SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1Sermon at St Thomas by Lynn Cunningham

February 20, 2006

Epiphany 7 Year B

Is 343:18-25

2 Cor 1:18-22

Mark 2:1-12

1.         “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil

a.         For thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me”

b.         Surely you recall the words of the 23^rd Psalm

2.         And you might know the 91^st Psalm also by heart,

a.         “She who dwells in the shelter of the Most High,

b.         abides under the shadow of the Almighty.”

3.         Let me share today a few words about confidence, about “no fear”.

4.         An Alaskan bush pilot, just starting out in his first season, was flying mail and supplies from Anchorage or someplace to the new oil fields on the North Slope.  His plane developed engine trouble and he had to make an emergency landing out in the frozen tundra forty or fifty miles short of his destination.  He landed safely, got out of the plane with no difficulty, walked around the plane once, and then killed himself with his pistol.

a.         About half an hour later, another bush pilot was flying along the same route and saw that his friend had had to make an emergency landing, so he landed his plane beside his friends plane to see if he could help.

b.         It was too late.

c.         Fear of freezing to death had gotten the young pilot.  Fear alone had gotten to him.

5.         In the early winter, Bob Grubb told me that he and Mick Strasser were going to go ice fishing up in the Union Pass area at one of the mountain lakes. I said, Bob, isn’t it too much deep snow to drive your pickup up there.  He said, Well, we are going to go on snow mobiles.

a.         I pondered that image for a moment and said, well, what if the snowmobiles break down way out there in the freezing wilderness?

b.         Without missing a beat, Bob said, well, there would be two of us, and we could always ride back on one snowmobile.

c.         Okay.  Sounds like no fear to me.

6.         As I think I have told you, Dorothy and I drove through a lot of small towns on our car trip out here last May.  Many of those small towns, and some of the bigger ones, appeared to not have much confidence in themselves.  The store fronts were run down.  There were strip malls of fast food restaurants out on the highway, but not much going on in the towns themselves.

a.         O’Neil, Valentine and Chadron, Nebraska, towns along the road in Iowa.  Newcastle, Moorcroft and Shoshoni, Wyoming did not look too prosperous and confident either.

7.         And then we got to Dubois, which was smaller in population and much remoter than lots of places we came through.  We realized with amazement that Dubois has the Museum, the Bighorn Sheep Center, the Headwaters, the new Health Clinic, the new Library, and the Senior Center.  Dubois has a wide variety of stores serving different needs, such as the Water Wheel, the Velvet Thorn, Wind River Gear.  It has service stores such as the auto store, Painted Valley Lumber, and AD Martin. And the stores.  I know that the shopkeepers have a struggle making it here, but look at the long list of successful stores and businesses and ranches we have  in Dubois.  There are a list of functioning ranches, CM Absaroka, and T Cross Ranches, EA, Box Hanging Three, Diamond G.  I am not going to read you the yellow pages from Dubois, but this is a happening place, in spite of its challenges.

8.         We are not just tourist oriented stores and big box super stores.

9.         There are lots of terrific artists, John Phelps and Gary Keimig, Bud Boller and Mary Ellen.  And I have a favorite new silver- smith, Dorothy Remy, assisted by John Story!

10.       Just what exactly does this place have?  Among other things, it has confidence.  Fear does not rule Dubois.

11.       Fear paralyzes people. And people who have learned to act with confidence can overcome amazing challenges, whether those challenges are in personal life, or in the life of the body politic.

12.       I am reminded of the histories I have read of the difficulties that President Lincoln had in finding the right general to lead the Union Armies at the start of the Civil War.  In the opening weeks of the war, everybody on both sides wanted just one particular general to lead the armies on their side.  And that general was Robert E. Lee, because Lee knew how to lead an army aggressively and without fear.  Lee chose to stay and fight on the side of his native Virginia, even though he was strongly disapproving of negro slavery. 

13.       So President Lincoln first chose General McClellan.  McClellan did an excellent job of organizing a massive new Union army, an army bigger than the U.S. had ever seen.  He organized training for new battalions of soldiers. He made sure they got plenty of supplies and the best equipment available.  He instilled discipline and loyalty in the divisions coming to the war effort, arriving from many different states. And then a few months into the start of the war, the Union divisions under McClellan’s leadership finally got into position to attack Lee’s army in eastern Virginia.  Lincoln ordered McClellan to go on the attack.  Nothing happened.  All the Union soldiers were poised for action.  But McClellan hesitated.  He said he was not ready yet. He telegraphed to the President, Well, I have not finished training and equipping the men.

14.       And that became a pattern with him: he never seemed to want to go over to the attack, and if he was attacked, or started to attack, if a battle turned ugly, he quickly retreated. Finally, Lincoln sacked McClellan and brought in General Meade to lead the Union armies.  General Meade, it turned out was not much better.  Meade led the Union forces at Gettysberg, and the Confederate forces were defeated on that battlefield, but then Meade failed to follow up his victory and go after Lee’s retreating Confederate armies as they retreated from Gettysberg.  Lee escaped Meade’s army to continue to fight for two more years, when Meade might have finished off the war by following up his victory at Gettysberg.

15.       Meanwhile, out in the western theater of the war, in fighting along the Mississippi River near Vicksburg, there were two generals who had been not very successful in their private lives.  But as generals leading the Union forces out there, they always seemed to go on the attack and would not quit until their Confederate opponents were defeated.  These generals were Ulysses S. Grant, and William Tecumseh Sherman.

16.       Grant and Sherman did not spend their time worrying about what might happen if they lost a battle.  They put their minds to figuring out how to go on the attack and to win their battles, in spite of the terrible costs.  Lincoln finally brought Grant back to lead the overall Union army, and sent Sherman to lead the Union forces to capture Atlanta, and destroy the Confederate power bases in Georgia and the Carolinas.  They both achieved victory, with a terrible cost in lives and destruction.

17.       But they both won, because basically the operated without fear, with strong confidence.

18.       We are halfway through the process of developing the Opportunity Shop next door to the church.  An outsider who did not understand St. Thomas might find room for some fear in our position.  At the moment we are sitting here with a gutted building. On hand are only about half the funds we need to finish the construction and start the business.  We have some great ideas about how to proceed based on successful thrift stores elsewhere, but will those ideas work in Dubois?

19.       But you know what I feel?  No fear. Strong confidence.  We are on the Dubois team here, and the Dubois team gets things done. Kass and the planning group have been hard at work putting this thing together.  And there were five of the men out there on Thursday smashing down the front wall, volunteering to help make this thing happen.  Bob Grubb, Mick Strasser, Dean Sersland, Ron Custis, and Roger Lichtenwalner.  (Did I miss anyone?)  Maybe we should anoint a new “wall-smashing ministry” here at the church.  You guys can be the charter members!  Dick will probably call this a “smashing success”.

20.       We who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

21.       Okay, what if there are some fears and doubting questions lurking around in the corners of our minds from time to time. What if the Opp Shop never makes any money and goes broke? What if the donations run short of expectations?  In life there are always doubts and fears lurking around in the corners of the mind about anything.

22.       I say take those fears and doubts, get the resources we need, plan around the problems, and move forward.

23.       Without wanting to sound arrogant, we are the ones who dwell in the shelter of the Most High. We are the ones who abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

24.       So what if one your snowmobiles conks out when you are twenty miles out from the trail head?  Well, what if it does?  That is why you have alternatives. Bring two snowmobiles.

25.       Key your actions off of the confidence in what you are going after, what you are trying to do.  Don’t key off fear, like that young bush pilot did, like General McClellan often did.

26.       These lessons for today root our confidence in the work of the Holy Spirit.  These lessons give tools to avoid keying off the fear.

27.       2700 years ago, Isaiah the prophet hears God saying, “I am about to do a new thing.” How can God be headed to be doing a new thing, when it has been 2700 years since Isaiah said that?  Because God is always doing a new thing in our life today.  Newness of life is an ever present gift of God that counters fears grounded in the old things.

28.       Paul writes to the Corinthians, “our word to you has not been “yes and no”. For the Son of God... whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy, and I, was not “Yes and no”, but in Christ it is always, “Yes”.”

a.         You hear that.  Paul is not grounded in a life lived in a half hearted, fearful sort of way.  Life in Christ is to be lived into the “yes”, a yes that expresses enthusiasm and confidence.  Like the Dubois team when it comes to making a new thing happen, the museum the headwaters, the senior center, and now the Opp Shop.  Paul says, Let your actions be a Yes to good opportunities.

29.       And the gospel story of the support team cutting a hole in the roof of Jesus’ house in order to lower the paralytic man down in front of Jesus.  What a story!  Oh, we could spend a whole day’s retreat working with the depth of this story!

30.       “Son, Your sins are forgiven”, Jesus tells the paralyzed man. And then the scribes start to argue with each other and with Jesus: Well, what is this all about.  How can this happen? This is not real... Jesus, you can’t just heal him like that.

a.         You know what kind of sniping negative, natter that is.  We hear it around Dubois sometimes.  People will say, Well it will never work, whatever the latest project is.  The Headwaters will just be a big white elephant, they said.  We don’t need a new health clinic, they said.  And so on and on.  People keying off their fear, rather than offering a yes to life.

31.       And what does Jesus respond to the scribes fearful, nay-saying.  He simply says, hey, son, pick your mat, and walk on home. 

32.       Walk on home.

33.       No fear.  Strong confidence.

34.       Yes, we are indeed walking through the valley of the shadow of death.  This is the slowest time of the year for Dubois.  Even the Kiwanians were kind of poking at each other last Tuesday morning.  So, hear just this little reminder: You, dear ones, indeed dwell in the shelter of the Most High. You abide here in Dubois under the shadow of the Almighty.  Psalm 91: it is all right there written out for us.

35.       In Jesus name, Amen.