There are several different ways of answering her question. I can’t quite remember which answer I gave, but her question and sense of distaste for something that is so important in Anglican liturgy has stayed with me. Partly because it so perfectly reflects what is technically called an over-realised eschatology [i.e. she was leaning too far into the future age when we’re living in both the now of our current broken state and the not-yet of our fully redeemed selves]. But I also remember it because it so aptly reveals the common trap we fall into, thinking the gospel gives a get-out-of-jail-free card from the lived human experience (aka "denial").
Fear, Faith and One Day at a Time
July 9, 2024
Some thinking 'out loud' on our humanity, how we face (or avoid) our fears in the name of pseudo-faith, and the spiritual benefit of taking things one day at a time.
A few years ago, a new parishioner came to see me. She was already a Christian long before she came to my church, but she was a new Anglican and pretty much new to mainline liturgical denominations. Among her questions, one stood out: why do we confess our sins in worship every Sunday? She was asking not because she didn’t believe that we all have sinned and need forgiveness. No, she knew she needed forgiveness, but found that confessing our sins every week a bit like returning to past wrongs in a now-reconciled relationship. Why pretend like God's forgiveness wasn't enough? From the joy she found in forgiveness and the liberation of the gospel, she couldn’t understand and found the weekly rhythm of confession dour and overly negative.
Take, for example, fear.
I have heard it preached (as I’m sure many people have) that “do not fear” is the most frequent command found in the Bible, which seems about right, although I've not counted. It’s usually mentioned in a sermon about the opposite of fear, namely faith. We all act out of fears. We can get controlling, defensive, manipulative, apathetic, angry and so on, all because of deep-seated fear.
God says do not fear (yes, a quick Bible review reveals this to be true).
The reasoning for not fearing that God often gives—the why we needn’t fear—is that God is with us (also true).
If God is with us, there’s no reason to fear. I can now have faith in that divine presence, I can believe in it, rest in and trust in it. The fear can dissolve, not least because that presence is love.
And yet… do I?
While the above is indeed true, we edge onto faulty ground if we start thinking that it is unchristian to ever feel fear again. It gets even more stuck if we start to hide our fears from our fellow Christians and communities, because we don’t want them thinking our faith isn’t as solid and sure as it looks on the outside.
It’s the same kind of logical confusion and faulty spirituality present in the parishioner’s question about confession. We confess our sins because we come to Jesus and receive forgiveness. We keep coming to Jesus, not because his forgiveness didn’t take and not because we’re annoyingly bringing up the past, but because we are far more sinful that we realised! There’s more to own up, there’s more to reveal. There’s are more places in me that need to be named and open up to God’s merciful love. It’s not because God’s forgiveness wasn’t enough the first time, it’s that human capacity is limited. I am human and I keep being human. The gospel is lived every day. There’s no graduation in this life.
And the same goes for fear and the God who’s presence gives us faith. God’s presence is not the issue when it comes to fear and me trusting in it. God’s presence is sure. It’s guaranteed. The Holy Spirit is here. Pentecost happened. But I am human. I have not spiritually graduated. I am a work-in-progress. With each 24-hour period, there are new fears to face. To be perfectly honest, I seem to have far more fears than I did 20 years ago! Yet I count that as progress. Because it means I'm begin more honest. But something else is true too. Slowly, through daily prayer, regular self-examen and opening myself up to God, I’m better at trusting God’s presence more than my fears. Turning them over. Trusting more, fearing less. The progress isn’t linear, but it is headed in the right direction.
Boiling it down to two options for how we as Christians contend with fear, there are two options:
- Pretend I don’t fear anymore and fake it as best I can to trust God.
- Admit I fear daily and slowly learn to trust God.
Lastly, here’s the thing I’ve been reminded of recently. God doesn’t need my perfection. He doesn’t need me to be fearless, sinless or anything “-less”. He knows I’m human, far more than I do. He needs my honesty, my willingness and my best for today. I put in the work. Slowly, I make progress. One day he’ll supply the perfection.
******
Cover photo: image by Ann Schreck on Unsplash
Inset photo 1: image by Seth Anderson on Flickr
Inset photo 2: image by Malvestida on
Unsplash
****** “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.” I’m not sure if it’s true, but George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, is credited as popularizing a big change in film production: not having opening credits. Instead of old Westerns and black and white films that began by naming the director, producer, key stars and so on, Lucas began the Star Wars films with the very famous line: “ A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away .” And then came the opening “crawl” that sets up the viewer for the story to come: "It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire..." And so it sets up the story of Luke, Leia and Han Solo. Well, I want to suggest this morning that here in Acts 1 we have the opening words and “crawl” to the Book as a whole. And what sets the scene? Jesus’ ascension. *** In Acts 1, Luke recaps from where his gospel left off in Luke 24, with similar talk of the spread of gospel to the ends of the earth, that his disciples will be his witnesses, and his instruction to wait for the promise of God to come that is His Spirit, as well as, of course, Jesus’ ascent into heaven. But the Acts version has a specific focus: repeatedly mention the watching and looking of the disciples, the taking and lifting up of Jesus and the repeated mention of his destination: heaven. So why this attention in Acts' “opening crawl”? How does this set the scene for the story of the church that is told in Acts and continues today? Well, in contrast to the first victory in the opening of Star Wars, perhaps preparing for more victories to come, the Ascension grounds us in the defining, cosmic-shaping victory of Jesus that began with his resurrection and conlcudes with his exaltation in the spiritual world. Echoing Daniel 7, Jesus is taken up on a cloud, the chariot of the warrior-God, and is now enthroned to rule in heaven. The work of the church is done in light of this all-encompassing victory that has already been won. Christ is already King. But it’s not only that. Often we talk about Jesus’ ascension from a human perspective: his physical departure from earth. Here the disciples see for themselves Jesus’ exaltation and the opening of heaven: they are gripped by it. Through Christ’s entrance into and rule in heaven, he is made more readily available to us on earth. T he work of the church is done by living in a new space that recognises this opening of heaven: consider God’s promised Holy Spirit who comes in Acts 2, how angels appear here and throughout Acts, as well as people being healed, delivered from evil spirits, miracles taking place and people coming to faith . The spiritual realm is breaking in. So, this Thursday of 5th week, with deadlines, looming exams and soon-to-come ordinations: where will we look? Will we stare upwards and wonder where Jesus went? Or will we look outwards, and live in the light of the one who rules the heavens and has opened heaven to us, and for whom we wait to rule the earth as well? ******
*** True Colours I was in a situation a few years ago where someone I trusted and expected to act in a certain way didn’t do so. In fact, they did they did the opposite. It hurt. It hurt because there were consequences that affected me, but it also hurt because I thought I knew the person, that I knew how’d they’d respond to pressure. When the rubber hits the road and things get real. Instead, their true colours emerged, and I was wrong. Who I thought this person was, and who they told me they were, was in reality quite different from who they actually proved themselves to be . The specifics aren’t for posting online, but I’m sure you can relate. Most of us can recall some kind of experience of someone we love, someone whose character we trust, letting us down. Someone who you might have believed in—maybe even defended to other people—choosing to do something that shows they weren’t worthy of that trust. Showing that your assessment of them was, essentially, quite different from the reality of who they are. They lacked integrity. Esther’s Example This term at Wycliffe, my colleague John is teaching his way through the book of Esther for the Bible expositions in chapel. Now the book of Esther famously doesn’t even mention God: so what is its purpose? Well, in part (as my colleague has been discussing), it’s a book about wisdom. Will we learn from the wise in the story: Esther (and Mordecai)? Will learn from the foolish: King Ahasuerus? The wicked: Haman? At the start of the book, Esther is a young, timid woman, who’d been through a lot. She was orphan and had been raised by her uncle. But she shows willingness and some social savviness and does what Mordecai tells her to do. By the end of the book she’s bold and courageous. Yes, she knows how to play the political game, but she does so in order to stand up for her people who are being persecuted by Persian imperial policy. She exposes Haman’s duplicitousness. Esther has a remarkable integrity and commitment to who she is and what she values. She is willing to risk her life to stand up for what is right, even knowing the cost. She has integrity. Her insides match her outsides as her character develops through the book. When We Fail Stephen and I go to a large Anglican church in the centre of Oxford. A couple of weeks ago, we had a visiting preacher (who is also a poet and philosopher) preaching about baptism. In the course of his sermon, he reminded us that who we really are is who we are when no-one is watching. And that Jesus died for us, knowing exactly what we do when the curtains are closed and no-one can see us. Again, it speaks to integrity—and that Jesus has come to deal with it. If everyone else thinks I’m a model Christian, but at home, by myself, I’m angry, compulsive, critical, selfish or greedy, the latter is a far more honest assessment of who I am and needs some spiritual help. It exposes a lack of integrity: I have an exterior self who looks one way, but an interior self (that I hide away) that looks quite another. What will happen when the pressure is on? That interior self will come out, one way or another. The good news is Jesus went to the Cross, even for that interior self. And with his help I can be forgiven, heal and become whole. That’s in part what baptism symbolises: me dying to all that ugliness and ungodliness. Naming it, owing it and leaving it with Jesus at the Cross, and then rising to a new life that where my insides match my outsides. A person of integrity. Learn from the Wise: Daniel 11-12 But what of the original situation: when others we trusted in and believed in have let us down? I’ve been teaching my way through the book of Daniel and its been fascinating to muse on this topic. Daniel 7-12 describe a series of visionary experiences that give God’s perspective on the political problems and extreme religious oppression that led to the Maccabean revolt in the 160s BC. These were largely due to the decisions of the Antiochus IV who was on the throne of the Hellenistic empire, a Greek of Seleucid descent. You can read about Antiochus IV in 1 and 2 Maccabees, but the snapshot version is that he installed puppet high priests in the Temple at Jerusalem, looted it for money to fuel his military campaigns, outlawed the Torah (including Sabbath observance and circumcision) and, most egregiously, desecrated the Temple with pig sacrifices and an altar to Zeus. These orders resulted in many faithful Jews having to try and keep Torah secretly. When discovered, those who had done so were public shamed and then executed (e.g. 2 Macc 6:10). It was miserable existence (2 Macc 6:9). Antiochus IV’s diabolical political rule was one thing, but the book of Daniel also wrestles with this: what do we do when our religious leaders let us down? When their outsides don’t match their insides? When we discover they are white-washed tombs (Matt 23:27)? The high priest and many other religious establishment figures were swayed by Antiochus IV at the expense of their loyalty to the Lord Most High. Daniel 11 and 12 in particular speak to this situation. Daniel 11:32 says that Antiochus will “seduce with intrigue those who violate the covenant” in contrast to “the people who are loyal to their God.” A few verses later we learn why: “Those who acknowledge him [Antiochus] he shall make more wealthy, and shall appoint them as rulers over many, and shall distribute the land for a price” (v.39). Antiochus used his power and means to get what he wanted, and those who showed more fidelity to him than to the God of Israel, got to share in that wealth themselves. So, what is Daniel’s answer to when the stewards of God’s covenant and teachers of God’s law reveal their true colours? When their words and who they’ve said they are don’t match up with who they have shown themselves to be? When those around us lack integrity, what are we to do? Well, it’s not to keep hanging on and believing in religious leaders who have proven themselves to be corrupted by political power (they are destined for shame and contempt, Dan 12:2). Daniel’s suggestion is to fix our eyes elsewhere instead: “ The wise among the people shall give understanding to many; for some days, however, they shall fall by sword and flame, and suffer captivity and plunder. ” (Daniel 11:33) Look to the wise. Look to those with understanding. Come to understand for yourselves. But this is not an easy answer. For these are the folk that get into trouble. Who perish by the sword. They don’t look like winners. This is perhaps why Daniel’s own response to the visions is one of weakness, fear and trembling. To understand and see reality for what it is can be deeply disturbing. In Daniel, understanding revolves around knowing God is God of all and all kings should have limits to their power. Even when kings like Antiochus IV trample on what is sacred, and transgress into the holy of holies—divine space—God through his angels is contending with powers beyond human ones and will bring all to judgement. But the waiting in the meantime will not be easy or pain-free. That’s why the promise of resurrection is so important in Daniel 12: it’s reassurance for the faithful—for the wise—to keep going. It is they who will be raised and will be like angels: "Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever." (Dan. 12:3) When those we’ve trusted and believed in fail us, God is at work. There may not be easy answers, and sitting with the reality of betrayal is painful, but God is not done yet. Sometimes what is happening is part of a much bigger, cosmic picture and God will intervene. Others’ words and actions may not line up, but ours can. Our insides can match our outsides and our words match our actions. With God’s help we too can become “ people who are loyal to their God ,” those who “ shall stand firm and take action. ” (Dan. 11:32) ****** Cover picture: John Everett Millais, Esther, 1863–65, Oil on canvas, 77.4 x 106 cm, Private Collection
