by Kim Thoday For some years now it has been fashionable for adolescent guys and girls to have the words: “No Fear” stuck to the back windscreens of their vehicles, in bold flowing font. Though sometimes the drivers of such vehicles look more like their parents. Well maybe its somehow more appropriate for the parents of teenagers … that is, perhaps after teenagers, really there is not much more to fear! I guess the windscreen sticker: “No Fear” is just another cult-type symbol that appeals to that earlier life stage where the idea of mortality is distant and the feelings of indestructibility are encouraged and commercialised in our culture of self-interest and the freedom to make a buck. I note with some sense of bewilderment that the “No Fear” icon is being displaced by a new contender; namely, the bunny ears symbol of Playboy. It would appear that somehow, just as the notion of Fear has been eliminated as negative in popular culture, so too the dominant corporatist culture of the West has eroded some of the important moral victories of the Women’s Movement.

Fear can be both positive and negative. Without the instinct of fear we would not survive. And I don’t just mean as the human race, although that is my essential point. I have learned for instance to fear my wife. Fear of my wife is a positive thing when it comes to the tendency I have at times to forget to check important dates with her. Even more so, fear of my wife is a positive when it comes to the tendency I have had to overlook our wedding anniversaries. Note the past tense: “have had.” Fear has corrected that tendency. It is no longer a tendency. It just doesn’t happen. Why? Because my survival depends upon it! And we fear not surviving; so fear is a healthy human commodity. But seriously, I love my wife enormously and love is the essential bond between us; not fear. I have seen some marriages where I think fear maybe what ‘holds’ the couple together, but in such situations fear of course is a tyrant. Yet love and fear are not necessarily opposites. Fear, in the right amount and of the right kind in fact is one important ingredient in human relationships. We will return to this later.

So fear is important to experience in life. We need to teach our children that it is okay to be afraid sometimes. Fear is a natural instinct. Fear teaches us to survive and not to dive off a jetty or pier without firstly checking the depth of the water. Fear also teaches us one of the greatest gifts and possibilities in life and that is bravery. Bravery is really about the management of fear to achieve a higher goal in life. Bravery is about stepping out in faith, having calculated that a high level of risk is involved, yet wilfully proceeding because a cause is involved that is of higher value than the risk. Frederick Buechner, in his book Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter’s Dictionary, speaks of this FEAR-RISK-BRAVERY dynamic in relation to the controversial issue of abortion. He writes, I think, a distinctively Christian piece, which can apply to many of the existential moments and decisions we face in life. So it is worth quoting:

“Speaking against abortion, someone has said, ‘No one should be denied access to the great feast of life,’ to which the rebuttal, obviously enough, is that life isn’t much of a feast for the child born to people who don’t want it or can’t afford it or are one way or another incapable of taking care of it and will one way or another probably end up abusing or abandoning it. And yet, and yet. Who knows what treasure life may hold for even such a child as that, or what a treasure even such a child as that may grow to become? To bear a child even under the best of circumstances, or to abort a child even under the worst – the risks are hair-raising either way and the results incalculable. How would Jesus himself decide, he who is hailed as Lord of Life and yet who says that it is not the ones who, like an abortionist, can kill the body we should fear but the ones who can kill body and soul together the way only the world into which it is born can kill the unloved, unwanted child (Matthew 10:28)? There is perhaps no better illustration of the truth that in an imperfect world there are no perfect solutions. All we can do, as Luther said, is sin bravely, which is to say (a) know that neither to have the child nor not to have the child is without the possibility of tragic consequences for everybody yet (b) be brave in knowing also that not even that can put us beyond the forgiving love of God.” (p.1.)

To be afraid seems not to be in vogue these says, unless it is to one’s political or economic advantage; then even the so-called democracies hood wink their populations into going to war. How do you get populations to allow their young to go off into the battlefields to die? Make them afraid, even if you have to tell lies to do so. But otherwise we are taught not be afraid. Fear is a sign of weakness and weakness and vulnerability are not valued in today’s world of corporate monopoly and oligarchy. Remember the anthem that launched us through the revolving doors of the mid 1980s: ‘When the going gets tough the tough get going.’ And so too in many ways the Christian Church in the West has been influenced. It is not so popular these days to preach about the “fear of the Lord,” or to teach our children to “fear God.” For fear is seen as a negative or an unfortunate by-product of a not so distant past authoritarian age. Yet the Bible makes it plain that we will be in trouble if we don’t have a healthy fear of God. Sure, I would be amongst the first to discard forever the medieval notions of an almost despotic God, full of rage and tyrannical fickleness. However, this is not the God of the Bible I know, nor the God I experience in Jesus Christ. Yet, as I mentioned before, is love and fear necessarily in opposition? Is God in fact a God who is to be both loved and feared? I think, in fact, this is where the Bible points us, if taken as a whole. To fear God, I believe is an important part of loving him and in our era of NO FEAR, I think we need to rediscover the Gospel emphasis that God is also to be feared.

Psalm 111 contains within it the continuum or even paradox, of the love and fear of God. It is a magnificent Psalm of deep insight and is worth quoting in its entirety:

Praise the LORD!

I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart,

in the company of the upright, in the congregation.

2 Great are the works of the LORD,

studied by all who delight in them.

3 Full of honor and majesty is his work,

and his righteousness endures forever.

4 He has gained renown by his wonderful deeds;

the LORD is gracious and merciful.

5 He provides food for those who fear him;

he is ever mindful of his covenant.

6 He has shown his people the power of his works,

in giving them the heritage of the nations.

7 The works of his hands are faithful and just;

all his precepts are trustworthy.

8 They are established forever and ever,

to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.

9 He sent redemption to his people;

he has commanded his covenant forever.

Holy and awesome is his name.

10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;

all those who practice it have a good understanding.

His praise endures forever. (NRSV)

Verse 10 is a remarkable verse. It connects one’s fear of the Lord with wisdom. True wisdom then is graced upon those who fear God. Now I recognise that the Hebrew word for fear here also contains other nuances such as being in awe of God. Yet the fearful connotation is not to be diminished. Matthew’s Gospel highlights Jesus’ message that ultimately we ought fear not those who can kill the body alone, but rather him who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Matt 10:28). Jesus reminds us that God will judge all human beings at the end of the age and that judgement is to be feared. Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25: 14-30 graphically portrays what we need to be fearful of – that is, the consequences of disobeying God. This, I believe, the writer of the Psalm understands. To truly stand in appreciation of God is not only to love him for all his good works, but it is also to recognise the fragility of that covenant. It is a covenant that could be taken away from us and/or that we could choose to remove ourselves from, through disobedience. This truly is something to respectfully fear. God gives unconditional love, but we can chose to break from it. And the consequences of that are to be feared; feared, I believe, more than anything the Devil himself could ever manufacture! True and lasting love, is only meaningful, if it can be taken away or lost. Love is something that needs constant attention and faithfulness. Love can be lost and that is something to fear. God can be lost and that is an awesome fear. And yet we must never become obsessive in that fear. For also the Psalmist reminds us that God is full of grace and mercy (vs4). Perhaps, when its all said and done, God is not essentially characterised by fear, but certainly his absence is.

41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25, NRSV)

Blessings,

KIM THODAY

http://www.hewett.org.au