"FEAR FACTOR"
It is the
best of times, it is the worst of times…….
It is the
epoch of belief, it is the epoch of incredulity;
It is the
spring of hope, it is the winter of despair…..[1]
It is the first of September, one
year later. . . and we are changed.
Indeed,
the jumbo jets slicing into the glass towers last September neatly sheared our
familiar past from our expected future. Those 747 wing-tips turned, homed in,
and severed us from our moorings that day, and we've been adrift in a
sea of dread ever since. There remains a hole today in Manhattan, in
Washington, in a dirt field in Pennsylvania--a subtraction of 3,000 lives and a
billion tons of steel & concrete--yet the yawning chasm feels crowded. It is a haunting; so many fears unleashed………
Remember this past year?
Americans bought guns and
gas-masks…….
There was a big run on Cipro
antibiotics…..
We opened our mail & drank
water from our taps with sudden, sinister trepidation,
and a stranger's backpack plunked
down next to us on the subway could make our mouths go dry in an instant.
Now, my intention today is not to
examine the many facets of the actual event (this congregation has
arranged for a special service for that, as listed in your bulletin). No, instead of discussing our mournful human
losses sustained that day, I want to us to name and grapple with the more
generalized legacy that we've been living with the past twelve months: that of
FEAR.
Although the passage of time has
neatly laminated the rawness of the terror—
preserving it as REAL, yes, but
flat…already a part of history—NONETHELESS, it wouldn't take much to plunge us
back to that cauldron of helplessness, would it?
Interestingly, in a book called "Fear Itself," author Rush
Dozier notes that there are two distinct psychological elements involved in
fear: (a) Habituation and (b) Sensitization.
Sensitization is a form
of fear reaction, like when you experience something warning you that you are
in danger--(your car nearly going out of control on a slick road, for example).
Sensitization lowers the fear
threshold….you become easily startled.
I remember last fall how afraid I was even to go to church,
thinking that any large, unguarded sanctuary near Copley Square would be an
ideal target. Did you ever think
that? My daughter Brooke could barely
fit into her lacy baptismal gown last October, because we'd waited so long to
baptize her! Out-of-town loved ones were afraid to fly in for the big event,
and we were fearful of pressuring them to do so.
That feels
extreme now, because Habituation has set in, for the most part, which
Dozier describes as a state that occurs when people are exposed frequently to a
stimulus, so that their threshold of fear actually rises…(exhibited, for instance, by many British citizens during the
German bombing raids over London in the 1940s). You just get used to the fear.
In habituation, our minds try to
make sense of the senselessness, often by taking refuge in history: I mean, in
every age, some cataclysm comes. Was the dust cloud following the collapse of
the towers really worse than the terrifying mushroom cloud of Hiroshima? Or the
smoky ovens of Auschwitz? Ah, but maybe
we really ARE living in a new age of unprecedented fear.
As intricate and sophisticated as
the atom-splitting cores were in those two H-bombs known as Fat Man and Little
Boy, perhaps the reason 9/11 hit us so hard was because our world was wrenched
to a halt that day by a few crude tools that go for under $4 bucks at your
local Home Depot: BOXCUTTERS. Box cutters? The tip that topples! The stone in the slingshot of David,
bringing to its knees the Goliath of the modern times: untouchable,
charismatic, arrogant, unstoppable……. America.
Out of control!
Mark Slouka, in this month's issue
of Harper's magazine, reflects on how 9/11 has changed us:
Last year's attack was so traumatic to us because it simultaneously
exposed and challenged the myth of our own uniqueness. Here in New Canaan,
death was a foreigner--radical, disturbing, smelling of musty brimstone. We
wanted no part of him. And now death had come calling. That troubled brother,
so long forgotten, so successfully erased, was standing on our porch in his
steel-toed boots, grinning. He's made it across the ocean, passed like a ghost
through the gates of our chosen community. This was not just a terrorist
attack. This was an act of metaphysical trespass." [2]
Metaphysical trespass! Out-of-control!
We cannot fully protect ourselves
or our loved ones from the quirks of contingency, can we? A trillion- dollar Star Wars missile-defense
system, a "Sacred Canopy" (Berger) for the
21st century, would not have stopped the lowly, low-tech
boxcutter! Who would have dreamed
such a thing?
We are soft tissue and bone,
aren't we? We are loose and rattling
under the moonlight…..our brains and hearts adrift in a wash of fluid, sealed
against chance by the narrowest mantles of skull and rib. I remember standing once near Boston
University, on a bridge overlooking the Mass Turnpike; transfixed, I stared
down at the cars and Mac trucks thundering down the Pike, going 60-70-80 miles
an hour, separated only by thin broken line, the merest of inches between each
hurtling vehicle. How trusting we are to live in this world! How much there is
to fear! There must be 500,000 things
that can drop on your head from the outside, or unravel at the cellular level
deep from the inside.
Out of control!
Surely our abject vulnerability is
the fuel that stokes the engine of fear. I have a friend who is a very smart,
accomplished businesswoman in Boston, married to a genius scientist. She
confided to me not too long ago that she told her husband that wished she could
wear a little vial around her neck….with cyanide in it! A little fashionable locket with a
kick! Why? Because, she explained only half sheepishly, if she ever got in a
bad situation--even a plane hijacking--she could insure a quick death for
herself.
Anxiety pervades our modern
living, fracturing us, robbing us, beating us down. T.S. Eliot, from “The Wasteland”: “Mankind cannot bear very much
reality—.”
Slouka continues: "The spirit
of pain is archaeological. It strips away--whether by brush or by pick--the
layers of wishful thinking accumulated during times of peace. It scours and
flays. It is by nature atavistic. At its best it can reveal the essential self,
buried under a thin soil of misconceptions."
And if we're finally getting down
to essentials, if—overlooking the fact that our post-9/11 shock is now somewhat
habituated—we are tired of always wondering when the other shoe might drop,
then maybe it's time to go the final distance.
What is the lasting answer to
Fear, no matter what the churning tides of war and terrorism bring? More
importantly, where is GOD in this, and what does the Bible say about fear and
anxiety?
* *
* *
It is a simple
matter for Luke; he hammers home the obvious.
In chapter 12, he quotes Jesus in almost incredulous terms: "Can
any of you by worrying add a single hour
to your span of life?" he asks. "Do not keep worrying!” Instead,
“strive for the kingdom of God, because God knows what you need". In
other words, yield to the very thing that makes you anxious in the first place:
your helplessness.
This turns us, I think, towards the Buddhist idea of suffering,
which is often described as our attachments to our desires. OUR
ATTACHMENTS. There it is again: our
rigid need for control. Our
overwhelming, voracious hunger to keep death and bad things at bay, to keep
ourselves and our loves ones safe.
Craving safety is a perfectly natural feeling, of course. But,
alas, the equation isn't set up that way, is it? The reason 9/11 completely
crushed us is that it forced us to come to terms with the fact that we are NOT
in control, no matter how much technology we throw at our fears. No, God made this FREE WILL PLANET, and the
terms are non-negotiable:
In order to engender authentic
love in this realm, there must be free will.
In order to have free will, earthly creatures must be given the right to
choose. Choice necessitates options, and options necessitate opposites (the
good + the non-good). Options and free will necessitate chance, and the most
devastating element of all: randomness. Randomness, that bitter pill to
swallow! No wonder religions from time
immemorial have so loved to play the "blame the victim" game. At
least then there is some semblance of control: appease God and live. Sin, and
be punished. *But trading one kind of
fear for another is no cure.
Rush Dozier rightfully calls
Anxiety the "fear of the future"; he notes that "anxiety"
is a word derived from a Greek root meaning, 'to strangle'. Oh yeah!
TO STRANGLE. We suffocate the present with a dread of
the future, leading to a host of fear-based diseases (“dis-eases”): phobias, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive
disorders, paranoias, and post-traumatic stress syndromes. Anxiety disorders are the #1
mental-health problem in the United States, affecting about 25 million people (and this is data
gathered before 9/11!)
In his famous letter to the church
in Philippi, Paul whispers a hint for combating fear: GRATITUDE. "Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS,"
writes Paul (from prison no less). "In
everything, beseech God….in a spirit of appreciation." For God's sake, stop this incessant
worrying. . . and be thankful. Surely
this is one of the most powerful balms for fear. Gratitude can be
defined as "an acknowledgment of a favor, or a gift" (Webster’s
Dictionary). If we treated each day as
a surprising add-on, taking nothing for granted, how unburdened we would be!
But surely courage is more useful
than anything else for today's times.
Or is it? I love the surprising
twist that John the Evangelist hits us with in 1 John, when he says (chap.
18): "Perfect LOVE casts out all fear." [My linear Greek translation renders 1
John 18 as]: “Fear is not in love"…….
"The one fearing has not
been perfected in love."
Now, forget about our crazy modern
notions of perfection. The word actually comes from a Latin root, "to finish", and it is defined
as "lacking nothing essential to the whole.” The Hebrew word for Perfect in the OT also typically signifies
"a completion”. This definition
is critical, for without this understanding we are lost.
John teaches us how perfect love
comes about (4:12): "If we love
one another, then God lives in us, and God's
love is perfected in us--."
John assures us that we can do
this…..this kind of abiding…..because
God first loved us (v.19)."
Perfect love is opening up to the Sacred Universe, understanding
that we are—always have been, always will be—beloved. So, again:
o
Give up
Control, says Luke
o
Be
Grateful, says Paul
o
Abide in
the One who Loves You, says John
The unity and harmony of this Way
of Being brings a peace that surpasses all understanding. Jesus said, "I came, so that they might
have life, and have it more abundantly!"
At our lonely outposts, where we warily and wearily scan the horizon for
the enemies, God says: Lay down your
arms. I am here.
* *
* *
This wandering all along the
watchtower (J. Hendricks) is nothing new. We see it in our lectionary passage
this morning. It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times……
It was 1440
BCE. The descendents of Jacob had been living in
Egypt for almost 400 years. Joseph the
great, who saved a nation from famine, was long dead, and the present
government had no memory of his accomplishments. The early pages of the Book of
Exodus tell us that the exiled Hebrew people, who later came to be known as the
House of Israel, had "become so numerous and powerful," that they
were now a source of grave vexation for Pharaoh. Wanting to subdue them, Pharaoh tried to break their spirits
through harsh slavery …..and break their hearts through (infant) genocide.[3] The Hebrews in Egypt were living misery,
overwork, high anxiety, and in constant dread of death. They were a people living on the brink.
Meanwhile, in northern Arabia, in
the hardscrabble highlands of the Sinai Peninsula, deep in the Horeb* mountain
range………..
[*Some
scholars translate the location to be either the "western" part of
the wilderness, or "behind"
the wilderness……maybe there just isn't a good Hebrew word for
"BOONDOCKS"?……but you get the picture! It was the middle of a barren
wasteland].
Here, then, imagine a tinkling of
bells amid the lowing of a large flock of bedraggled sheep. See an old man,
about eighty years old, trudging along in the dusty dryness of a harsh nomadic
life. How bitter he must be! Raised in
wealth amid the splendor of royal Egyptian courts, this man, Moses, was far,
far away now from a once shinning destiny. Seemingly bred to be a champion for
his people, he was instead a castaway…. having lost everything when he lost his
temper and killed a man in Egypt.
Fearful, lost in the wilderness, he, too, was also a man living on the
brink.
Where was God for this man, Moses?
Where was God for the poor Israelites, languishing amid the long shadows of
death under the broiling Egyptian sun?
We moderns might really second
that emotion: where is God in our world today?
Everywhere we turn in 1440 and in
2002—ah, the ages of incredulity amid the hiding of God's face—we could all
join together and say, God, oh God, why
have you forsaken us??!
* *
* *
The cartoon character Pogo once
said, "God is not dead…..he is just unemployed!" Do you believe that? That God no longer acts? That the age of
miracles past? That God can't or won't
intervene?
No wonder we are constantly afraid.
Funny…… most of the great MIRACLES
of the Bible had yet to occur when Moses trudged behind his sheep that fateful day
in Sinai. God's hidden-ness had become
habituated. Just look at Moses' odd
reaction to the burning bush! Instead
of being paralyzed with terror at seeing the burning presence of Yahweh so
unexpectedly in the middle of nowheresville, he wasn't afraid. He was curious.
Moses said: Hmph! I must turn aside and look at
this great sight-- (Exodus 3:2).
That's it. Moses thought it was an oddity of nature, a fluke. And then, how funny is God's behavior, like
God is a small child or something (v. 4): "When the Lord saw that Moses
had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush…….. Yoo hoo!
Moses, Moses!
Couplets are used in these ancient
writings as a means of dramatic emphasis. What, God has to call Moses twice?
BUT STILL Moses does not understand!
He replies warily, "Yeah, who
wants to know?….." And then it
gets all "man-behind-the-curtain"-ish,
like in the Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy gets a little too close. God stokes up the scary voice: You, come no closer! Remove Thy sandals from
Thy feet, for the place you are standing is holy ground!"
Imagine Moses' surprise at that moment. The thorny old bush, a bush
of the same ilk he'd trudged past a million times before, suddenly goes
"poof!" and lights up like a roman candle. It would be the same as if a fire hydrant you passed everyday on
the way to work suddenly erupted in song or did a little tap dance.
But listen! Moses STILL didn't get it.
God has to embarrassingly identify
himself: "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob (verse 6)." Imagine if
that singing fire hydrant on your way to work actually knew the names of your
relatives--!
And at that moment, Moses catches
a big clue…..wouldn't you have loved to see his face right then? But it would’ve been hard, because Moses
immediately hid his face. He knew all about the GOD rules: no one could look
upon the countenance of Yahweh and live.
His actions speak volumes about the sudden dispersion of any lingering
confusion or doubt.
God had entered the building.
*
* * *
Theologian
Donald Gowan writes:
The silence OF God and ABOUT God [in the early
chapters of Exodus] is then deliberately and dramatically broken [by Moses'
encounter with the burning bush]. The transition moves from an account of purely
human activities [people's fears and struggles and dashed hopes] to a story
dominated by the acts and words of God.
Indeed, despite all the fear
factors, the axis of creation is now turns on a dime. What was anathema to later Greek philosophers becomes the glory
of the Judeo-Christian tradition:
God gets
her hands dirty,
God rolls
up his shirtsleeves,
Heaven
help us, God intervenes!!!!
The thread of wisdom from Exodus
in mirrored in the laments of the Psalms. There we see the faith of a people
who were so convinced that God had both the power and the will to help them,
that they would not give that faith up in spite of everything and anything to
the contrary! So they deal with their terror by crying out, even when it seems
they are crying into emptiness. And they waited. God says later in chapter
22: "When they cry out to me, I
will surely hear their cry ".
Insistence! Persistence! [4]
God heard, and called Moses out of
the dark desert into the Light, into the Fight….. and the swashbuckling saga launches,
on the shoulders of this senior citizen outlaw……against all kinds of odds,
against the frightening lock-down situation of the captive Hebrews, the mighty
Pharaoh is defeated by a wall of water, a Tsunami that crashed down not only on
the heads of the Egyptian soldiers but on all the doubts and fears of a whole
generation……!
Yes, God intervened!
And in the midst of our sorrow and
our fearfulness and our faintness now, this September, and in the future face
of all that may yet occur through the sinister workings of the fanatical
martyrs who know only one dark way……
Yes, through all that……
We must hold fast to the fact that
the One who intervened then can yet intervene now. So when you pass by the fire hydrants in this place that seems as
far a cry as possible from the geography of Jerusalem and Sinai and Bethlehem
and Rome…….know that we are NOT alone in our worries.
God is with us,
God is for us,
God is right here, right now: Emmanuel. Now and Always
The Poet Elizabeth Barrett
Browning wrote:
Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every common bush afire with
God
Look now! Don't be Afraid!
Surely . . . surely . . . EVERY
bush is burning.
[AMEN]