"Even In Our Fear, We Are Called Forward" - (December 14, 2025 Sermon)

Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

Text: Luke 1:26-39

A well-worn story can still wake the soul when we let it speak without the safety net of clichés. We open the season with Jeremiah’s protest and Mary’s trembling yes, tracking how both were called into risk and equipped not with slogans but with presence, touch, and community. The message challenges quick fixes like “God never gives you more than you can handle” and “faith over fear,” showing how those phrases often silence pain and isolate people who most need care.

We dig into the language of Luke to name Mary’s experience as more than mild confusion; it is deep agitation in a world where her body and future are at risk. That honesty reshapes how we see courage. Mary’s haste to Elizabeth is not escape from her call but a move toward solidarity, mirroring a biblical pattern where God pairs callings with companions: Aaron with Moses, Mordecai with Esther, Elisha with Elijah, Jonathan with David. From that thread we arrive at ekklesia—a people called out together—reminding us that church is inherently outward, communal, and brave.

Across the hour we offer a grounded alternative: faith with fear. Not fearlessness, not denial, but a posture that holds two truths at once—do not fear and here I am. Through stories from the pulpit to the operating room to the classroom and the kitchen table, we show how fear, faced with company, becomes a teacher of humility and courage. If you’ve ever felt unsettled, unqualified, or overwhelmed, this conversation gives you language, companions, and a next step.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs gentle courage, and leave a review telling us where you’re saying “here I am” today.

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Transcript

Opening Prayer For New Ears

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Holy one. The story of this season is not a new one. We've heard this tale before. We've seen the nativities, watched the plays, sung the songs, witnessed the children act it out. The story of this season is not a new one, and yet we long to hear it as if it is. So spark our spirits awake. Call forth awareness, attention, and reverence in us. Allow us to hear this ancient tale with brand new ears. With hope we pray. Amen. Today's scripture reading comes from the book of Jeremiah, chapter one, verses four through ten. Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Then I said, Ah, Lord God, truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy. But the Lord said, Do not say, I am only a boy, for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord. Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. Holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God.

The Annunciation In Luke

unknown 1:42

All right, friends.

Debunking Bumper Sticker Theology

Faith And Fear In Scripture

Mary’s Yes And Shared Support

Do Not Fear And Here I Am

Fear As A Holy Companion

Blessing And Amen

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Let us listen again for what God is saying to God's church using the words of Luke chapter 1, verses 29 through 36. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary, and he came to her and said, Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was much perplexed, uh perplexed by his words, and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom. There will be no end. Mary said to the angel, How can this be, since I am a virgin? The angel said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High God will overshadow you. And therefore the child to be born will be holy. He will be called son of God. And now your relative Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren, for nothing will be impossible with God. Then Mary said, Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word. Then the angel departed from her. In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country. Friends, holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our Redeemer. Amen. I invite you to raise your hand if you've ever heard any of the following statements. God never gives you more than you can handle. Yeah? Okay, how about God doesn't call the equipped, he equips the called. Heard that? How about too blessed to be stressed? It's a great one to have here in the month of December. And then finally, faith over fear. Have you ever heard that phrase? Your snarky pastor calls these phrases and others like them, bumper sticker theology. Although they may be well-meaning, these phrases too often oversimplify complex theology into a few words slapped on a fender or embroidered on a pillow or patched onto a t-shirt. No matter how altruistic the intent, the effect of these phrases sometimes can be hurtful to others. Too blessed to be stressed probably isn't a helpful or healing phrase when the recipient is a stressed-out mother juggling a full-time job and side hustle, worrying about her health insurance premiums going up next month and wondering if she can afford to buy Christmas presents for her kids this year. God never gives you more than you can handle, is a slap in the face to a person whose spouse of decades dies to cancer. God doesn't call the equipped, he equips the called, isn't a helpful phrase to a teenager who struggles with anxiety and depression, who doesn't know if it's okay to say no to something to attend to their own self-care. And finally, faith over fear, I think, creates an unhealthy binary, as though faith and fear are at war with one another, and you and I are somehow helplessly caught in the middle. When my five-year-old came to me a few days ago saying that she was scared to go to bed because she had had a nightmare the night before, I didn't tell her to have more faith. I didn't tell her to not be scared. And we talked about what nightmares are and what they aren't. We talked about how they're not real, even though they certainly feel real in the moment. We discussed how mommy and daddy are right next door and she can come get us if she's scared. I hugged her and I said, It's okay to be scared. Mommy, Daddy, and Sissy are here and we'll keep you safe. You're not alone. Though I suppose it's okay to be scared, I'm here, doesn't have quite the same ring as faith over fear. I think it's a healthier way to talk about fear in relation to our faith. Both of the characters in today's scripture readings, Jeremiah and Mary, had good reason to fear. Jeremiah was called to prophesy to the Israelites as the Babylonians were gaining political influence and threatening the sovereignty of the Davidic monarchy. Prophets often face the tough task of telling people things they don't want to hear, and because of that, their messages are rarely received with gratitude. I'm just a boy, he says. I don't know how to speak. God replies to Jeremiah by telling him that he once knew a man named Moses who had those exact same excuses. Never mind that, God says to Jeremiah, I formed you, I consecrated you, and I appointed you. I've been with you since the get-go, and I'm not leaving you now. Fast forward some 500 plus years, and a different voice of reluctance is heard, but I'm a virgin. Mary was perplexed, the text tells us. I'm here to tell you today that that's an unfortunately tame rendering of a Greek word that means something far more dramatic than mere puzzlement or confusion. The Greek word is tarasso, which means troubled or agitated or unsettled. In fact, the specific word that Luke uses is dia tarasso, which the first portion dia is an intensifier. So if tarasso means troubled, dia tarasso means you've missed the exit for troubled and are barreling down the freeway of anxiety and fear. The Reverend Dr. Bo Young Li explains it this way. She says, Mary is not simply puzzled, she is shaken, thrown off her balance, possibly afraid for her life. And with good reason, Mary was young, unmarried, and living under the weight of imperial and patriarchal control. To be told without warning that she would bear a child by divine initiative wasn't just a spiritual shock, it was a profound social and bodily risk. When was the last time you felt unsettled, unqualified, or overwhelmed? In those moments we often respond with fight, flight, or freeze. In Mary's case, it could be said that she chose flight. Now, to be clear, she had said yes. She was not fleeing from God or the call bestowed upon her. Instead, I think she was perhaps running from people who might have stoned her for being an unmarried pregnant woman, which was legally permissible to do. Maybe her survival instinct led her to seek the comfort of her older cousin Elizabeth, or perhaps she was driven by a need to protect herself in a society that would have viewed her with suspicion and disdain at best under those extraordinary circumstances. My suspicion is that God knew Mary would be scared, which is why I imagined God instructing the angel to tell Mary about Elizabeth. This, of course, aligns with God's encounters with previous biblical characters. God gave Aaron to Moses to help him confront Pharaoh. God gave Mordecai to Esther when she needed courage to confront King Ahasuerus and Haman. When Elijah was feeling overwhelmed, God gave him Elisha to help him bear the burden. Saul's son Jonathan became a beloved and trusted advisor for and protector to King David once he took the throne. So the biblical story is full of God calling people to work together, to serve together, to advocate for one another and their neighbors. Ultimately, God's people got together in Christ's name and called this thing church. The Greek word for church is ekklesia. If you are a Spanish speaker, you may recognize the Spanish word for church, egglesia. This word also comes from the Greek eklesia, and it literally means a people who are called out, or a people who are sent out. So the very word church is therefore inherently outwardly focused. It's not about a group of people who stay in, but about a people who are sent out. Ecclesia describes a group working together, linking arms, and stepping boldly into the world to share the gospel, despite a culture that often dismisses the very notion. But before the first ecclesia was formed, there was another who was called out, and her name was Mary. On the screen here, you'll see our liturgical art for the week created by Reverend Lyle Gwyn Garrity. It's called Mary's Yes. Today's passage makes two references to Mary's cousin Elizabeth being six months pregnant with John the Baptist. And coincidentally, Reverend Garrity herself was six months pregnant with her second daughter when she created this piece. She said the following: She said, Mary's willingness to say yes is also fortified by the assurance that she is not stepping forward alone. Even as fears surely surround her, Mary will go to Elizabeth for protection and comfort. She won't fulfill her calling without support. Her hope will be strengthened in solidarity. None of us, friends, are called to fulfill our calling without support. Our hope grows stronger through solidarity. Together, we channel our inner Mary and step forward into a weary world to do the blessed, messy, life-giving, and sometimes downright scary work of discipleship. I want to draw your attention to the clothing on Mary. If you look closely, you probably can't see it on the screen, but trust me, it's there. You'll notice that Mary's headdress, that's a slightly more of a yellow color around her head, has the words do not fear, written over and over and over and over, probably at least a hundred times. And likewise, embroidered around her neckline are the words, here I am, repeated over and over and over again a hundred times. Do not fear, and here I am. We hold our fears in one hand, recognizing them without allowing them to stop us, and in the other we hold trust, saying, Here I am, to a God who promises to be with us. So I don't think it's faith over fear so much as it's faith with fear. And you know what? I don't think that's a bad thing. You want to know a secret? I did the math this week and I calculated that I've preached at least 500 sermons over the past decade. And you know what? I still get scared when I step into the pulpit. I get scared, like all preachers, because I wonder: will I say too much? Will I say too little? Will this message be received with love? What if I hurt someone? What if I say something wrong? I still get scared. And you know what? I hope I always do. Fear makes me a better preacher because the moment I lose that fear, it's probably the moment I forget just how important this task is. And friends, you don't have to be a preacher to know this truth. The surgeon with a scalpel scalpel in her hand, the professor wondering if they'll be denied tenure for teaching the unvarnished truth of our nation's history, or the more conservative student that fears that they're gonna be treated differently if they speak their mind. The teenager who is gathering the courage to come out of the closet to their friends and family. The couple who wonders if trying again to have a child will only bring more heartbreak. Or perhaps the child who finally decides that it's time to go to that AA meeting. Friends, fear can push us to do some really, really brave things. So let us move forward in faith and fear. I don't think Mary left her fear behind when she went to see her cousin Elizabeth. And God doesn't expect us to leave our fear behind. Fear is what makes discipleship so beautiful. Fear is what makes courage and vulnerability the stuff of hope. Fear, perhaps, then, is a holy thing. If only we remember that it's part of our story, but never the end of it. In the name of God, the creator, redeemer, and sustainer, may all of us, God's beloved children, say. Amen.