2 Qualities to Make Us Brave

Each spring, our churches have a Collect that honors Edward Thomas Demby and Henry Beard Delany, the first and second African-American bishops consecrated in The Episcopal Church. As the prayer says, they, “though limited by segregation, served faithfully to [God’s] honor and glory” (Lessons Appointed for Use on the Feast of Edward Thomas Demby and Henry Beard Delany, “The Collect,” The Book of Common Prayer).

Brave: To Break Through Limitations of our Own Time
This prayer offered because of their witness moves me. It continues: “Assist us, we pray, to break through the limitations of our own time, that we may minister in obedience to Jesus Christ…” (Ibid.)

That allows us to think more personally about these two men’s life and witness as it relates to us. I believe it has to do with having a certain level of bravery, of inner integrity that allows us to step into those places where, in fact, there could be opposition.

I don’t know about you, but when I think about that, my thoughts go straight to the Thessalonian lesson, where Paul writes that he declared the gospel in spite of great opposition, and says, “Our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives [or trickery], but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message [of the gospel], even so we speak, not to please mortals (other people), but to please God [who tests our hearts]” (1 Thessalonians 2:2b-4, Ibid., “The Lesson,” The Book of Common Prayer).

In other words, the capacity to be brave, to speak in a courageous way in the midst of your own time despite limitations has everything to do with inner conviction. This conviction says, “I’m here to speak because I have in fact been approved by God, which means I know that I have been accepted by him, I am the object of his mercy.

And it goes on to say, “I’m not trying to prove myself, in fact, just the opposite: I have received from God that inner working of his Holy Spirit that gives me the power to speak with that kind of clarity. God makes me brave.”

Anti-Brave: The Need to Be Liked
So what’s the downside? The downside is that this great treasure Paul describes, the very work of God in our midst, doesn’t automatically free us from the need to be liked by other people.

And that’s why he goes on to say, describing something that we’re just trying to understand, “As you know, and God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed;”—meaning if I say the right thing, that means you’ll give me what I want—“nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others” (1 Thessalonians 2:5-6a, April 14 Lesson, “The Book of Common Prayer”).

In other words, God can work in our lives the kind of inner clarity that allows us to say who has first place in our lives. He does. God, and God alone.

And therefore it is my desire to please God, regardless of whether I gain the approval of other people or not. Because if you see, if I’m still playing in that playground of the desire to please other people, I will inevitably resort to flattery, a strategy that says, “Let me shape my words in such a way so that you’ll like me and/or give me what I want.”

Yes, that’s a strategy lots of people try; in fact, it’s classic office politics, the way much of our society runs and operates. You shape the message according to the audience that’s in front of you.

#1: A Deep Security in Christ Makes Us Brave
But Paul describes something very different: first of all, a deep security in Christ that allows us to be who he is making us, regardless of who we’re with. We’re not playing to an audience. This is a kind of interior confidence that says, “Because I have been entrusted by God with this great treasure, my responsibility before him is to be faithful to him, even if it gets me in trouble with people. Because he is my audience, not the people I can see with the natural eye.”

What an insult to God it would be if we took what he has given us and used it as a way to get what we want or need. Only because of our security in him can we be brave enough to be the people he has always meant for us to be.

#2: A Deep Love for Him Makes Us Brave
But since we all have the need to be liked, God has to work something deep in us so that our love for him and the knowledge of his love for us eclipse any other loves and loyalties. Not that we don’t love people. Just the opposite, in fact, because the passage goes on to say, “We were servants and shared with you not only the message but our very lives, because you were so very dear to us” (cf. 1 Thess. 2:8).

Here’s the wonderful paradox: the more we move into who we are in Christ and speak out for what he has given us, the more God enlarges our hearts and gives us a deep love for other people. This is a love that goes beyond just helping someone else feel better. It is, in fact, deeply committed to sharing with them the very best.

In other words, we can be brave enough to speak as God gives us the words because of the deep love he has given us for others. And because we hold them in such high esteem, we won’t resort to flattery (shading the truth), because it dishonors who they are.

Brave with a Purpose
So that’s the arena in which we are invited to live as believing Christians. We live with the kind of deep security that gives us the courage to speak with clarity. We live with the love that goes beyond the politics of trying to manipulate to get what we want.

We live, in fact, with the freedom to deeply love and care, because we are the objects of that deep care from God.

That’s what God is continually working in us. Are we there yet? No. But if we want to experience the abundance he wants for our lives, we will want to say, “Lord, help me step more deeply into that.” To live in that kind of grace, that kind of poise, that kind of clarity, that kind of deep honesty that arises out of both who we are as recipients of God’s love and mercy, and out of what God wants to do through us. And that means we will share our lives with others with that same kind of deep love and mercy.

Otherwise we’ll never have the courage to be a Delany or a Demby, much less a true us, at least in terms of the people God is making us to be. So may he help us to walk and to receive from him what we need to live with that kind of genuine, loving, and tender courage.

May God, once again, make us brave.

Have you noticed God working these qualities in you? Share this blog and your comments on Twitter. Please include my username, @revgregbrewer.

(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on April 14, 2016, in the Bishop’s Oratory of the Diocesan Office, Orlando.)

Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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