Perfect Love Casts Out Fear...

In August of 2003, I wrote a Pastor's Column for a local newspaper, a
column about fear and the power of love. In going through some of
my writing this weekend, I can upon it and, especially in light of the
powerfully beautiful sermon by Bishop Michael Curry at the Royal
Wedding, I share it with you now, aware of its timelessness and
timeliness.

     We have become a nation of fear-filled people. Never before can I 

remember so many people being afraid of so many things- and I was born

during World War II and have lived through Korea, the Cuban Missile crisis,

and Vietnam. Never before do I recall watching businesses spring up in 

response to the fears we have- things like gated communities and home alarm 

systems and car alarms and complicated product packaging systems. Never 

before have I watched the evening news with the awareness that playing upon 

our fears seems to be the basis for so much of what we are being told and 

shown: stories about murders in our neighborhoods- be very afraid of your 

neighbors, they seem to say; stories about child abductions- there is no one 

you can trust, they seem to say; stories about weapons of mass destruction- 

someone somewhere is trying to end our way of life, they seem to say; stories 

about people who don’t look like or act like “us”- but of whom we should surely 

be very afraid. All stories designed to play on our fears and keep us off balance.

     Now don’t get me wrong. Of course there are unsafe things and unsafe people in our world, in our lives. Of course we are wise to exercise sensible caution and take sensible precautions. But to LIVE in fear, to face each day fearfully and with great trepidation, seems to fly in the face of what scripture tells us.

     Isn’t it interesting that most of the time, when God sent a “messenger” or “angel” to humankind, the first words out of the mouth of the messenger were, “Don’t be afraid!”? And in one of my favorite Bible stories, Jesus walking on the water after the feeding of the five thousand, his first words to the terrified disciples were, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” When Jairus approached Jesus to heal his sick daughter, Jesus’ words to him in the gospel of Mark are, “Do not fear; only believe.”

     Psalm after psalm was apparently written in response to and from the heart of a fear-filled person, and so offer us comfort, encouragement, peace. My personal favorites are Psalm 27:1: “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?” and Psalm 46:1-3” “God is out refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble; therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.”

     In the midst of this amazing world of God’s creation, we are being called. I think, to live in community and in communion with one another and with all of the natural world. Fear only complicates the relationships to which we are being called. Fear breeds more fear; it clouds the lens through which we see the world, making all a very dim shade of gray and blotting out the colors of life. Fear causes us to forget that we are called to live in gratitude; to see our lives as a “gift”; to accept all that comes our way as an opportunity for learning and growing. And it makes u believe that we are entitled to having it all “our way”…that nothing bad should ever happen…and when it does, we didn’t deserve it!

     Fear, in so many ways, relieves us of our responsibility for the reason our 

world IS the way it is. It lets us off the hook to try to make it any better; it excuses us from trying to make better, healthier, wiser choices; to raise our children to be responsible, caring, unprejudiced people; to welcome the stranger in our midst. And it flies in the face of the words of I John 4:18: “Perfect love casts out fear.” Can we live in love? And can we let that love cast out the fear 

which so fills our lives? With God’s help, we can surely try.