Courage Beyond Fear

Sunday began with my spouse, Sheryl, filling the pulpit. I sat in the back row, trying to hear her homily on trust, since I needed hearing assistance to hear clearly.

Her homily was titled “Sarah Laughed,” based on Sarah’s laughter when the two visitors told her she was to bear a child in her old age. Right in the middle, I got an urgent message from my heart daughter in Kenya.

A woman she had rescued from domestic violence showed up unannounced, along with her children. Her four-year-old son was very sick, as was she.

Fauna texted me in desperation. We had been supporting Fauna and her two daughters for six years as she pursued her dream of earning her master’s in African eco-womanist theology. But her monthly stipend had run out. We were nearing the end of funds for her monthly stipend.

When she asked us for $300 to go to the hospital, like Sarah, I probably laughed out loud. Where could I find it at such short notice?

My first reaction was one of both fear and frustration. But how could I not do it?

Then I felt a touch by divine spirit on my shoulder, first lightly, then more insistently, as I tried to shut off its message: “Stand up at coffee hour, tell the story of Fauna, then ask them for donations as they leave.” What? Was this serious? Who? Me?

As I was mulling this over, I thought back to Martin Luther on that cool autumn day, Oct. 31, 1517, as he tacked his 95 Theses on the front door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. I expect he must have had some trepidation at that moment. After all, the church had not treated heretics well. Some were banished, some imprisoned, some outright executed: by fire, the rack, drawing and quartering, the noose.

But despite the fear he must have felt as a human being, he kept driving the nail in harder and harder. No, perfect love had not cast out his fear, but love overcame it, and thus the Protestant Reformation began, on a church door in a German town.

As the news spread, he had to flee and go into hiding. He was immediately excommunicated and condemned. If he could do it, then so could I!

As soon as the congregation settled into their after-service lunch, I got up and asked for silence. I told them about our mission to support the life and ministry of Fauna and her two daughters.

I told them of her plea for $300 to meet her neighbor’s needs, since her monthly stipend had already been spent. I asked each of them to put in what they could when they left the hall.

After the meal, I discovered it was their annual financial meeting. I was frustrated at first because I had to sit through the meeting to confirm whether anyone had contributed.

But my plea, in which spirit’s perfect love had overcome my human fears, had touched the moderator, who introduced a resolution to grant me the amount I had requested. It passed unanimously.

I had not changed the course of ecclesiastical and political history that day, but my talk had changed the lives of two families in a small town in Kenya.

Perfect love does not cast out fear, but perfect love demands we speak out anyway.

Sarah had her baby, Luther lived long enough to fuel his reform movement, and I grabbed an extra cookie as I left the meeting.

May you have the ear to hear the next act that will be required, not without fear, but with courage beyond fear.