Fear Not: Keep Calm and Carry On

from my message on 3/17/13, from Matthew 10:26-31

Keep Calm and Carry On (slide).  Have you seen this poster?  In just a minute I will tell you where it came from.  I started noticing it everywhere, on coffee cups, on websites, etc.  I knew that it had worked its way into our common culture when I started seeing all of the parodies on Keep Calm and Carry On.  Here are a few:
Keep Calm and Carrion
Keep Calm and Cary Grant
Keep Calm and have a cupcake
Get Excited and Make Things
Now Panic and Freak Out

Keep Calm and Carry On came from the Ministry of Information in Britain duing WWII.  There were a series of posters that the office came up with and were placed around the country.  Two and a half million of the Keep Calm and Carry On posters were printed in the event that Germany would invade England.  Obviously, there were never used.  The posters were made into pulp.  Then in the year 2000, a bookseller bought a bunch of old books that had one of the Keep Calm and Carry On posters with the books.  Several were found in the archives in  a British museum.  The British version of the Antique Road Show found some 15 copies.  How very British!  If Germany should take over our country, we are to Keep Calm and Carry On.  The outward circumstances don't determine who we are or how we react.  In the worst circumstances we continue to witness to who we ultimately are.

I can almost hear Jesus say to his disciples Keep Calm and Carry On.  This whole 10th chapter of Matthew contains Jesus' instructions on how to spread the good news.  I am sure the early church remembered his words as they faced the very situations he mentioned.  Jesus said that he was sending his followers out as sheep among wolves, that they would be flogged and arrested and persecuted and hated by all.   Three times he tells them not to fear.  Their message will not merely be whispered, but shouted.  It will not remain in the dark but proclaimed in the light.  Their Father knows them intimately, so Keep Calm and Carry On.

We are not in the same context today.  Being a Christian in our culture does not generate quite this level of conflict.  Now if you are a Christian in China or Iraq today, you might really resonate with the words Matthew remembers Jesus saying.  So how are we to relate to these words?

I am about to share a very scary word with you Methodists here at Westlake UMC.  Are you ready to hear it?  The word is witnessing!   Arrgghh....please don't make us do that ....witnessing.  We have had enough of bad examples--televangelists with hair that could preach Jesus, knocking on strangers' doors to share the 4 spiritual laws, using guilt or fear to coerce people into a profession of faith.  Do not be afraid, Jesus says 3 times in this passage.  How can we Keep Calm and Carry On?

I was trying to think of a positive example of witnessing.  Then I remembered whose day this....March 17...It's St. Patrick's Day.  I don't know why we Protestants make such a big deal of it.  We usually don't pay much attention to the saints of the Roman Catholic Church.  By the way, God bless them and their new pope, Francis.  What I remembered from growing up about St. Patrick was that you were supposed to where green on this day or get pinched.  You see I have my green suit on today.

Do you know the story of St. Patrick?  I will tell you how he witnessed.  It is a model of Keep Calm and Carry On.  He was born in 390, but not in Ireland.  He grew up on the western coast of England or Wales.  His father was a deacon in the Roman Church.  Patrick was lukewarm in his faith, fairly spoiled.  The Celts in Ireland would come over in boats in raiding parties.  On one of these forays, Patrick was taken as a slave back to Ireland, when he was about 11.  Imagine this, spending months on end in your teenage years, watching sheep as  a slave.  After 6 years of this, Patrick simply walked off the job, hiking some 200 miles to a port, where he talked his way aboard a ship.  He arrived back with his family--fairly unsettled, way behind in his education.  This pesky God, and that is my favorite image of God now days, this pesky God came to him in visions.  One was "We beg you to come and walk among us again." Another was "He who gave his life for you, he it is who speaks with you."

It took a while before Patrick relented.  He went to France to get a theological education.  He was ordained as a missionary to Ireland.  At age 42, he returns to Ireland to begins his missionary work.   Here's how he did it.  One, he did it in community, not alone.  He went with some dozen men and women.  We can't do it alone either.  Jesus sent out his disciples 2 x 2.  Partick always formed community wherever he went.  We can't follow Christ well all by ourselves.  Two, Patrick met people where they are.  He already knew the language and the culture from the time he was enslaved there.  He would get to know the chiefs and the common people, what their needs were, what their hopes where.  Three, Patrick used art and music.  He was not just left-brained, linear, and rational.  Fourth, most importantly, he loved the people.  He loved the people.  He loved the people.  He didn't coerce or force.  He loved them.  He was an example of Keep Calm and Carry On.  When he died on March 17, 461, and that's why we celebrate today on March 17, he left Ireland much different from when he first encountered it.  No longer did the chieftains fight amongst themselves.  No longer did they go on raiding parties, or have slaves.  Ireland had been converted to Christianity.

How can we practice witnessing today?  We live in a culture of greed.  We are to Keep Calm and Carry On.  We will meet the culture with grace.  We will say, "your worth does not depend on how much stuff you have.  Your worth  is determined by how much love God has for you in Jesus Christ."

We live in a culture of blame, of putting others down, in order to feel good about ourselves.  We are to Keep Calm and Carry On.  We will not give in to runnning down Muslims and assuming they are all terrorists.  We will not harrass those of different sexual orientations or race.  We will welcome all.  We will work for reconciliation.

We live in a culture of indifference, cynicism, rationalism.  We are to Keep Calm and Carry On.  We will tell our story at Easter.  We will talk about death and resurrection. We will allow for mystery in this world.  We know that there is room, no hunger for, art and music and mystery, beyond rationalism.

We live with overwhelming problems.  We are to Keep Calm and Carry On.  We will continue to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, and visit those who are sick or in prison.  One good way for you to do this is set aside April 28 as our ReThink Church day.  We will call off worship services that day to go out into world to meet people where they are in their need and witness to the fullness of God's love in Jesus Christ by our words and deeds.

I have no scary news for you, only good news when it comes to witnessing.  We are to Keep Calm and Carry On.