During
last Sunday's sermon I noted that scripture usually depicts the
opposite of faith as fear. That prompted numerous comments, including a
request to say a little more about that in this item.
An Epiphany prayer in The Book of Common Prayer
includes this petition: "preserve us from faithless fears and worldly
anxieties, that no clouds of mortal life may hide us from the light of
your immortal love." When fear swells into anxiety it removes our trust
that new beginnings can emerge and that light can break through the
darkness. Such fear makes our problems larger than any other reality,
including God. Faithless fears pull the curtain that makes the darkness
within as deep as the darkness without.
Yes,
Psalm 111:10 declares, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom." The psalmist refers, however, not to anxiety or dread but to
reverence. The thought of being in the presence of God and of being
accountable to God should make us pause, but awe, reverence, and
veneration do not debilitate us. They awaken us more fully and call for
our best.
Only
a fool has no fear, but when our fears define us, we become less open
to relationships (with God and others), more defensive, and less alive.
When trust defines us, we seek deeper relationships with others and God.
That makes us vulnerable, but vulnerability makes us more capable of
loving and living.
Anyone battling a
serious disease has reason to fear pain and debilitation. If that fear
dominates us, the disease begins to define who we are. When we trust
that as we battle the disease family and friends will support us, the
medical team will offer helpful treatment, grace and goodness will break
in along the way, and we are not alone, our hopes, relationships, and
faith define who we are. Trust cannot guarantee that all will end as we
most desire, but it blesses the road we travel. In the midst of a
life-threatening illness, one saint remarked, "I would trade away the
disease in a heartbeat, but I wouldn't trade the experience for
anything." His trust pushed his fears into a manageable corner and
filled the space fear wanted to occupy with friendship, hope, light, and
warmth.
In his speech at the
Lincoln Memorial, immediately prior to his famous words about his "dream
deeply rooted in the American dream," Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded
the crowd of the need for trust: "The marvelous new militancy which has
engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white
people, for many of our white brothers (sic) ... have come to realize
that their destiny is tied up with our destiny..." King and the freedom
marchers had ample reason to fear, but trust compelled them toward the
dream of freedom for all.
Regardless of the
challenge or issue we face, when fear defines us, we circle the wagons,
keep most others out, and depend primarily on ourselves. When trust
defines us, we open our eyes and hearts to what remains possible and to
the unexpected, we invite others to accompany and support us, and we
depend on power, presence, and goodness beyond our own. We cannot choose
everything, but we can choose what we want to allow to define us. Fear
makes us smaller. Trust draws us to the fullness God intends.
Grace and Peace,
LP
Facts
Worth Pondering: According to the most recent FBI data available, in
2011, guns were used to murder 8,583 people living in the U.S. 565 of
them were under the age of 18 and 119 were children ages 12 or younger.
These figures refer only to homicides.
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