wfn.org | 'You dare not be afraid,' GAC members told on eve of stormy Assembly

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Note #6551 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

6-June-2001
01195

'You dare not be afraid,' GAC members told on eve of stormy Assembly

Craig Barnes tells council to show faith, expect miracles from Jesus

by Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - "The last thing we need from you as leaders is fear," the
Rev. Craig Barnes told General Assembly Council members on the eve of what
promises to be a storm-tossed 213th General Assembly.

	Preaching from the story in Mark 4 about Jesus calming the storm, Barnes,
pastor of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., acknowledged
that fear in the face of a storm is a most natural reaction. "These guys are
fishermen," he said, referring to the disciples in the boat with Jesus.
"They'd seen in all on the sea, so for them to afraid it had to have been a
really, really big storm."

	And yet, in answer to their question - "Teacher, don't you care that we are
perishing?" - Jesus responds with piercing questions of his own: Why are you
afraid ? Have you still no faith?

	It is this juxtaposition of fear and faith, Barnes said in his June 5
sermon at the Council's opening worship service, that is the key to Jesus
"consistent and absolute intolerance of fear." For it is fear - not doubt or
even unbelief - that is the opposite of faith, he continued. In the gospels,
Jesus demonstrates tolerance of all our weaknesses, Barnes said, except
fear.

	Fear indicates that "we just don't know enough of this Jesus," Barnes said,
"this Jesus who was able to sleep through the worst storm any of them had
ever seen. He's either got be really confident (that the storm can not
destroy the boat) or that he's got power stronger than any storm. And, of
course, both are true."

	The greatest fear, Barnes said, is that Jesus doesn't care what happens to
us. "If he cares," Barnes asked rhetorically, "why does he sleep through the
storm? Why hasn't he taken control of the ship?

	But to dwell on those questions is to reduce the church, "to being about us
and not about Christ," Barnes said. "The church is about Jesus Christ and
when we finally get to that (realization), then fear turns to awe, what I
call 'baptized fear.'"

	The real miracle of Jesus calming the storm is not that Jesus calmed the
storm, Barnes insisted, "but that Jesus is in the boat with us." And if
Jesus is in the boat with us, he continued, "we should EXPECT some
miracles!"

	So, in the face of the storms threatening this General Assembly, Barnes
said, "the last thing we need from you, our leaders, is fear. You cannot,
you dare not be afraid. We don't expect you to have the answers. You cannot
steer this ship out of the storm - only Jesus can do that.
"What we need from you is faith - not in the commissioners, not in the
process - but in the Jesus Christ who alone can still the raging storms,"
Barnes said.

	"We're smart and debate well, but that won't do us any good in a storm. No
matter how smart, we can't calm the storms. It's not what you know, but who
you know."

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