Bishop urges faith, trust in God as answer to fear

Lovers Lane UMC Lecture Series
Bishop urges faith, trust in God as answer to fear
BY JOHN A. LOVELACE
Special Correspondent

When does a lecturer stop lecturing and start preaching?

Any time he wants to if he's North Texas Conference Bishop Alfred L. Norris delivering the annual Holy Week Lectures at Lovers Lane UMC, Dallas. He did it three times - once on each of three days, April 3-5 - on his selected theme, "Confronting Fear."

He framed two lecture-sermons around fears associated with direct, personal conflicts. The first was Jesus and the Evil One (devil) in Matthew 4:1-11, which the bishop subtitled "The Fear of Testing." Second was Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego against King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 3:3-16, subtitled "The Fear of Faithlessness." The third was based on the Apostle Paul's analogy and contrast between Adam and Jesus in Romans: 5:12-21, which the bishop subtitled "The Fear of Death."

For the opening (April 3) lecture, Bishop Norris emphasized the Evil One's insistent, thrice-repeated testing of Jesus to fall down and worship him and thereby gain heights and power. Jesus, quoting Hebrew Scripture three times, refused adamantly and drove the Evil One away.

"The heights," the bishop said. "When you're that high you forget there's an earth below... That's the great test. Individuals, corporations, even churches face it, the quest for power and authority... The more we get, the more we want."

As a contemporary illustration, he cited the "fastest growing addiction" of gambling, estimated, he said, at $500 billion annually leading to stress, all kinds of abuses and psychological disorders.

The answer, he indicated, is for "all God's people to put their trust and faith in Him."

For the middle (April 4) lecture, Bishop Norris said he thinks young people today are victims of a "bum rap" and he highlighted three young Jews "who knew what and in whom they believed, who feared faithlessness:" Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. He likened their refusal to bow down before a golden idol as a reminder that "there's no true witness without risk." He also likened these "young whippersnappers" to Jesus, saying, in effect, "not my will but thine be done."

In what he identified as a "pause" in his address, the bishop recalled his time as a student at Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta in the 1960s. "These were young people," he said, "who occupied lunch counters and marched. The president of Gammon told them not to march or they would risk being expelled, and they picketed anyway."

Bishop Norris, who was himself the president of Gammon before he was elected a Bishop in 1992, said, "Every day I ask myself what would have happened it they hadn?t had faith in God like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They would not sell their integrity or abandon it. What about you"?

For his third and final Holy Week Lecture, Bishop Norris reflected back on September 11, 2001, and its aftermath. He illustrated with a detailed description of an article and photograph from a Houston newspaper, where he then lived as head of the church's Houston Area.

The article and photograph, he said, related to the retirement of a New York policeman, believed to have been the last person pulled alive from the rubble of what had been the twin World Towers. The bishop said that what remains vividly in his mind is the caption above the photo accompanying the story, quoting the survivor as saying "I assumed that I was going to die where I was buried."

The metaphorical analysis of that caption, he said, is that "it's possible to so fear death that you fail to enjoy life."

"This is a great time to be alive," he insisted. "There's books to be read, songs to be sung, seas to be explored, a God yet to be fully understood. Don't forget that death for Jesus meant life for us!"

He said he likes the Negro spiritual that tells about "praisin" my Jesus...workin' for de Kingdom...Servin' my Master...Ain't got time to die."

Concluding the lectureship, he reminded his Holy Week audience, "He died but He didn't stay dead. Because He got up, you can live!" Members of the host church's clerical staff led opening portions of all three noontime worship services, and the bishop began each lecture by reading the day's scriptural text aloud deliberately, forcefully. The Owen Holy Week Endowment was established by Arch and Babs Owen in 1985 "to provide a time of hope and renewal for all who attend." The couple has been members of Lovers Lane UMC since 1950. They live in a nearby retirement community, and Mrs. Owen attended a lecture.

Lunches catered from Michael Lane for all attendees followed each service. Funding was provided by the Lovers Lane Foundation, established in 1980 with Mr. Owen as its president.