A reflection on the lectionary readings for the ninth Sunday after Pentecost. The readings are here.
Do not be afraid. Jesus says this phrase more than any other. Without having counted myself, I’d confidently say it’s a statement made in scripture more than any other single phrase. I don’t know if it is there 365 times as some say, but it is in there a lot. And it’s not because Jesus doesn’t know the world is a frightening place. He knows that very well. More on that in a bit.
But first I want to talk about how we use the word ‘world’. Most of the time when we use the word ‘world’ we think of it as Paul does, somehow separate from God’s kingdom-on-earth-as-in-heaven. But Jesus talks of the world and the Kingdom in a way that reminds us we are in this world because this is God’s creation, it is where God created us. We broke the lease in Eden and God sent us out of Eden into the world, protected and cared for, and cautioned against the dangers. And the most dangerous, harmful things in this world are our fellow humans seeking to bring about their own kingdoms in this world.
Jesus comes to us and begins to reintroduce us to the ideals of God’s Kingdom, life as God intended when God made the agreement with those early humans to live with and obey God. God’s Kingdom isn’t any particular ‘place’, but the Way we live in this world that makes the Kingdom visible within it.
The ‘world’ that condemned and killed Jesus wasn’t the people outside of the Temple but those who ran God’s temple while building up their own kingdoms. When we seek to build our own kingdoms, kingdoms we weren’t created for, fear is the normal byproduct. Humans seem to know instinctively, even if we don’t admit it to ourselves or anyone else, that our kingdoms are fleeting and temporary. We know instinctively, too, that God’s Kingdom is the everlasting Kingdom we are created for. And, so, we are afraid, afraid that our kingdoms will be taken from us and so we shape our human relationships – and our relationship with God – by this fear. We create a world for ourselves based on scarcity. If you have something I don’t have I must take it from you, or even defeat you. This human made form of a kingdom puts us at the center, not God.
Abram was afraid and he made his own plan to find an heir. With God’s reassurance Abram grew to treasure God’s promise and plan. Abram turned his heart toward God. Of course, we learn as the story continues to unfold Abram, aka Abraham, and Sarah continue to have moments of fear and doubt and again take matters into their own hands and operate from a place of scarcity created by fear, but God never abandons them. God proceeds with the Kingom-on-earth building and works in, with, and around, the human made kingdoms.
We are told by Jesus and throughout all of scripture to not be afraid because fear is the human emotion that drives the dangers of this world. People who let life be shaped by their fear of losing their self-made and self-centered kingdoms rule with fear. They use their fear to make others afraid so that we too are shaped by fear. It is a dangerous and vicious cycle.
Jesus reminds us of the image of God, the image of Love that is the true center of our createdness. We have to let go of our fear to find it; for some the Image is buried deep under layers and layers of fear: anger, hatred, greed, self-importance, just to name a few. When Jesus tells us to not be afraid, he isn’t pretending there aren’t things to be afraid of, he isn’t denying that fear is a natural human emotion that God gave us as a warning system. Jesus is calling us to remember that we weren’t created in fear for fear but in love and for love.
It is God’s Love and the image of that Love within each of us that we are to let shape us, guide our behaviors, build our relationships. Because it is loving relationship – with God and each other and ourselves – that is the treasure we are created to have. And this treasure is abundant and everlasting. Loving relationships seek mutuality, not control or coercion or power-over others in any way.
We enter into God’s kingdom-on-earth-as-in-heaven every time we choose to seek mutuality with others. When we make loving, healthy, other-focused relationships our true treasure we have the power stronger than our fear, even as we walk among the dangers of this world. Because like Jesus, even when the kingdom-of-self-seeking powers of this world attack us and try to shape us by fear, we know we are living in the greatest power of all, Love.
Keep loving louder than the hate.
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