I John 4.16b-21                                                                                             16 August 2009

“LEARNING TO EXHALE: BRACKETING OUR FEARS”

The most asked question about my sabbatical is how did I end up in Venezuela?  Many had never heard of Isla de Margarita. It’s not exactly in the mainstream. The answer is I took seriously the Lilly Endowment’s challenge question in writing up my grant proposal: what makes your heart sing? It’s our sermon series theme.

Reveling in that query is how I arrived 30 miles off the Venezuela coast.  What would make my heart sing? Going to a warm tropical island where I could speak Spanish, a place of adventure where I’d never been, would make my heart sing.
I never questioned any of that till I touched down in Porlamar.  Then my palms began to sweat. Hmm, I thought, I’m here all alone.  I don’t know a single soul.  Wow, everything is so different, the currency, the food, the crazy, erratic driving. 

And it wasn’t like the questions people asked me in advance helped to allay my budding fears. “Won’t their President Hugo Chavez throw you in prison? He hates America, you know…Aren’t you afraid of the drug cartels?  They kidnap wealthy people in that part of the world and hold out for ransom…Have you seen the State Department Advisory on the dangers of the Caracas airport?…Did you know that the crime problem in Venezuela is escalating by leaps and bounds?”

I wondered if my quest to color outside the lines was foolhardy and dangerous.  I found it true that Hugo Chavez is one weird duck of a leader; that drug money corrupts there just as it does here; that the armed random military check points attest to the crime problem; and in the course of my stay, I saw a boa constrictor on my path, a tarantula in my swimming pool, and barracudas as I snorkeled.

But here’s the upshot. I wasn’t sick or hurt one day. Not even a sunburn!  Driving my scruffy car, wearing my plain clothes, I was invisible to the thieves. Every time I asked Venezuelans for help, they gladly and generously assisted me: in the markets, getting lost on roads, stupidly forgetting my bag: isn’t this yours, sir? Not only did these so-called socialists of another race in a faraway place protect me. They cheerfully rooted me on in touching ways.  I will never forget their kindness.  No harm befell me. The protection of God’s angels accompanied me everywhere.

Oh, I almost forgot, I can’t tell a lie. A couple from the car rental agency did steal from me. I’d refused delivery on their car because I didn’t trust them. They waited weeks until I flew back for Lise’s graduation. Then they charged my card $1,200. That made my heart ache, not sing. But here’s the kicker, they were not Vene-zuelans, but Americans. Ponder that for a moment. In a strange and distant land not one foreigner exploited me. But two Floridians swindled and sneered at me. My Venezuelan friends and their lawyer forced them to reimburse my credit card.

Incredible, don’t you think? What is it that elevates distant and exotic fears over closer and familiar fears that are probably doing us a lot more harm?   It’s like the old saw about fearing to fly in an airplane when of course it is many times safer than driving somewhere. We prefer risk more grounded and close to home. We catastrophize exotic and distant fears; we minimize our familiar, everyday fears.
Interestingly, as I returned home, my Venezuelan friends were concerned. “I hear the swine flu is bad up there.  Aren’t you worried? Why not stay with us, it’s safe.”

Here’s another example. How long has our health care system has been a mess.  One big reason the American automakers went bankrupt is because of having to pay worker health costs that foreign automakers don’t have, about $2,000 per car. So we have town halls to discuss alternatives to our health care crisis, and leap to fearmongering, projecting death panels. As though the same government providing our Medicare all these years is now Dr. Frankenstein in his laboratory.  We fear less our dysfunctional health care system than our unknown alternatives. 

So many feared for me being in Venezuela with the snakes, the drug cartels and the America-bashing. And I was snug as a bug in a rug. But since returning home I had a mirror fall forward off my dresser and crack my head until I saw stars.  And then, out for exercise, having hit a patch of sand on my bicycle, I sailed over my handlebars. I was fortunate that I didn’t break bones or have a concussion.

All of this is spiritually significant because God takes us out of our comfort zones in so many various ways.  It’s funny, really, how people think of Christianity as a safe and conventional life.   And, superficially considered, given how fixed and secure the church seems, sitting safely on the town green, I understand that.  But if our Christian walk is about following Jesus where he leads, if it is about loving enemies, extravagant forgiveness, identifying with the poor and broken, receiving the stranger with open-hearted hospitality, speaking truth to money and power; then we are treading the same path that led Jesus out to the cross on Golgotha.

We can fear these holy unfamiliar, foreign, out-there risks in such a way that we refuse to go there with Jesus. Instead we take refuge in domestic, familiar, every-day fears and explore no farther. Risks like can I buy that new purse and still have enough to pay my credit card this month?  Am I as attractive and smart as that friend I envy?  Why am I not as successful as my mother thinks I should be?   We stay safe at home and refuse to stretch our comfort zone, as Jesus beckons.

I suppose the question we must ask ourselves is do we want a shot at greatness or is pretty good acceptable? Do we hope to experience something so lofty as joy or is feeling cozy sufficient?  Do we really want our hearts to sing or is keeping them out of harm’s way enough?  The truth is Christianity is a passionate faith.  It takes us out of ourselves to new places we never imagined we would go. It trans-forms us such that we end up feeling, “Wow, I thought my life was only about this.  But it is really about that. And that is a much grander stage.” Our faith isn’t about complying with rules.   It’s about living fully from places of high adventure.

The early Christian church was mostly simple people of little status or influence. But they overturned a Roman Empire built on who your family was and who they knew. Along the way they ended barbaric practices like gladiatorial spectacles by suffering with dignity. They ended infanticide by pulling the babies of strangers out of the Tiber River and raising those infants as their own.  They asserted the love of God for the poor, and that they were not disposable, by feeding tens of thousands a day in Rome.  Can you imagine how much nerve it took to do any one of those things?  Christianity does extraordinary things through ordinary peo-ple.  God’s reign unfolds through steady people led forth by an amazing Gospel.

For reasons like these, a mentor back in my Detroit days, the Personnel Manager of Chrysler, used to tell me as I puzzled over my choices, “No gamble, no glory.”  Which do we want? To avoid our fears, stay safe, and settle with less than glory?  Or to realize that life is a risk no matter how you slice it. Sometimes staying home amid what we already know and not venturing out there is the biggest risk.  And facing down our fear by taking the right kind of risk, such as the holy risks Jesus urges on us, is not only what makes God smile, it even makes our heart sing. All I know is our lives would truly glorify God; if we seek joy, we must risk ourselves.    

Our Epistle lesson said, “Perfect love casts out fear, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” (I Jn 4.18)  Of course, the perfect love that ended the reign of hatred and violence was also the riskiest love this world has ever known.  It was God’s love for us at Good Friday’s cross and Easter’s empty tomb.  Jesus faced down his fears, did not count the personal cost, but gave himself as an love offering for us.  And intimidation took a hit that it has never recovered from.

A friend told me the woman who heads the Pastoral Renewal Program of the Lilly Endowment read my grant proposal and gave it high marks. But after rating it highly, she shook her head and said, “I hope this guy knows what he’s doing.”   Don’t tell her, but I wondered myself, at certain points. The day I left Venezuela, I rose at 3:30 am. It was sprinkling in the darkness as I loaded my bags in my car.  Halfway to the airport, this earnest rain, the only sustained rainfall of my months there, became a downpour, a sheet of water. My pathetic wipers and headlights couldn’t keep up.  I was driving slowly, but suddenly heard a loud scraping noise. I ended up beaching my car on a median curb, straddling it with my wheels off the ground. What do I do now? I wondered. I am going to miss my plane. Nothing like this had happened my whole visit.  Why now as I leave?  But a peace came over me. God shook me just a little before my departure to remind me of his care.

Of course, in my self-created crisis, the Venezuelans came through for me and bailed me out one more time.  I think that I mildly amused them. As my plane got back over American soil, I heaved this relieved and joyous sigh. I did it!  I felt led by God. I ventured out into a new place.  It was better than I could have hoped or dreamt. And I was returning safe, happy, and whole to tell all of God’s greatness.

I don’t know what makes your heart sing, but I am guessing it’s not Venezuela.  Only you can tell me what fears God would have you confront and what holy risks are those where God would have you make a difference. Of course, as a church, we discern and undertake many of those together as a single community. Friends, these are places where joy awaits us.  May God take us there together. And may our singing hearts make the angels smile and gladden the heart of God. Amen.