Help us to fear nothing but the loss of you, O Lord. Amen.
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?” We certainly had a lot of rich passages of Scripture read this morning, but it was that line from Psalm 27 that I have been drawn to. Whom shall we fear?
There
are two ways to hear that question, and it depends on how we define “fear.” One
way of hearing the word “fear” is as something frightful, terrifying, or scary.
Goodness knows, we live in a world of fear. Just thinking through all things
that we might be afraid of is enough to cause our blood pressure to spike. We
fear what people would think of us if they knew more about us. We fear our feelings
of inadequacy. We fear heights, spiders, and public speaking. We fear scarcity
in all sorts of ways – not having enough, or any, friends, not having enough
money, not having enough time. We fear rejection. We fear that our lives are not
adding up to not much. We fear being wrong. We fear being reminded of past
traumas and hurts. We fear that our faith is full of doubts. We fear those who
are unlike us. We fear for our family’s well-being and safety. We fear what the
doctor wants to talk to us about. We fear being abandoned or forgotten. We fear
not being in control. We fear having difficult conversations with a boss,
spouse, or friend. We fear that our past will one day catch up with us or that
the future will not look the way we hope it will. We fear economic uncertainty
and the climate crisis. We fear death. I’m sure I’ve left some things out –
what do you fear?
One
author has written that “Hatred is often the compensation by which a frightened
person reimburses themselves for the miseries of fear. The more we fear, the
more we will hate.” This is the problem with fear – when fear is at the center
of our thoughts, when fear motivates our actions and inactions, when fear
dominates the way we see ourselves and others – then we become captive to fear
and are no longer able to embrace the grace of God all around us. And so we
turn to hatred, not necessarily because we want to be hateful people, but we need
an escape valve for all of that fear, and anger is one of the easiest ways to
release the pressure of our anxiety. If we need an example of the hatred that
follows when we succumb to fear, just read the comments section of nearly any
website or consider what politicians say on social media. It’s all fear driven.
In
an article published earlier this month about online rage, one journalist puts
it this way: “And yet we’re angry all the time, angry because of thwarted
ambition and the sense that we were meant for more.” Often, that fear gets
directed at people and we blame and scapegoat them for our problems. We resent a
spouse or children for holding a career back. We are vitriolic towards those
who have the bumper sticker of the other candidate on their car. We are stingy
in our giving because our fears about money have led money to have control over
us.
The
thing about fear is that it is a liar and a thief. Fear robs us of seeing
others, and ourselves, as the beloved of God. Fear steals the blessings of God
and turns them into commodities to fight over. Fear turns us against one
another and ourselves. Nearly all of the human-made problems in this world are
rooted in fear. Our fears cause us to avoid authentic and honest relationships
with others. Our fears cause us to live by less than the truth. Our fears cause
us to be suspicious of others. Our fears cause us to withhold instead of
giving. Our fears lead us toward hatred instead of love. Fear closes us off to
the peace of God that passes all understanding. Fear would have us live by lies
of selfishness and doubt. As Jesus says in John, he came that we might have
life, and have it abundantly in him. But the other false shepherds, such a
fear, are thieves and bandits who seek to kill and destroy, which is exactly
what fear does.
As
we know from one of the letters in the New Testament, “perfect love casts our
fear.” In thinking of our Good Shepherd Jesus who laid down his life for us, we
come to the other way of understanding fear – not as something that scares us,
turns us inward, or corrupts us, but rather as something that astonishes and
inspires us. The phrase isn’t used as often as it used to be, but we’ve all
likely heard of being “God-fearing.” This does not mean that we are supposed to
be afraid of God, but rather in awe of God. This other way of understanding
fear is a sense of reverence and being overwhelmed by something that is so much
bigger and lovlier than we are.
In
a sense, there is a sense of fright involved, but it comes in a positive way
instead of a negative one. Have you ever had your breath taken away by nature?
Perhaps it’s looking up at the vast expanse of space, or the amazing formation
of a mountain range, or a stunning sunset over the ocean. Or maybe you’ve been
swept up by the beauty of a symphony, painting, or liturgy? It could be in
holding a child you are reminded of how fleeting and precious life is – not in
a dreadful way, but in a way that reminds you of what truly matters.
It
is this sort of fear that we see in the reading from Matthew this morning.
There was something about Jesus that led those fishermen to become fishers of
men after encountering Jesus. Perhaps they had a godly fear when they came face
to face with the lover of their souls. Or maybe they perceived in him the truth
of the universe in the flesh. Whatever it was, they dropped their nets and
followed him. We know the rest of the story – they followed him around Israel,
they followed him to Jerusalem, and several of them followed him even to their
own deaths. That’s a different kind of fear – a fear that makes us no longer
afraid of death, no longer obsessed with our reputation, no longer scared to
take the risk of loving and being loved.
This
godly fear is about our trust and reverence for God. Can we trust God to
provide, or do we insist on being the ones in charge of our lives? When we have
to make a tough decision, do we pray through it and seek the wisdom and
guidance of the Spirit? When we are struggling, do we use substances and distractions,
or do we let the Lord be our strength, our light, and our salvation as Psalm 27
puts it? Do we strive first for the Kingdom of God, or does God get the leftovers
of our time and money? As Jesus says, God loves us in a way that we could never
fully understand, and wants to bless us with all of the things that we need,
and these things are given to us when we go with the grain of God’s love. But if
we’re living out of frightful fear instead of holy fear, then end up with far
less than what God intends for us.
Perhaps
you want to be less afraid and more faithful? We hear that question, “Whom then
shall I fear?” and we want to say, “I don’t want to fear my fears, I want to
fear God.” How do we go about doing that? Psalm 27 gives us help. The Psalmist
writes, “One thing have I asked of the Lord;
one thing I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the fair beauty of
the Lord and to seek him in his
temple.” In other words, it’s a prayer about intentional worship. This sense of
godly fear, this trust in God is strengthened and nourished by habits of faith –
by seeking to behold the beauty of God and to be in God’s holy presence.
It’s
hard to be moved by the current of the river without actually getting into the
water. We are surrounded by our frightening fears – those fears are in our conversations,
in our thoughts, and in the news. If we are going to live not by those fears but
the fear of God, then we have to be put into places where we are open to the movement
of God in our world and our lives. These places are called churches and
spiritual disciplines. What some of you need to do more than anything right now
is to walk our prayer labyrinth at the corner of Jackon and Council at least once
a week. Others need to spend time reading Scripture daily. Some will be
nourished by contemplative prayer. It could be that coming to Morning Prayer at
8am or Evening Prayer at 5:30pm in our Chapel once or twice a week is what will
nourish your faith and banish your fears. It might be that Sunday worship needs
to be an absolute anchor in your week for God’s voice to become louder than the
voices of anxiety, stress, and fear. Maybe developing a rule of life is what it
will take.
In
a sermon, I can’t give you the exact prescription for how you can not be afraid
of all those things and instead stand in fearful awe and reverence of God, but
it would be my joy and privilege to sit down with you and talk and pray about
this. And I’m quite serious about this – get my phone number or email address
from the bulletin or website and we’ll find a time to talk about this and I can
more concretely help you as you seek the beauty of the Lord and strive to be
warmed by the radiance of God’s presence in your life.
More than anything is true,
God loves you and wants you to know this love with every fiber of your being.
Though the holiness of God can be overwhelming and frightening to us who are so
small and finite, God’s love is stronger and better than all those other things
that we are afraid of, and in drawing nearer to Jesus, we come and see this
love that makes all the difference. Let’s talk about how we can let this love
of God sweep through our lives.
You
might know that I’m fairly serious about fitness and I have a coach right now
who I meet with weekly. Sure, he does help with answering questions about technique
and whether I should be doing 5 sets of 4 or 4 sets of 5 and that sort of
stuff, but he also is really helpful with getting to the deeper questions – and
that’s what Psalm 27 is about, that deepest question of what we fear. A
question that the coach posed a few weeks ago is one that I’ve been chewing on
ever since then. That question is “Who sets your standards?” It could be any
sort of standard – the amount of money you want in savings or retirement, the
number of inches on your waistline, the college that you hope to get into, the
way you hope to be remembered in an obituary. Who sets your standards?
In
other words, who gives you the rules that you live by? Is it something that a 3rd-grade
teacher said that you’re still rebelling against? Is it something that your friend
said decades ago that remains the measuring stick for your life, either for
good or for ill? Does that rejection at a high school dance still sting to the
point that it is the reason why you do what you do today? Are you still seeking
the approval of an impossible-to-please parent? Do social media influencers and
advertisers determine what you accept as normal and successful?
To be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having standards, but we ought to be very careful and protective about who sets them. Do we live by our fears which do nothing but drive us to hatred, selfishness, and anxiety? Or do we live in the awe and trust of being fearfully and wonderfully made by the God who loves us so much as to live, die, and rise again?
