Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year A (6-7-26)

What are you afraid of?

I don't mean your fear of snakes or heights or public speaking. I mean the fear that follows you around when nobody else is looking. The one that keeps showing up in your prayers. The fear that wakes you up at three in the morning. The one you try not to think about because you're not sure what you would do if it came true.

Maybe it's fear about your health. Maybe it's fear about your children or grandchildren. Maybe it's fear about money. Maybe it's fear about being alone. Maybe it's fear that something precious to you is slipping away and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

Take a moment and name it just to yourself.

One of the most important spiritual disciplines is learning to recognize our fears. Not so that we can be ruled by them, but because we cannot confront what we refuse to name. To our fears before God, we first have to know what they are.

But once we name them, another — perhaps more important—question emerges: How much authority have we given our fears?

Because fear is not just something we feel. Fear is something we can come to trust.

That, I think, is what today's readings are ultimately about.

One of the remarkable things about today's reading from Genesis is how little Abram and Sarai know. The story opens with God saying, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you." Notice what God does not provide. God does not give a map. God does not explain the timeline. God does not answer all of Abram's questions. God does not even tell him exactly where he is going.

Instead, God gives him a promise.

"I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you. In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

And then God essentially asks Abram and Sarai to stake their future on that promise. From our perspective it's easy to forget how risky this was. We know how the story ends. We know about the birth of Isaac. We know about the covenant. Abram and Sarai know none of that. All they know is that God is calling them away from everything familiar and into an uncertain future.

Most of us would prefer a roadmap. We would like God to show us the destination, explain the route, identify the obstacles, and provide a timeline. We would like enough information to eliminate uncertainty before we take the first step. Is that so much to ask?

But that is rarely how God works.

Again and again throughout Scripture, God calls people forward with enough light for the next step, but rarely enough to see the whole road ahead. Which means that from the very beginning, Abram and Sarai are confronted with a question that will shape the rest of their lives: Which voice will they trust? The voice of God's promise, or the voice of fear?

Seems like a simple choice, but remember — fear is persuasive. Fear rarely announces itself as fear. Instead, it presents itself as wisdom. It says, "I'm just being realistic." It says, "I'm only looking at the facts." It says, "I'm trying to protect you from disappointment." And before long, fear stops being merely an emotion and becomes an authority — the voice we trust most.

Imagine what fear could have said to Abram and Sarai. "You're too old to start over. What if this journey fails? What if you've misunderstood God? What if you leave everything familiar and end up with nothing?" None of those fears would have been irrational. They would have sounded quite reasonable to me. But the million-dollar question was never whether fear comes with sound arguments. The question is whether fear deserves our trust. And if we will allow it to shape our belief.

Most of us struggle with the quiet temptation to trust our fears more than we trust God. A diagnosis arrives. A relationship fractures. The future becomes uncertain. And suddenly fear begins narrating reality. It tells us what is possible, what is impossible, and what we should expect from tomorrow. If we're not careful, fear becomes the lens through which we interpret everything.

If we keep reading into Genesis, we discover that this first act of trust becomes the defining challenge of Abram and Sarai's lives. Again and again God makes promises, and again and again fear offers an alternative path. The details change, but the question remains the same: Which voice will they trust?

That is why Paul points us back to Abraham in Romans. Here, Paul isn't looking only at a single moment. He's looking at an entire life marked by faithfulness and failure, courage and doubt, obedience and impatience. A life that probably looks a lot like yours and mine. And so Paul's conclusion is not that Abraham was perfect. His conclusion is that Abraham eventually learned which voice deserved his trust. He learned to trust the God who "gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist." He learned that God's faithfulness was more reliable than fear's prophesy.

Once you see that theme, you begin seeing it everywhere in Scripture.

The same choice appears in the Gospel. A woman suffering for years reaches for Jesus. A ruler whose daughter has died comes to Jesus. Both face circumstances that seem hopeless. Yet both trust that Jesus is more trustworthy than their fear. That is what faith looks like. Faith isn't pretending that reality is different than it is. Faith is trusting that God's promise is more determinative than our circumstances. Faith is refusing to grant fear the authority that belongs to God alone.

And that is ultimately what God's promise to Abram was meant to reveal. That the promise does not finally rest on Abram's ability to be faithful. It rests on God's decision to be faithful. In the economy of faithfulness, God is always paying out more than God is getting back.

The Psalm this morning celebrates precisely that truth: "The word of GOD is right, and all GOD's works are sure." God's people can trust because God is trustworthy. The foundation of faith is not our certainty - rather it is God's character. The Good News is that the God who called Abram and Sarai remains faithful. The God who raised Jesus from the dead remains faithful. The story of Abram and Sarai's lives is not one of fearlessness. It's a story of a two of God's beloved who learned that God's faithfulness was more trustworthy than their fear.

That is the invitation before us today. Name your fear. Be honest about it and bring it before God. But do not give it authority over you - that belongs to God alone. Fear can tell us many things. Fear can tell us what might happen. Fear can tell us what could go wrong. Fear can tell us what we stand to lose. But fear cannot tell us what God will do.

Only God can do that.

Amen.