Psalm 27, it is part of our lectionary this morning – “My Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” This whole message this morning is all about that. We always feel that way, right? We are never afraid. The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? Chapman University, I don’t know much about Chapman University, all I know is what I read online and it’s a university in California and it’s basically a research institution. Every year Chapman University conducts a survey. They do research, they’re actually getting fairly well-known about it regarding this, and every year they talk to thousands of Americans, and they do an excellent cross-section and publish their findings. Every year Chapman University publishes “Survey on American Fears: What Do Americans Fear?” And I’ve got the list right here.

According to the research these are the things that we fear, the top 10 fears that we have. This research was, quote, heading into the year 2025. These are the things that we fear most. I lift them up in juxtaposition with the psalmist, who essentially says – I’m paraphrasing here – the psalmist says, “I am not afraid because I am with God. I am in relationship with God.” According to this survey, our top 10 fears, I’m going to go from 10 to 1. Number 10 – I was thinking about opening this up and saying, “What do you think?” but I’m resisting that temptation because I think that would turn into about a 60-minute experience. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but you can thank me later for not opening it up. Number 10 – now the joking is over, no jokes. Number 10 – biological warfare. Fifty-two percent of us are afraid of biological warfare. Number 9, also 52 percent – terrorist attack. Number 7 ties, this is high at 7, 55 percent – North Korea using nuclear weapons, and the United States becoming involved in another world war. I think I’ll run for president and once I’m elected I think I’ll use World War III as a rhetorical tactic. Maybe I won’t. Number 6 – not having enough money for the future. I have found that the older I get this does cross my mind. I think I need to hear this message. I need to listen to this psalmist who says, “I’m not afraid. I am in relationship with God.” Number 6 was not having enough money for the future. Number 5 – Russia using nuclear weapons. I find it very interesting that that’s one, two, three, four, five, six, and now for the first time number 4 is something personal. Number 4 is people I love dying. According to the research, 57.8 percent of us think about this. People I love dying. Number 3 – cyber-terrorism. Number 2 – another one, very personal, 58.4 percent of us, people I love becoming seriously ill. That’s number 2. And number 1, clearly the lead, 65.2 percent. Our number 1 fear, according to research – now I’m going to open it up. Anybody want to guess? Dying – nope. Losing a spouse – nope. I’ll just tell you. Number 1 – corrupt government officials. Now, Google it. Please wait until after the service. Chapman University. Number 1 – corrupt government officials. It’s been number 1 for quite a few years now. I do this annually. This is my annual “listen to the psalmist in the midst of our fears” sermon. Number 1 – corrupt government officials.

Hear this again about the Book of Psalms. You probably notice that when I put the services together almost every Sunday, we read a Psalm. I love the Psalms. Here’s one of the biblical scholars that I study – “For the most part the Book of Psalms is a book of prayer and praise, not a book of doctrine.” This is incredibly important. It’s a book of prayer and praise. There are also lamentations, there are some psalms where the psalmist essentially shakes his or her fist at God, says, “God, where are you?” It’s not a book of doctrine. Now you’re looking at a seminary graduate, and when I went to seminary, we learned a lot of doctrine. Doctrine – great, loved it. I know a lot of doctrine. You’ll know I’m done today when I share with you an experience that I had in a hospital waiting room. When I was in that hospital waiting room, I wasn’t thinking about doctrine. I was thinking about relationship. I was seeking a renewal of my relationship with God in a time of need, in a time of fear. Quote – “The psalmists pour their hearts out to God in prayer. They go on to praise God, and to profess their faith and trust in God. The core teaching of the Psalms is the conviction that the gravitational center not only of life but of all history and the whole creation is God.” That’s what I’m going to run on when I run for president. We’re going to put that on a poster. The poster’s going to say, “The gravitational center not only of life but of all of history and the whole creation is God.” That’s what the psalmists are about.

I’m going to confess to you that once I reached the year of 35 in terms of my ordination – and it’s more than 35 now – I can’t shake this voice in my head that keeps saying things like, “Groat, you’ve been at this a long time, and you must have learned something. You must have learned something along the way, right?” Well, I have. I really feel like I’ve learned a few things. I’m sharing with you right now, I believe one of the most important and vital lessons that I’ve learned when it comes to courage – here it is. You ready? For me, in my spiritual journey, most of the time courage is a 51-49 proposition. Fifty-one percent of me has courage and 49 percent of me has fear. I’m looking for somebody to at least nod their head a little bit. Does this make a little bit of sense? This is so terribly important to me. So, I went online to try to find really smart people who agreed with me, because I’m pretty insecure when it comes to these things and I thought, “There must be somebody out there who agrees with me,” and I found at least one person. This person is not a seminary graduate. This person is the one person here today who goes by the name Cus, and I’m saying that correctly. His first name is Cus, Cus D’Amato. Anybody ever heard of Cus D’Amato? Cus D’Amato is one of the most revered boxing managers in the history of boxing. I met a lot of really smart seminary graduates this week. This is what I get to do for a living, do this research for all of us, and I found Cus D’Amato, a world-renowned boxing manager. He managed heavyweight champions of the world. One of them was that noted theologian Mike Tyson. And Cus D’Amato said this – “Here’s what I tell my kids. What is the difference between a hero and a coward? What is the difference between being yellow and being brave?” Cus D’Amato was speaking to us in boxing language here. He goes on – “What is the difference between a hero and a coward? No difference. Only what you do. They both feel the same, they both fear dying, they both fear getting hurt.” Both the hero and the coward. And I’m bringing up the possibility, and I’m even telling you that this is how I’ve lived most of my Christian life, that 51 percent of me says go and 49 percent of me says stay. I’m happy to tell you that most of the time the 51 percent of me goes, but I’m also confessing to you that sometimes the 49 percent wins. Cus goes on – “The one who is not a hero refuses to face up to what he’s got to face. The hero is more disciplined, and he fights those feelings off and he does what he has to do. But they both feel the same, the hero and the coward. People who watch you judge what you do, not how you feel.” Can I get an amen for that? (Congregation says “amen.”) They judge us not for how we feel. We can be afraid, but we go anyway. 51 percent. 51-49. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? The center of our lives, as Christians, is the living spirit of Christ. The Lord is the stronghold of my life. 

A few years ago now, as best I can recall, it was the early 2000s. Both of my parents are deceased now, most of you know that, and this was back in the early 2000s, and my parents were really old. They were about my age now, maybe a little older. (Laughter.) I was serving a church up in Akron, and my dad got sick. My dad had to have major abdominal surgery. The doctors talked to us beforehand. I’ve gotten to know doctor language as a pastor over the years, and we were getting very clear messages that this was a very serious operation. The surgery happened at Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State, so I drove down for the day. My older brother Jeff, my younger sister Jill and my mom Joy, and I’m Jay – we gathered in the waiting room, and Dad was wheeled into surgery. I knew what was going to happen, and I said to my brother and my sister and my mom, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you people but I don’t see how you can just sit here, because we’re all scared.” We were afraid, like the psalmist talks about. We were afraid, I was afraid. I was afraid that that might be the last time I saw my dad, and I said to my mom, my brother, “How can you just sit here? I can’t sit here. I have to get up. I’ve got to pace.” We all had our cell phones so I said, “I’m out of here, I can’t do this. Please, if you get some updates call me.” And my brother said, “No problem.” So, I left.

This was back in the good, old days when the football stadium, Ohio Stadium, you could actually walk in. I don’t think anybody remembers those days; you could walk into the stadium. It was only about a 10-minute walk, so I went to the stadium. I’ll never forget it; I walked into this stadium that holds 100,000 people and I was the only one there. I picked out a seat, and I sat, and I thought about my dad, and I was afraid. One of the things I thought about was how – and I’ve shared this with you before – I loved my dad; I still love his spirit very much. I know what it’s like to love someone and they consistently spend their whole life voting for the wrong people. My dad never voted for the right person, ever. Ever. We would have these conversations, and we always kept them at a friendly level, but it always bothered me. How could a good man be so wrong? It bothered me. I remember sitting there in that stadium that holds 100,000 people and I was the only one and I looked around and it took me completely by surprise. It was grace. All of that went away. It just went away. And by the way, it never came back, because he survived the surgery. But it all went away. What a gift that was to me. My brother called, I was sitting there, my cell phone went off.

Now remember, this is about courage, this is about a 51- 49 proposition. This is about finding this miraculous thing inside of us that we didn’t know was there, this thing called courage, this thing called the Christ. My cell phone went off and Jeff said, “They just called in from the operating room and they thought the surgery would be about two hours. Now they say it’s going to be closer to four, maybe longer.” Now I’ve been with hundreds of families in waiting rooms and I know what that usually means. I’ve already told you that he survived, but we didn’t know at the time. I thought, “Man, this is going to be it.” So, I came back to the waiting room and eventually we got the good news. Soon we got to go in and see him. The surgeon talked to us about what an incredibly difficult surgery it was. My dad lived 15, 18 more years. I went home, back to Akron. He was in the hospital two or three more days, and I went down to see him the day before he was discharged. I happened to be the only one there, no other family members were present. And I went with an agenda, I had an agenda. I wanted to say something to him that he and I hadn’t said to each other much over the years. I wanted to, but I knew it would mostly make him feel uncomfortable. That discomfort went away as the years went by. I didn’t know it at the time, but I went to see him, walked in his room, and we had a nice talk. It was time for me to go, and I said, “Dad, there’s something I want to say to you.” He said, “What? What’s that?” “I love you.” What I wanted to say was, “Even though you always vote for the wrong person.” But I didn’t, it didn’t matter. And I also said to him, “I love you and I respect you.”

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? I think it’s a lot of times a 51- 49 proposition. And as I tried to write in our opening prayer this morning about our country and our world, “Please make the courageous presence of the Christ and the Holy Spirit real to us every day, every hour, every minute. May courage be the flavor that we taste.” I’m searching for a new way to say it. I want us to taste it, I want us to taste courage. We have a night light in our house. We have a night light in our bathroom on the second floor. It’s a little, teeny thing, and when the whole house is dark this little, teeny light, it’s bright and it’s big. I want to leave you with this image about the little night light that is inside all of us. That’s what the psalmist, I think, is talking about. There’s this night light that at times when it’s the darkest is really bright. Do you recognize what this is? When do we use these? Christmas Eve. Remember Christmas Eve? It was a long time ago. (Lights candle.) This is our night light, and even though it goes out in a second this thing never goes out. Ever. Amen?