Speaker: Pastor Stephen “Tig” Intagliata
Bible Passages: Daniel 6; Luke 23:1-5
Summary: Like Daniel in the Lion’s Den, sometimes we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place– in a situation where there are no easy options. Following Jesus sometimes puts up between a rock and a hard place because the values of God’s Kingdom clash with the values of the kingdoms of this world. But instead of getting paralyzed by fear, we can continue on the road of faithfulness because we know that are never alone–God is always with us on our journey and also provides us with fellow pilgrims to accompany us and encourage us.
Have you ever felt like you were ‘between a rock and a hard place’? Like how Odysseus felt in the Greek mythology epic The Odysseus. Odysseus had to navigate a narrow passage between the monster Scylla who lives on a cliff, and a dangerous whirlpool named Charybdis.
He’s in a situation with no good or easy options, where choosing either side leads to a difficult outcome. He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. In fact, the phrase has its origin in this story from The Odyssey.
I vividly remember a time on one of my Boy Scout hiking trips where me and my fellow scouts of Troop 274 felt like we were caught between a rock and a hard place.
Our little band of brothers had reached the top of a lot of peaks in the different mountain ranges of California. After climbing several of them, we were ready to tackle the granddaddy of them all-
Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the continental United States at 14,495 ft. We knew that it would be a grueling hike to reach the summit, but we had already climbed several peaks over 10,000 ft, so we felt we were ready for this challenge.
Our climb up Mt. Whitney was going well, and we were getting close to the summit when we came to an unexpected obstacle on the trail that was between us and our goal.
The next part of the journey was a stretch of about 100 yards where on both sides of the path were steep rocky cliff with about a 1000 ft. drop off straight down the mountain.
I think it was called “the window” because you had a great view! (But it was a view you’d rather not have!)
Seeing this window ahead of us cast a dark shadow of fear upon us, and led us to consider the other undesirable option–
Doing an about-face and abandoning our mission, which would be really hard because we would feel defeated and devastated after all the work we had done to get to this point. We found ourselves between a rock and a hard place.
After some discussion with the scout leaders, we decided to take the risk and not let our fear paralyze us, so we tightened the laces on our hiking boots and marched straight through the window.
It felt like 100 miles instead of 100 yards, but we made it! And we excitedly continued our climb to reach the summit of Mt. Whitney.
Looking back, I’m glad that we decided to face the challenge head on and not let our fear be the deciding factor.
I don’t know about you, but if I’m honest with myself, there have been times when I have let fear get the best of me.
Where I have made decisions or acted in ways that compromised my convictions as a follower of Jesus in what was right or true, and which inhibited me from showing love and compassion to those who needed it.
Maybe we all can relate to times when we are controlled more by fear than by love.
I subscribe to a blog called The Beautiful Mess, which is by a former pastor named John Pavlovitz. In his column a few days ago, Pavlovitz talked about the election, and he said that in his opinion, fear is what won this election.
Things like fear of immigrants from south of our borders, and fear of people who are sexual minorities in our culture, to name a couple.
Certainly there were other factors, but Pavlovitz believes that these fears played a part in influencing many people—including ‘good church-going people’—
to overlook the lies, and the cruelty, and the criminality, and a host of other things, and be motivated to vote based on their fears more than by some of the values that Jesus taught and which they claimed to believe.
Our scripture reading from Daniel told a portion of the story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den while being held captive by the Babylonian empire. Daniel is a great example of someone who found himself between a rock and hard place—
worshipping the emperor instead of God on the one hand, or be thrown into the pit to become the lions’ lunch if he stayed faithful to God on the other.
But Daniel didn’t let fear control his actions when his faith was tested–he defied the law requiring people to bow to the king, and instead worshipped God and put his trust in him. And he experienced God’s presence with him in a profound way.
Our passage from Luke recounts Jesus being tested as he stands on trial before Pontius Pilate. And Jesus stays true to his identity as the Messiah chosen by God instead of bowing to an earthly government, even though he knew that the cup of suffering would await him.
Jesus didn’t let the fear of suffering control him.
Another person whose blog I follow is author Diana Bass Butler. This past week in her column, she reflected on Jesus’ trial before Pilate, in John’s gospel account where Jesus says “My kingdom is not of this world.”
She says that Jesus’ kingdom, Jesus’ realm, doesn’t come from the stuff of earthly kingdoms, stuff like authoritarianism, greed, violence, and ethnic superiority. It comes from God, the one who befriends the world… and who turns death to new life.
Then Butler asks, How do we resist the Pilates of our own day? Speak the truth in love, she says…Love and truth are exactly what is needed in this world to challenge the evil of the days. They are not about withdrawal, surrender, not about complicity. Love and truth don’t look away. Love cannot bend the knee to Caesar.
Butler ends by saying that we must testify to love and truth, no matter the cost. What a great ideal to cling to as we face the future, right folks?
When I heard that the theme for today was “between a rock and a hard place”, I thought back to a book by that exact title written by a former senator of Oregon by the name of Mark Hatfield. Do any of you remember him?
Hatfield served first as governor of Oregon before spending 30 years as senator between 1966-1996. Hatfield was a rare breed in that he was a moderate Republican who had the ability to reach across the aisle in Congress to get things done.
Today he would be considered the biggest RINO on Capitol Hill. But he worked in bipartisan ways and built friendships and trust in ways that people today could only dream of, and he gained the respect of his colleagues and his constituency because of it.
Mark Hatfield’s personal and political life were deeply informed by his Christian faith—he tried hard to keep Jesus at the center of his life and as the guiding principle in his personal life as well as his political views and actions.
Hatfield was committed to social justice—some people credit him with helping start Sojourners magazine. He saw Jesus as caring for the poor and marginalized and that informed his views on government social programs and how he voted.
Hatfield also was a peacemaker, maybe even a pacifist, and he spoke out against the Vietnam War, and the amount of the US budget that was allocated for military spending.
I would guess that his struggle with following the values of the Kingdom of God on one hand while serving in leadership of an earthly political system on the other influenced the title of his book “between a rock and a hard place”, because the values can so easily clash.
Because he didn’t tow the Republican party line of his day, some high profile Christian leaders at that time looked at Mark Hatfield with suspicion, even though he had strong faith convictions and a lifestyle to back it up.
I read a story about how Jerry Falwell Sr. decided to pay Hatfield a visit one day because he was upset with some of Hatfield’s positions—they didn’t fit nicely into Falwell’s Moral Majority agenda.
Falwell was bringing a whole entourage of his minions with him, probably as a power move to intimidate Hatfield. Hatfield saw it coming, so he arranged to have a bunch of his own staff people there when they showed up.
And as they arrived, Hatfield’s people started pairing off with Falwell’s people, and taking them into other rooms one by one to talk. That left Hatfield alone with Falwell. And as Falwell approaches him, Hatfield says, “Jerry, let’s pray.”
So they sat down and prayed, and that changed the whole tenor of the meeting. You could say that it disarmed Falwell of the ammunition that he planned to fire at Hatfield to try to get him in line with the Moral Majority.
Washington could use more people like Mark Hatfield these days, no? Not only congress, but the Church today could use more Mark Hatfields.
People in positions of power who use their influence to serve others as Jesus did, and advance the common good, instead of using it for their own selfish gain. People who are more motivated by love rather than fear.
During this Advent season, I’ve started going through a book of Advent sermons written by Fleming Rutledge, an Episcopal priest who was one of the first women to be ordained in the Episcopal Church.
In one of the sermons in Rutledge’s book, she talks about Martin Luther King, referencing a biography of King by David Garrow. Garrow speaks candidly in his biography about two types of darkness that King dealt with—
There was the darkness of racism which manifested itself in segregation, prejudice, police dogs and jail sentences; and then there was the darkness brought about by King’s own personal infidelity and affairs.
By the time MLK was 26, he was a national figure, and he was already receiving death threats for his work on civil rights.
But he didn’t give up on himself or on his mission. Garrow in his biography points to a particular experience King had one night as the turning point for his ability to persevere and continue on the journey toward racial justice.
He was sitting at the kitchen table, in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, and he had thoughts of throwing in the towel. But as King tells it, he said
“I heard the voice of Jesus saying to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No never alone. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.”
Friends, we are not alone on our journey of faith and life. Like Stella the squirrel and Rudy the ram accompanied each other on their pilgrimage to Spain,
God is with us as we journey, and God will never abandon us, never leave us alone. And God provides fellow pilgrims to give us companionship and strength to continue on in following the way of Jesus.
The road is not always smooth or predictable—sometimes we will feel like we’re between a rock and a hard place with no easy options. There will be challenges and obstacles that cast a shroud of darkness and which can make us afraid and intimidate us.
But when we know that we are not alone, we can find the strength and the courage and the hope to continue on as pilgrims on our faith journey.
May we cling to that promise as we journey during this Advent season in anticipation of the coming of Jesus the Savior into the world.
Prayer: Thank you for the examples of Daniel and Jesus who kept their eyes on you and trusted you during their times of trial. Thank you also for people like Mark Hatfield and Martin Luther King who stayed faithful to your calling upon their lives in the midst of all the challenges their faced because they knew that you were with them and they were not alone.
Thank you, God, for always staying by our side, no matter how rocky and chaotic our lives might feel, and when our fears threaten to paralyze us. Thank you for the people that you have given us for companionship and encouragement.
Help us to remember that your love is stronger than our fears, and that you will never leave us alone. Give us the strength by your Holy Spirit to choose love over fear. AMEN.
