Godly love.  

Jesus was suffering in the garden of Gethsemane.  I read that text and it sure sounds like he was afraid.  He knew the pain He would suffer.  But He knew the threat.  If he did nothing it would all burn and His beloved children would be lost.  So He was courageous and He was bold.  And it cost Him much suffering and death.  But in making the sacrifice for us He changed everything.  We were saved.  And He was risen.  And He had saved His family and we now have a Father in heaven.