From Fear to Awe to Faith

4 Pentecost  Cycle B Proper 7     June 24, 2012

Job 38:1-11  Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32

2 Corinthians 6:1-13  Mark 4:35-41    

 Lectionary Link

  One of the chief tasks in the art of living is learning how to deal with the human phenomenon of fear.  We are reminded of FDR’s famous words in his first Inaugural Address, “we have nothing to fear, except fear itself.”  Wisdom in life requires that we have a right relationship with fear and the energy that drives fear in our lives.  Fear need not be something entirely bad; it can actually be human respect based upon a rational and scientific understanding of probabilities.  We need not fear all snakes while at the same time we don’t encourage our babies to play with rattle snakes in the desert.  Knowledge of probability in conflicting events of different life forms is based upon a respectful fear.  People who build homes on the ocean front in areas visited by hurricanes and tropical storms know about the potential conflict based upon the strength of the storm and the structural limits of the material of their homes; they still decide to buy and build on the waterfront and are willing to gamble the probability of their home being destroyed for the grandeur of the view.  Our knowledge of probability requires us to constantly transact with the possibility of fearful interactions with forces that might threaten our temporary or permanent well-being.

   There are all kinds of experiences with fear; some are paralyzing to the point of being designated as “phobias.”  A phobia occurs when a possible particular occurrence becomes generalized or universalized by an individual to become treated as a likely particular occurrence.   The fact that snakes do bite does not mean that because I know that snakes are in the county or on the block means that a snake is probably going to bite me.  How do we learn to co-exist with every possible bad outcome in our actual lives without being fearful?  How do we take the power out of a possible bad event in influencing how we act and live in our lives now?  We know the proximity in time to an actual bad event, does influence our lives in significant ways.  When I experienced a cat burglar at the foot of my bed at 2 a.m. in the morning, it affected my ability to sleep for several months.  That it had happened and the thought that it could happen again suddenly began to affect my ability to sleep.

  So, how do we live with the knowledge of actuarial negative possibilities without it affecting the quality of our lives or becoming gleeful insurance sales people?

  How is it that Jesus was able to sleep in a boat on a stormy sea while the disciple fisherman were fearful?  Could it be that Jesus already knew what was the afterlife of death and so he could sleep with an unworried mind? 

  I remember in my travels seeing street people sleep on crowded city streets with seemingly no fear at all.  How could they sleep without fear?  I thought perhaps, that they slept easily because they had nothing to lose.  They had nothing of worth to be stolen from them.  They were unfettered with any sort of baggage to make them anxious for their lives and so they slept like babies on some very crowded sidewalks.

  How many times in our lives do we want to cry out to an apparent “sleeping” Jesus?  Jesus, you are sleeping through way too much in this life?  How can you sleep through the abject poverty of the peoples of this world?  How can you sleep through all of the starving children in this world?  How can you sleep through all of the selfishness of those who possess the most without the willingness to share their wealth with those who have little?  Jesus, you just seem to be too content in your sleep in the midst of some major storms in our lives.

  That some very bad things can happen in life is the possibility of genuine freedom that is obviously at work.  On the small scale sometimes we think that we can locate a cause and effect chain where human freedom is involved; on a larger scale we cannot discover with precision the cause and effect involved in certain events.  Flapping butterfly wings may affect weather patterns in negligible ways; but in such a grand mixture of everything how could we measure or know precise cause and effects?

  A great wisdom book of the Bible is the book of Job; it is a treatise on suffering.  It is a rebuke to anyone who thinks that they know why we have particular suffering.  After all of Job’s suffering and dealing with all of the cliché answers of his friends, Job is confronted by God in the form of a whirlwind; God confronts Job in a stormy wind.  God reminds Job of how small he is in face of the immensity of all.   Job, how can you know the infinite number of relationships between an infinite number of things in the play of freedom?  Job, let your fear of the particular event give rise to awe in the face of magnificent immensity.  Magnificent Immensity dwarfs you Job, so let your fear become awe, just plain shut-your-mouth Awe.

  I believe that Jesus Christ came to help humanity convert their capacity of fear into the capacity of awe, because to live is to live with Magnificent Immensity.  But how do we co-exist with Magnificent Immensity, as it touches us in the particular events of our life?

  We co-exist with Magnificent Immensity as it is known in the particular events of our lives in the attitude of faith.  Faith is the experience of being personally valued in the midst of an Immensity that could quite easily leave us anonymously forgotten.  Jesus, in another Gospel is quoted as saying that God is aware even when a sparrow falls to the ground, and so God is mindful of each and every person.

  Faith is the result of transforming our lives of fear and anxiety into incredible awe in the face of Magnificent Immensity, and then funneling awe into the specific events of our lives in the personal sense of being valued and loved and cherish by another.  Faith is the sense of having distinction and value and not being diluted into total anonymity in the face of Magnificent Immensity.

  What this means for you and me is that we need to be at the work of coming to faith in our lives.  Do we have faith to be able to sleep during the storms of our lives?  Do we have faith to co-exist with all possibilities in this life believing that our lives are valued by God?  Most all of us come to know the value of our lives because there have been people in our lives who made us feel valued.

  The work of faith is the work of the church.  Jesus Christ needs us to be those who help people know that their lives are valued and wonderful.  We have important ministry in helping the people of this world come to faith, to know the value of their lives and to know that they are not lost in anonymity.  We have a mission in our lives to experience God with awe and wonder but also to move from awe and wonder to encourage others to come to the experience of being valued by God through us.

  May God bring us from fear to awe to faith so that even in life’s storms, we too can sleep with godly assurance of the value of our lives both now and in the eternal memory of God.  Amen.