Fearing God

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Luke 1:5-20:

After I had moved to New Mexico, I went back to visit my parents and Phoenix and went to the local Christian bookstore that I used to frequent, and in their best seller section was a book entitled The Joy of Fearing God. An interesting title. And so when I got back to Santa Fe, I went to a Christian bookstore there, and not only was it not in their bestseller section, they didn’t even have it in stock, which confirmed for me that Santa Fe was a little more enlightened than Phoenix. But they did order it for me. Now in the book of proverbs, which is part of the wisdom literature and we will be looking at that after the new year, in the 9th chapter we hear a famous phrase that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That was the passage that the author was basing his book on and using our understanding of fear as being afraid that “someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.” But is that the understanding of God that we are to have, or the way that we are to approach a relationship with God thinking that God is dangerous, a threat or likely to hurt us? There is certainly some scriptural witness to that, at least on the part of humanity.

In Genesis, after Adam and Eve eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, although they don’t eat an apple nor are they tempted by the devil, they hide. After God finds them and asks them what they are doing, which is actually the first real interchange we have between God and humanity, we also get the introduction of the idea of fear because Adam tells God that he heard God walking in the garden and he was afraid. And why? Because he was afraid of being punished for doing what he was told not to do. That matches that definition of fear, and what also comes out of this interchange in the idea of blame and scapegoating. But that becomes the way that some people begin to view God, that is through a sense of fear of punishment or danger. And yet we also continue to see God try and counteract that.

We are told by Moses that God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadafast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression of sin.” (Exod 34:6-7a) Although what the law certainly does is to try and get people to obey through fear of punishment, do this or else, although our Jewish brothers and sisters would probably object to that statement. But the problem with that is that we are then doing things by compulsion. We don’t do it because we want to, but so that we are not punished. We fear the results. But that is not fundamentally sustainable for a relationship, nor a good way to get people to do something or not do something. Traffic laws, and really most laws, are enforced this way, but if we don’t fear being punished then we are less likely to actually obey, after all we have the saying “no cop, no stop.” And God certainly understands this as well.

And so I don’t think that we should understand God in this way. But, one way that we can understand God is from a sense of awe, because there is a connection between awe and fear. And we should be in awe of God, and one of the things that we are prone to do is to try and box in and control God, because it makes us feel better and safer. And so we try and make God safe. But as we hear in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe about the lion Aslan, who is a metaphor for God, “of course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.” And so if our fear of God is that sense of awe, the sense of being in the presence of, or udnersstanding power and majesty and splendor that is bigger than we can even begin to comprehend or understand, and in that being afraid because it’s so beyond our knowledge, then I would say that’s a positive understanding. 

Although that’s not the most common understanding, and so instead of fear, I often tell people who ask about how to understand this is that instead of fear to put in the word knowledge. That knowledge of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the next line basically says that same thing in saying that “knowledge of the holy one is insight.” But that only works if we remember that the more we know about something the more we realize how much we don’t know, and so when we apply that to God, then our knowledge of God leads us to a sense of wonderment and awe because we stand in the presence of something so incomprehensible and unfathomable, that everything we even try to apply to God, to describe God leads us ultimately to the ineffability of God and to the realization of how much God is beyond not just our knowledge but also beyond our own control, and there in probably lies some of our sense of fear.

Max Lucado says that “fear, at its center, is about a perceived loss of control.” I’m not sure that I’m willing to concede that every fear is about a loss of control, mainly because I want to hold onto some of my own irrational fears, but I do think he’s right. And I for one, can say that when I have lost control, that I don’t deal with the situation very well, and want to get control back as soon as I possibly can, by either trying to get away or trying to wrest some control back.  Think about all the problems that the politicians or newscasters want us to be concerned about or to be afraid of. Nearly every one of them is about things that we don’t have control over, seem to have lost control over, never had control over, but their solutions all seek ways to give us back control, or at the very least the appearance of having some control.  And that is the biggest problem with fear and control, Lucado says, because when we have lost control, when we are fearful, then we seek control and safety becomes our god. It becomes the thing we search after and seek, rather than seeking after God, and even worse it means we seek the risk-free life, and you cannot have lots of things, including faith and love, without being willing to take risks, without risking losing it all.  When we feed our fears, we starve our faith, Lucado says, but when we feed our faith, our fears will starve.  After all, as I’ve said before we talk about taking leaps of faith, not leaps of safety, and so it’s not really about not being afraid, but of moving past those fears to try something new, to do something new, to take a step closer to God.  And that leads us to the passage from heard from Luke for today.

The story of Zechariah is probably not as well-known as others in Luke’s birth narrative, after all I’ve never seen a nativity set with Zechariah or Elizabeth in it, but this is the beginning of that story, and the fact that it begins in the Temple is crucial for Luke’s gospel, which we’ll come back to after Christmas. But Zechariah is a descendent of Aaron, as is his wife Elizabeth, which means they have historic social connections, although they are not at the top of the social circle.  And as part of his priestly duties, Zechariah serves two weeks a year at the Temple, where daily offerings of incense are made in the sanctuary. But, Luke does a very interesting thing to start this introduction, and that is we are told that this happens in the days of King Herod, which is reminiscent of how the prophets are introduced, and so we move from years of his reign, to the week that he is serving, to a particular time of day as the incense was offered twice a day, to a particular moment of time with the encounter with the angel which is the first dialogue that takes place in Luke. Time is being telescoped here from broad to a specific point and then it broadens back out again quickly. This is a time in which we are reminded that time is not a constant, I mean we were just reminded of that this week. Because what Einstein’s theory of relativity says is that time is either quick or slow depending upon how much time we have to spend with relatives that we either like or don’t like, and the less we like them the longer time takes, or at least I think that’s what the theory of relativity is about.

But the priests decide who is to make the incense offering by the drawing of lots, and so this was probably the only time in his life that Zechariah would be able to do this, and he would go into the sanctuary, which was a closed off area of the temple, just outside of the Holy of Holies, which contained the seat where God was supposed to sit, and he did this by himself. I can imagine that he’s full of apprehension and all senses are at full alert and it is then that he encounters an angel. And what are we told? He was terrified, and fear overwhelms him. And the angels response? Do not be afraid. Now while we think of this as being a uniquely New Testament thing, we do hear it said in the Hebrew scriptures although it’s not said by angels to others, as it is in the annunciation stories about the coming of Christ. But Zechariah’s reaction is always puzzling to me. It’s not that he was necessarily afraid, but that it seems he was not expecting anything special to happen to him in going into the sanctuary. Again, he is going into the inner sanctum of the Temple, just steps from what is believed to be the literal throne of God, and he is surprised to see an angel there? What was he expecting? My guess is he was expecting absolutely nothing.

And I think that’s further confirmed by the fact that he and his wife have, apparently, been praying for years to have a child all without apparent success. Now a couple being barren was seen as a judgment being made by God against them, although we are told that they are both righteous before God, living blamelessly according to the commandments, and so it appears that perhaps something else is going on here. And this may be the first of many remembrances we will get about claims that others make, especially religious leaders, about knowing the will of God especially when it comes to judging others. But, this is also a set-up to connect Elizabeth and Zechariah to some of the other great stories of the Hebrew Bible, including Sarah and Abraham, Isaac and Rebekah and a lesser known couple, Elkanah and Hannah, who are the parents of Samuel. And like those couples, a divine intervention is happening, but does Zechariah believe it? No. and so we might ask what he’s been praying for this whole time, or why he’s been praying, if he didn’t think his prayers were being heard let alone expecting that they would be answered? He was actually doubting what God was able to do, and so he is silenced because he didn’t believe what Gabriel was telling him would happen.

When I was serving in Melrose, New Mexico, they were experiencing a severe drought, such that in our two years none of the farmers who relied solely on rain for their crops brought in a single harvest. Before I got there they held a prayer vigil to pray for rain, but what someone told me was that not a single person brought an umbrella to the event. It was just an exercise, just something to do, but without a true expectation that anything was going to happen. And perhaps that’s what Zechariah was doing too. He was just going through the motions, doing the right actions, saying the right things, but he does not seem to have an expectation that he will encounter God in anything he does. At least not a God that is outside of his control, bigger than him, more powerful than him. He is not filled with awe, he doesn’t tremble in being in the presence of a divine presence, of something so majestic, and instead he is just terrified because everything he thinks is being wiped away. God is not safe, but God is good.

And so each worship service I say that we hope that you have come with the expectation that we will encounter the risen Christ that he Holy Spirit will be moving amongst us so that we will know that it’s about more than just the motions, and the words we say, but about experiencing the divine presence and expecting that God will be present for us not just here, but everywhere in our lives. And when we learn to experience God and expect that our prayers will be heard and answered, and that we may even encounter the divine in a multiplicity of ways, then we learn to know of a God that is awe-inspiring and learn to experience and know God’s love, and then, what we hear is first John we will learn to move beyond a fear of God, because “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts our fear; for fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” And it is God’s love that offered us Christ not to condemn us, not to punish us, but to redeem us, to save us, to heal us, to offer us perfect love. And so as we prepare to again welcome the Christ child into the world, may we hear Gabriel’s’ injunction do not be afraid, and instead to approach God not just with worship, wonder and awe, but with the expectation that we will encounter and experience the movement of God in all that we do. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.