October 12, 2025 - HOMECOMING SUNDAY

“Fear of Faith”

“Fear of Faith” A sermon based on 2 Kings 5:1-3; 7-15, Psalm 111, and Luke 17:11-19 delivered on October 12, 2025, by Rev. Alison Andrea Young at The First Congregational UCC of Onekama, Michigan on Homecoming Sunday.

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself” is probably the most famous utterance by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He stated this during his inaugural address on March 4, 1933, at the beginning of his presidency during the Great Depression. This saying is expressed in another almost opposite way by the cartoon character POGO, who once famously declared: “We have met the enemy, and He is us!” Cartoonist Walt Kelly coined the phrase for an anti-pollution Earth Day poster in 1970 and used it again in a special comic strip created for Earth Day 1971. The saying caught the collective imagination of the public and is still used today. We can, at times, be our own worst enemies as we become victims of our own fears and our own egos. Fear paralyzes us—it can make us forget our own God-given abilities and, sometimes, just the opposite, exaggerate them due to false pride.. . .

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