Sermon for Sunday, May 30, 2004  

COURAGE
4th in a series on Building Your Life on a Solid Foundation

By

Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

Scripture: Acts 2:1-4, 14-17, 36-42 

2 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ² And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³ Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

¹⁴ But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. ¹⁵ Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 

¹⁷ 'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

³⁶ Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified."  ³⁷ Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, "Brothers, what should we do?" ³⁸ Peter said to them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him." ⁴⁰ And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." ⁴¹ So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. ⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

One of the sites that we visit in Greece on every trip we take there is this site of the battle of Thermopylae which occurred in 480 BC during the wars between Greeks and Persians.

The battle here was between Leonidas the leader of a group of 300 handpicked Spartans and 10,000 Persian warriors under the command of King Xerxes. This picture is of Leonidas who held the pass at Thermopylae long enough for the rest of the Greeks to regroup and to eventually defeat the Persian navy in a battle at Salamis one month later. Leonidas, whose statue this is was killed along with all of his men in a battle that lasted several days, but the delay that he caused the Persians was a turning point in all of this campaign, and because of his courage, this place became one of the turning points of human history.

The Persians were not able to defeat the Greeks and so Greek culture went on to thrive and grow in the rest of the fifth century so that we could have these incredible buildings and art pieces that have still remained the inspiration for western art and architecture 2400 years later.

In other words, the courage of this leader and others in that single battle of Thermopylae was one of the rare fulcrum points of western history that allowed Greek democracy to be born and to influence us today. If these persons had not acted courageously as they did, our lives today would be very, very different.

We could say that same thing about the men and women we honor this weekend in our nation's Memorial Day celebration. Time magazine this week features interviews with some of the survivors of the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944, and the stories are about 19 and 20 year old American soldiers who braved incredible odds to capture the beach and to finally move the allies to bring an end to the Nazi war machine. 

It is so important for us to honor and remember these citizen soldiers this weekend because we are losing our precious World War II veterans at the rate of 5000 deaths a day now of these revered heroes who certainly felt fear but who did not let their fear keep them from doing what was right and necessary to stand for democracy and against tyranny and the Nazi policies.

Courage doesn't mean an absence of fear. John McCain says that in his new book "Why Courage Matters". Courage never means that we are totally unafraid. Courage means that we feel the fear and still go on to do what we feel called to do. We don't let the fear keep us from doing what is right.

I know that was the same mixture of feelings that were present on the Jewish holiday of Pentecost, fifty days after Passover when there were thousands of pilgrims back in Jerusalem. The disciples who gathered in the upper room again felt God empowering them with fire and rushing winds and they began to speak to the crowds in their own languages.

And then, lo and behold, an unsuspected preacher from the group, the one you might least have expected to stand up and address the thousands of pilgrims, stood up and told the story about Jesus' death and about the fact that he is still alive, and 3000 people joined the Christian movement that very day. Who was that unlikely preacher? It was Peter of course, the one who just a few days hence had denied even knowing Jesus because he was so afraid he would be arrested also. It was a stunning example of the lack of courage!

But on Pentecost day, Peter had found his courage somehow {more about that in a moment} and he became the leader for a while of this new Jesus movement that began to spread across Jerusalem and then to Galilee and then all across the world and cross the centuries to us so we might continue its spread to others.

It spread because of this foundation stone that we are looking at today in our sermon series on building life on a solid foundation, the foundation of courage.

Courage is not just a virtue that we talk about in military battles. Mother Theresa said " "To have courage for whatever comes in life-everything lies in that" Can we believe that? EVERYTHING LIES IN THAT, IN HAVING COURAGE!

Winston Churchill said it this way: "Courage is the first of human qualities - because it guarantees all the others."

On that day of Pentecost, Peter showed incredible courage in getting up to speak after he had so shamed himself just a few weeks earlier by denying Christ. At Pentecost he became the leader. Incidentally for many people, just the act of standing up and speaking in public is the thing they are most afraid of!! Public speaking is still the number one fear list by people in our country today.

But Peter showed his courage in other ways as well. Later on in the book of acts, Peter and John are arrested by the spiritual leaders; they are brought before the council, and they are told not to ever speak to people about Jesus ever again. Do you remember what they say? They say that they just cannot help telling people about what they have experienced and when they are released, they go right back to the temple and begin telling others that Jesus is alive and inviting them to join the movement.

They are put in jail and somehow are freed and go right back to their task of sharing the news about Jesus. Talk about courage. These people are on fire with the message that God wants a new relationship with us and has acted in Christ to offer that new life. They were so impassioned about this that they were willing to do whatever it took to get the message out even to the point of being jailed or having their very lives threatened.

It was this same courage that some of our Greece travelers last month saw in the apostle Paul as he was willing to brave persecution, physical beatings, and being grossly misunderstood by many people because he wanted others including you and me to make their own decision about Christ.

The Bible is full of good examples of courage in action. Abraham had to have courage to leave his family in Ur 3700 years ago and go to a new place where God was leading him. Moses found his courage as he went to the most powerful leader in the world in 1300 - the pharaoh of Egypt - and told him to let God's people go out of their slavery. In the story of Noah, Noah had to have courage to be building a big boat while the sun was shining brightly because I am sure he was being ridiculed by his friends and neighbors who could not see any reason to be building a boat in the sunshine

The prophet Nathan had to show courage when he confronted the most popular king in all of Jewish history with his wrongdoing (what was that king's name?) and told the king that God needed him to repent and to straighten out his life and stop acting arrogantly and like he was not accountable to anyone. 

In the book of Ruth, this woman who becomes the ancestor of King David leaves her native land and goes back to Bethlehem to live with her mother-in-law - for some people that might be especially courageous - and marries again and her great grandson is king David.

Mary the mother of Jesus had to exhibit courage when she learned she would be the mother of the messiah and when she later on saw him reach out beyond his nuclear family to form a larger family of followers.

And there is a very puzzling story in the gospels about a woman who was not Jewish, a gentile woman who approaches Jesus while he is on vacation - he has gone away to just get some time for himself and he wants to be alone - this is in chapter 7 of Mark's gospel. And while he is in this retreat house trying to be alone, a woman comes and interrupts him. Her daughter is ill and she is asking Jesus to make her well. And Jesus says something very strange. He says, it is not right to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs. What does that mean? The gentiles were called dogs sometimes by self-righteous Jews. He may be just testing her, he may be saying something he did not believe but he knew that his disciples believed.

Do you remember what this courageous woman does? She talks back to the charismatic teacher and says, "But sir, even the dogs under the table can eat the crumbs and leftovers."

And Jesus, praising her courage and her persistence, says to her, "For saying what you just said, your daughter is made well. Go and find her healed."

Sometimes like that woman, we find our voice of courage when we are advocating for someone we love.

What about some people who are current examples and role models of courage for you? John McCain mentions some of those in his book. Some of those are military stories but most are not. He tells of a woman who lived in a poor neighborhood in Baltimore where drug dealers began to take over the neighborhood and how she stood against them for the sake of her children and for the sake of the other children in the neighborhood.

We talked in our staff meeting last Tuesday about people whom we admire for their courage. We mentioned some well known people: Dr. Martin Luther King who dared to do what the prophet Nathan did and confront powerful forces with the truth and was willing to suffer the consequences of his passion for justice and equality for all people.

We talked about people who see the illegal behavior going on in their company or in the government agency they work for and who just cannot keep silence. Sherron Watkins was one of those in the Enron organization three years ago. She had grown up in church, she was very active in her Presbyterian church in Houston and she finally felt compelled to tell the truth about the gross illegalities she saw around her and to write Ken Lay and finally to go public with the facts about the Enron debacle. And when she testified in congress her pastor was sitting right behind her to support her and to affirm her courage.

I said in that meeting that I am an admirer of John McCain who I believe has exemplified courage in telling the truth many times even when it is uncomfortable and for having a quality of integrity and a refusal to just go along to get along. I am not a republican or democrat and have given money to candidates from both political parties because I think, both theologically and politically, I am a flaming centrist. But for me McCain has exemplified political courage and integrity when those are just extremely rare in the nation's capital.

And in our staff discussion we talked about people who are not famous but who are sterling examples of courage. We mentioned Vern Norman of our church whose funeral we held here four weeks ago, and we talked about Vern's courage in facing and battling cancer for over twenty years and his gracious spirit in all those years.

We talked about people who have experienced loss and grief and said that sometimes when we are hurting spiritually and emotionally that just getting up each morning is an incredible act of courage.

Where in your life do you need to find the courage to do something that you are frightened by, something you are afraid of yet you know that it has to be done - you feel compelled to do something but you are frightened because it is hard, it is risky, you don't know how it will come out - but you feel that something has to be done and you feel a nudge from God telling you that you are the person to do something.

Perhaps it is a matter of not being able to keep silence when you see something wrong being done. Perhaps it is a matter of deciding that the risk of speaking out is less than the risk of just living with yourself and not respecting yourself when you are being silent. One of my favorite quotes in American history is about this and it is from patriot Edmund Burke: All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good persons to do nothing.

Will you take some time in silence right now and think about that with me or think about someone you know who is facing a situation where courage is being called for?

Let me remind us of something we said at the beginning. Acting in courage does not mean that we are not afraid. It means that we feel the fear and do it anyway. It means that when we face the problem and don't dodge it, it becomes smaller. It means that we do what Peter had done to give him the courage to become the leader he became -to hear Christ's healing words that he is loved and accepted and that Christ is with him. He knew that because he had seen the Lord and he had felt the living presence of Jesus.

And in that relationship Peter was able to do what God need him to do.

The psalmist expressed that relationship in our call to worship and he gives us the key to living and acting with this foundation stone of courage. Let us close with that affirmation from Psalm 27 once more.

The lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?

The lord is the stronghold of my life. Of whom should I be afraid?

Trust in the lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Trust in the Lord.

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