Be Not Afraid

Here are the lessons for the first Sunday in Lent:
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13

For those of you who didn't bring your bibles to the internet today, you can read them here.

So, Psalm 91: 9-10 tells us this:

Because you have made the LORD your refuge, *
and the Most High your habitation,

There shall no evil happen to you, *
neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.

And I would like to begin this first entry of blogging the lectionary by asserting that in every way we understand this statement, it's complete and utter bullshit. I mean, we all do the polite thing with God and don't mention that, actually, a ton of Christian people have died of Ebola and Smallpox and AIDS. And if cancer isn't a plague, I don't know what is. But evil happens to people who have made God their refuge all the time. All. The. Time.

I remember the first time I really confronted this fact. I was on a plane, praying that I would land safely. I’m always nervous flying, and I’ve always allayed my fear by asking God to take care of me. But this time, in the middle of my request, the thought came to me that God’s faithful people die in plane crashes regularly. God doesn’t prevent bad things from happening to his faithful people. Most of us don’t reach the double digits without knowing some really wonderful, faithful person who died before his or her time or was made to endure unimaginable suffering. Some people don’t see ten before they become the faithful person dying far too young or dealing with torturous circumstances beyond their control.

So what are we supposed to do with that? I’m not talking about the whole how-does-a-loving-God-allow-evil-in-the-world thing, because God isn’t saying anything about why evil might exist in the passages for today. Instead, God’s saying, over and over again, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got your back.” Or, as Paul says in Romans: "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

It seems pretty clear cut, right? So we, his faithful children believe that God does have our back. Right up until he lets some mofo come and stab us in it. Where does God get off making promises that he doesn’t seem to have either the intention or the power to keep?

I think there are a couple of ways we, as people of faith, tend to deal with this contradiction. One way is to say, “Well it was just God’s plan.” To me, this all reeks of the backside of a bull as well. It’s not God’s plan for a woman to outlive her first graders. What kind of douchebag god plans something like that? Not one that I’m willing to worship, that’s for sure. I understand that this is just a short way of trying to affirm the goodness of life while acknowledging the senselessness of tragedy, but we really need to stop trying to find short ways to say these things, if only so that no more mothers have to hear about how having their babies ripped from their arms was all part of the plan.

The other way we deal with this whole “I will take care of you, even though you have plenty of evidence to the contrary" thing is to deny the worthiness of others. We think, “Oh, that person didn’t know how to trust God.” Or “I guess she wasn’t faithful enough.” Or “He wasn’t really a True Christian the way I am.” This is how we insulate ourselves from tragedy. We find all of the ways we aren’t like That Person who had That Horrible Thing happen to them, because we can then pretend that those differences are enough to keep That Horrible Thing from happening to us. This is why when, on hearing someone has a brain tumor, we think, “Well, he did have that cell phone up to his ear practically 24/7.” We want to find the secret incantation, the magic mental pill, that will help us believe that we will never suffer the same fate. In short, we lie to ourselves.

But the truth, I think, can be found in a question. The question, which we have to ask Paul, is, “Saved from what, exactly?” Because when Paul was writing his letters, Christians were dying horribly all the time. So God certainly wasn’t saving them from death. What was he saving them from? Let’s put a pin in that question for a second and notice something about these promises that God keeps making to his people.

I feel like these promises that are being made are very similar to the promises I make to my kids when they ask me things like, “But Mommy, you aren’t going to die, are you? What’s a coma? Could I go into a coma? Will I ever be blind?” The kids have asked all of these things recently, and I really don’t want to lie to them. So I elide my answers: It’s my job to do everything I can to keep that from happening. Or, that’s for mommies and daddies to worry about that, so that kids don’t have to.

That, I think, is the more important part of what the scriptures say—not, no harm shall ever come to you, but rather, try not to worry about it, because when you’re worried, you’re not fully alive, and you deserve to be fully alive for as long as you’re on the earth. So believe in your heart, as Paul would say, and confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and you shall be saved from your attachment to your own survival. And not because it’s a magic trick that God’s only willing to do if you call him by the right name, but because God works through every human soul in the same way, and every human soul shrinks and shrivels when it is fed by fear.

And isn’t that really what Jesus is doing in the wilderness? Saying no to fear? Every time the devil challenges him, it’s with issues of the here and now: you’re hungry, turn these stones to bread. You’re insignificant, but I can make you important. You’re going to die, and there’s not a damn thing you or your god is going to do about it. And Jesus answers all the questions with a variation of the same answer: Eating is not the most important thing. Acknowledgement is not the most important thing. Staying alive isn’t the most important thing.

So back to the question for Paul—Saved from what, exactly? I think the answer is saved from fear. Or at least, from fear’s power. Because our fear and the ways we try to protect ourselves from what we’re afraid of have real and lasting effects in the world.

Here’s an example: my husband registered to be a bone marrow donor when he was in his twenties. A few days ago, he got a call. He might be a match. So he’s taken the next step to find out if he can donate marrow to some stranger. He’s really excited, because how often does a guy get a chance to save a person’s life. My reaction? You can’t do this. What if there are complications? What if you get an infection in the hospital and you die? What would the children do without their father? My fear spoke loudly for a moment. And then I voiced those fears, and told him how ashamed I was for thinking those things. And it was fine, because we both knew, the fear was understandable, but unreasonable. Bone marrow donation isn’t all that risky, and anyway, someone might die if he didn’t help. Of course he was going to help.

If only all of our fear was so easily dealt with. Most of the time, it’s a much greater struggle. Evil is real, and it can come for us. But if we can stare it down, if we can begin to see with God’s broad perspective, and affirm with Lady Julian of Norwich that “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well,” then something miraculous happens.

If I can face my own fear enough that I can accept that That Horrible Thing that’s happening to you might just as easily be happening to me. If I don’t just wash my hands of the struggle and the suffering by blithely saying, “God’s got a plan.” If I can engage you in your pain without needing to keep myself separate from it. If I can have the courage to see life for the holy crap shoot it sometimes is, then I won’t turn my head or pretend I don’t see when your roll comes up snake eyes. Instead, I’ll sit there with you, staring at the dice for a long time in disbelief, and then, when it’s time, I’ll help you with whatever you need until you’re ready to pick up the dice and roll again. And when I—when all of us—can do that, then we will know that we dwell in the shelter of the Most High.