During a worship service this summer, the guest speaker at my church brought together two prominent themes found in the Bible. One is that God is an unconditional lover, that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18) And two, we are to “fear the Lord”, a phrase that appears many times in the Bible. I found the conflict in these verses very jarring and pondered it throughout the service, and many times since. How can this be? This blog is my response. Why should anyone be afraid of a God that manifests its Presence through the experience of unconditional love? Many faith-based people believe both…that God is loving and that one needs to be fearful or careful of God. Personally, I have come to realize that this conflict should not exist for love cannot be experienced fully in the midst of fear: fear always shuts down love. This suggests that there must be another way to understand this fear of the Lord, a fear that opens the door to experiencing God's love rather than shutting it down. The Bible ties faithfulness to having fear in God in many places. Let me provide you a sampling:
In all these verses, the fear of the Lord is seen as the root of being faithful or obedient to God. These teachings suggest that fear of God is the reason people resist sin or evil or seek wisdom and knowledge about God. People fear the consequences that will come from doing wrong…like being caught and judged by our wrongful actions by our community or the judicial system or other personal sufferings. Within these Bible verses, these negative consequences are ultimately tied to God. However, It is interesting to note that this relationship between God and fear is very weak in the New Testament, almost entirely missing in the four gospels. This should cause us as Christians to pause. Instead, there are many places in the Old Testament and New Testament which experiencing God’s love as a sign of knowing God. Here is a Jewish mantra that appears may times throughout the Old Testament: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love“ (Ps. 103: 8) The notion of God’s steadfast love, which is another way of saying that God’s love is unconditional, appears 175 times in the Old Testament. At the same time, the New Testament also teaches “that there is no fear in love, that perfect love casts out fear” which suggest that if we fear God, then we will not be able to feel God’s love very deeply, if at all. As I sat with this conflict, I came to realize that I see this fear dynamic many times in my spiritual care work. As a spiritual care provider, I am seen as a person that helps people experience God in the midst of their palliative illness. For me to be effective at my work, my clients need to become vulnerable in my midst, to be open about their thoughts and feelings, about their struggles and pains, about the fears and hopes with me. Otherwise, there is little space for the Spirit of God, that flows within me through love, compassion, and insight, to flow into their lives. However, to be vulnerable like that is really scary for people. Can I trust that if I become vulnerable with Gord right now that l will not get hurt, that life will not hurt me. This is a profound fear that creates tons of resistance around becoming vulnerable. Many people do lean into this fear in my spiritual care ministry and as this happens, lots of healing and insight arises for my clients. But I have discovered that many other clients cannot lean into this fear, even with my support, and so they not able to discover the love that casts out their fear. Within my church’s worship service, we have a time when people can share with our faith community about a blessing or concern they are carrying that day. To share openly in this sharing time means become vulnerable to my faith community and to God. Do I risk becoming vulnerable and share a concern or thanksgiving with God and my friends here at church? Or do I stay quiet, like I did couple months ago, and not shared my thankfulness for my wife being fully recovered from what doctors are now calling viral encephalitis? I chose to stay quiet…because of my subtle fear of becoming vulnerable. I want to suggest that this fear of becoming vulnerable maybe a better way of understanding what the phase “fear of the Lord” might actually mean. This type of fear is a fear that all of us have experienced. That fear of entering the space of vulnerability is what keeps us from entering a more personal intimate space with others including allowing ourselves to be ministered to by the Spirit of God found in the Present Moment. This fear is the fear that all of us must lean into if we are going to enter into the vulnerable space of opening ourselves up to others and God…so that we can experience God’s love and allow God’s spirit to minister to us. However, when we are able to lean into this fear of the Lord, something magical happens. That fear is quickly transformed by a gracious love that bubbles up as we share of ourselves with another person or with God. As the Bible says, perfect love casts out fear, that is, a love that is responsive and sensitive and caring to the people who have risk sharing themselves with us and God. Love as I am describing in this blog is different that how many people understand love. When we are in touch with the dynamic of unconditional love, that allows others to be vulnerable with us without any risk of judgment from us about whatever they are experiencing...whether it be anxiety, anger, hatred, shame, guilt, and even beliefs that we disagree with. This past week I visited a person who shared beliefs and experiences that were very different than mine. She was a person who didn't believe in taking the COVID vaccine, that didn't trust doctors, that saw our health leaders as hiding information from us, who saw the freedom rally in Ottawa as more of a lovefest than violent perpetrators as was portrayed in the news, etc. What did it mean for me to practice loving her so that she could feel safe in my presence? It meant putting all of my beliefs and past experiences to the background so that I could create a safe place so that she could feel safe and become vulnerable with me. As I did so, I began to understand how she had come to distrust the world, the health care system, the media, and many others who often judged her as wrong and even evil. She has had many experiences that support her distrust of the health system and COVID vaccines, and yet it seems there have been few people in her life who have held and validated her painful experiences. Through loving in this way, I gain a deep appreciation for the pain, fear, rejection, and loneliness she experiences every day, so much so she wonders if life is even worth living some days. I also came away with the realization that life is far more complicated than I thought, that I need to be to far more discerning with how I listen to the news, and beliefs the people promote as the whole truth.
As you see from my example, it is difficult to be a perfect lover where people can feel safe to be their vulnerable selves with us. And that is also true for us too, when we are looking for perfect lovers to be vulnerable with. Most people are far from being perfect lovers, where they express a love that transforms our fears around vulnerability. This means that we need to be careful with who we become vulnerable with. However, God’s spirit is a perfect lover, and when that spirit is flowing freely within us as we care for others, we become perfect lovers to those who risk becoming vulnerable with us. Gord Alton MDiv RP CASC Supervisor-Educator
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