"Fear Not Fear"
June 11, 2006: 1st Sunday after Pentecost, Year B
The Rev. John MacIver Gage, pastor
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.newlights.org

Scripture:
Isaiah 6:1-8
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of God's robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above God; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of God's glory." The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out." Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"

John 13: selected verses
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end... And during supper Jesus... got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean..." After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you."

May God speak through these words and make from them a holy word for us today. Amen.

Sermon:
How many times have you heard the phrase, "the fear of the Lord" and shuddered? How many times have you heard it from the lips of fire and brimstone preachers or strict Sunday school teachers and felt you stomach flip-flop? How many times have we read it in the Bible—in Genesis 22:12, Exodus 9:30, Deuteronomy 6:13, Joshua 4:24, Job 15:4, all through the Psalms and Proverbs, in Jeremiah 2:19, Luke 23:40, Acts 13:16, and Romans 3:18, to name but a few passages where this phrase appears—how many times have we read about "the fear of the Lord" in scripture and been overwhelmed by confusion, anxiety, anger, or, yes, even fear?

No Biblical turn of phrase seems to set-off the alarm bells for progressive Christians more than "the fear of the Lord." So, in typical fashion, we intellectualize our discomfort. We dismiss the concept out of hand as the product of a pre-modern culture without the benefit of the many advanced understandings we enjoy today. Or we take cover behind psychological jargon and dismiss "the fear of the Lord" as a symptom of a displaced collective conflict with the father figure. Or we simply dodge the idea altogether, and the phrase and the Bible passages where it's found. We excuse our avoidance by hauling out the big guns, the harshest insult in the progressive lexicon. We won't deal with "the fear of the Lord," we say, because it is <gasp> unhelpful.

But helpful or no, there it is. There it is something like 123 times in scripture. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Ps 111:10). "Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and of spirit, making holiness perfect in the fear of God" (2Cor 7:1). "The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord" (Isa 11:2). The concept is pervasive, and if we're going to deal with the Bible at all, we are obligated to deal with the discomforting bits along with the comforting.

Of course, since the phrase "the fear of the Lord" appears only fourteen times in the New Testament, it is possible to "plead the blood of Jesus," as our more conservative sisters and brothers might say, and dismiss this "fear" as an error of the Old Testament. That's what Marcion, a famous 2nd Century Christian scholar, believed. He held that the God of Jesus and the God of the Hebrew Scriptures could not possibly be one and the same. To him the former seemed all love, all mercy, while the latter was a vengeful, frightening, lesser figure. In his drive to weed out the influence of this dark Jewish God upon the Christian faith, Marcion published his own Bible, one missing all of the Hebrew scriptures and most of the Gospel of Matthew, among other notable exceptions. Interestingly, Marcion loved Paul, except of course for the parts where Paul defends the validity of the Jewish faith.

It would be possible to follow in Marcion's footsteps, and, if we're honest with ourselves, many of us do just that. But it wouldn't be advisable. For one, Marcion was officially declared a heretic in the year 144, so he's officially persona non grata in Christian circles, no matter our passing affinity for his way of thinking today. But more importantly, to join Marcion in his attempt to excise the image of a fear-full God, among other ideas, from the Christian faith is to create a faith that Christ himself would not recognize. Jesus was a faithful Jew, and the Old Testament was his only testament, along with the witness of the Spirit of God with his spirit. This language was part of Christ's own tradition of faith; in other words, Jesus had to deal with it, and did. So must we, if we would follow in Jesus' footsteps.

So what do you think of when you consider "the fear of the Lord"? If you are like me, you hear those words and think only one thing: The Wizard of Oz... or this passage from Isaiah. It's pretty much a toss-up, and, when you think about it, they're really quite similar. Isaiah reports having a vision of God, capital G-O-D, seated on a heavenly throne. Actually, God is so huge in Isaiah's vision, that he can see only the hem of God's robe filling his entire field of view. Like Oz, there is much smoke and fire and noise. There are otherworldly servants shuttling back and forth, in and around, and there is unearthly music. These seraphim, whatever they may be, are singing in their unearthly voices songs of unending praise to God, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, the God of all the heavenly forces! All heaven and all earth are full of the glory of God! Holy, holy, holy!" And then, as if that weren't enough, out of the midst of all this durm und strang, this storm and stress, comes a voice, a loud voice, crying out: "WHO ARE YOU?"

Which leaves Isaiah of Jerusalem and Dorothy Gale of Kansas in exactly the same place: shaking in their shoes, in Dorothy's case before the Wizard's contrived display of parlor tricks, and in Isaiah's before the very real power of the Holy, Holy, Holy God who made heaven and earth. Isaiah feels the fear of the Lord, not as an abstract emotion he may or may not choose to feel or a cultural concept in which he may or may not choose to participate. No, this is not a fear to be overcome, like the fear of flying, or a fear to be worked through, like the fear resulting from a childhood trauma. This is existential fear, the fear of the finite creature before the infinite creator, what sociologist of religions Rudolph Otto characterized as the mysterious, the tremendous, the "wholly other," i.e. God (The Idea of the Holy, 1923). This fear is simply a shorthand for a whole host of feelings inspired by the immediate presence of God, including "awe-fulness," "overpoweringness," and a powerful sense of energy and urgency.

Being made aware in an instant of all the ways that he is not God, no wonder Isaiah is moved immediately to confession: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." This is not Isaiah groveling before God in order to curry favor, like some flattering courtier. This is Isaiah's very human heart and mind and soul trying to make sense of what he's experiencing. Where once there was only the Jerusalem temple, grand in its own way with its columns and courtyards and porticos, this is... something else, something more, something so much more that everything else pales in comparison as this something behind, beyond, beneath, above everything else demands his complete and total attention. There is God, who is wholly and holy other, and God's presence makes Isaiah, for lack of a better word, afraid.

All too often, though, our reflections on the "fear of the Lord" and those of our forebears in faith have stopped right there, somewhere along about verse five, with Isaiah's confession of his un-Godly creatureliness before almighty God. And that's where our concept of holiness has stalled, as well, with the spectacular sound and light show of Isaiah's vision. As a consequence, we have ended up confusing holiness with being high up and far away, divine perfection with pyrotechnics, and fear with, well, fear. And who wants to be in relationship with a God who remains aloof and untouched from the world God made and who communicates God's will through intimidation and fear? Not me. I believe we have every right to refuse to worship such a God. Fear? Not!

But if we continue reading past verse five, we see that God does not remain high up and far away. God takes the initiative to bridge the gap between Creator and created. God does not remain untouchable, but reaches out through the figure of an angel to touch Isaiah. God's holiness is not a barrier to relationship but in fact allows God to embrace this merely human being, living in a messy world of all too human beings, and make him to share in God's holiness, too, and in God's holy work in the world. Fear? Not!

If we keep reading in Testaments Old and New, we will hear this graceful counterpoint to the properly soul-shaking experience of the human being before God's Own Self. We will hear God's own voice telling us over and over again to fear not. Listen to God calling out to Hagar, abandoned in the wilderness with her baby: Fear not (Gen 21:17). Listen to God's word through the prophet Isaiah to the people of Israel exiled by Babylon: Fear not (Isa 41:10). Listen to God comforting Mary of Nazareth, about to be found to be pregnant out of wedlock: Fear not (Luke 1:30).

And listen to Jesus as he speaks to some simple fishermen who worried what it might mean to follow in his new way (Lk 5:10); to the same disciples, now lost on a stormy sea (Jn 6:20); to those would soon face persecution for the sake of his Gospel of life (Lk 12:7); to the women weeping over his empty tomb (Mt 28:10). The Word and the words are the same: Fear not!

Which is not to say that their experience of Jesus or ours is any less holy for being more homely, more simple. Sure there's not much flash in the Gospel, not a lot of fire and smoke, just an occasional miracle. But what the disciples glimpsed in Jesus, and not just in his miracles, but what they felt from him as he lived with them and taught them and challenged them and comforted them was, they believed, of God—deeply, truly, and undeniably of God, so much so that the line between Jesus and God seemed to become less distinct, or less important. He became in their understanding so identified with the Holy One that they began to think of him as the promised messiah, Immanuel, God with us.

That's why I included the reading from John, chapter thirteen this morning, alongside the Isaiah indicated by the lectionary. For me, John's words work hammer and tongs with the Isaiah to give us a fuller picture of holiness. In this passage, the disciples are sitting at table celebrating the Passover when Jesus, their rabbi, their master and teacher, gets up, strips to the waist, puts on an apron, and begins to wash their feet like any common household slave. At first, they resist on the grounds of plain good manners. A teacher shouldn't have to do such a thing for his students. It's beneath him. Then, when he insists, they acquiesce, but likely for the same reason. A student doesn't contradict his teacher.

Then I can imagine the room getting very quiet as Jesus continues around the table, taking one dirty foot after another into his hands and washing it gently and thoroughly. Somewhere around the circle, the disciples get it. They see the basin and the towel, they feel the water washing over their feet, and they see so much more. They get it. They understand that what Jesus is doing isn't just about a seemingly random act of kindness. It isn't just about taking a more egalitarian view of social relationships. It isn't even just about the need to live lives of service to the world. No, it's about all that, and something else, something more, something so much more that everything else pales in comparison as this something behind, beyond, beneath, above everything else demands their complete and total attention. In Jesus they see God, and thought their hearts tremble in his presence, as Isaiah's did, though they know the fear of the Lord, as he did, they also know in that moment that they need not be afraid, not ever again. Somewhere, in the corners of their consciousness, the seraphim are still singing, "Holy, holy, holy!"

In the story Jesus, as in the story of Hagar and Mary and the exiles of Israel, we come to understand that while God is indeed wholly and holy other—that God is, in fact, God, as we are not—the holiness of God is manifest not only in infinity but also in intimacy. The God of the universe empties God's own self to live as one of us here and now in the storm and stress of everyday life, even to the point of dying as one us, too, even dying on a cross. We believe that the God who is more distant than the farthest star is in fact closer than our own breathing, because God bridges that gap in Jesus to call us to share in God's own holiness, made flesh in lives of justice, peace, and compassion.

It is truly a frightening prospect, not only being in the presence of the holy God, but being called by God to become holy. Forget all the fireworks and the sound effects—that scares the spit out of me! That God, the holy, holy, holy Lord God of heaven and earth, should care enough, should love me enough not only to meet me face to face in Jesus, but then go on to bend down and wash my feet so that I might follow in his footsteps as a witness for the Gospel—that blows me away! Of course, it's the home-spun Jesus-holiness we're called to share and to emulate. If we pretend to command the razzle-dazzle holiness of Isaiah's vision, it's true, we may be able to fool some of the people some of the time, but sooner or later somebody will pull back the curtain, and we'll be revealed as the smoke and mirrors wanna-be wizards we are.

But this is the witness of countless generations of faithful persons before us, that what we see at work in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and even now in us, albeit fitfully, is the power of our holy God transforming the world, one very human being at a time, until the whole mess is turned upside down and rightside out and God's reign is realized on earth as it is in heaven.

In closing this morning, I want to leave you with these words from the book of Deuteronomy—a book full of religious rules and regulations and not a part of the Bible progressive Christians like us associate over much with a vision of graceful God. There is still too much of Marcion in us for that. And yet, it's there in those carefully prescribed pages that we read this:

So now, O people, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all God's ways, to love God, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and God's decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being. Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth with all that is in it, yet the God set God's own heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today. Circumcise your hearts then, and do not be stubborn any longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God; God alone you shall worship; to God you shall hold fast, and by God's name you shall swear. God is your praise; God is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen. (Deut 10:12-21)

There is a prayer of blessing that I have heard used in other church settings, but I have shied away from using it here with you for fear of being misunderstood. Today I am ready to share it with you. It goes like this: May you love God so much that you loving nothing else too much, and may you fear God enough that you need fear nothing at all. I'll say that again: May you love God so much that you loving nothing else too much, and may you fear God enough that you need fear nothing at all.

I hope you find this helpful.