Fear Not by Rev. Alison Longstaff
“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” (Luke 12:6-7)
This weekend, we have been exploring the Book of Revelation. We spent some time exploring the increasingly popular view among some of our fellow Christians that Revelation is a scary warning about the “end times,” and that any minute now, the rapture could happen, and any of us who signed up with the wrong club will be “left behind.”
We then left those ideas behind and explored the implications of a Swedenborgian reading of the Book of Revelation. This required us to think about the relationship of our will and our understanding. Our place in heaven is shaped by the inner union of our will and understanding. The work of regeneration brings our will and understanding into greater and greater balance, cooperation, and agreement. Because our thought and feelings can be the external faces of our will and understanding, we divided into groups to work on exploring our thoughts and feelings, using the “tip of the iceberg” model as found in the work of Virginia Satir.
Exploring feelings can be deep work, and it can make us nervous. Feelings can be murky things, and our culture hasn’t been a great one for encouraging their exploration. Many of us have a natural aversion to looking especially at our politically incorrect feelings, feelings such as fear, anger, insecurity, embarrassment, and shame. In our work we needed to remember that “feelings simply are.”
“Feelings simply are. . .” AND they carry a mother-load of useful information about our inner selves. The more we explore them and hear what they are telling us, the more we comprehend our puzzling and complex selves. And the more you or I understand our deeper selves, the more we can behave thoughtfully and consciously and responsibly with others.
Our deeper thoughts and feelings can provide us with a gold-mine of data in the work of self-examination. Our inner thoughts and feelings are as packed with meaning as is the Book of Revelation. In fact, they could be likened to our own personal Book of Revelation, because they can be puzzling, disturbing, occasionally magical, and sometimes terrifying. Sometimes we fear that they bear signs of own imminent damnation, so we’d better hurry up and do something, if only we could figure out what it is.
Should we be afraid? Should we be more concerned today for our salvation than ever before?
Well, looking in the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, one thing we might notice is that every time an angel of the Lord shows up with a message for someone, the very, very first thing he or she says is . . .
“Fear Not.”
The first thing said is: “Fear Not.” Sometimes it is worded “Do Not be Afraid,” but the message is the same. “Fear Not.” The angel brings these opening words of comfort to Hagar, to Isaac, to Rachel, to Jacob, to the People of Israel, to Moses, to Joshua, to Gideon, to Daniel, to Joseph, to Mary, to Zacharias, to the women at the tomb, and last but not least, to John on the isle of Patmos. As well as these 14 direct words of comfort, the followers of the Lord frequently say it to each other; Moses, Joshua, and prophets say it to the children of Israel; and Jesus speaks these words of reassurance to the disciples, and to the man whose daughter was dying.
In the Word, the first thing said is pivotal. It sets the tone. It shapes the entire rest of the message. Maybe we should pay attention to this.
“Fear not.”
Why would “Fear not” be the first thing God would communicate to us? After all, won’t we all become lazy, selfish lumps if we’re not afraid? If we get too relaxed about our salvation, isn’t it possible we might miss the boat? Didn’t God also say in Psalm 111:10,
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”?
Well, yes and no.
You see, the fear of the Lord, spoken of in the Psalms is not the anxious, grovelling uneasiness we often think of when we hear the word, “fear.” The “fear” in the Psalms isn’t fear at all in that sense of the word. The “fear of the Lord” spoken of in Psalm 111 is a deep respect for the Lord born of deep love. And that sort of “fear” we do indeed want.
When the Word says, “Fear not,” it IS meaning a grovelling, cowering, “please don’t hit me!” kind of fear. The Lord is not the angry, judgmental God we “fear” He is. He doesn’t want us to be cowering and grovelling and afraid of ourselves He says, Fear Not! And, coming from the Lord, these words say a thousand more things too.
Yesterday we discussed how we can’t force our feelings to be different than they are. We might change them over time by changing our perspective, but rarely can we change them simply by force of will. Feelings just are. So though God speaks to us the words, “Fear Not,” we will often still feel afraid anyway, or at least mildly uneasy. Therefore, maybe these words from the Lord are not a command, but a reminder. He is reminding us that, though we may feel fear, we do well to remember that the omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God of the whole universe has things well in hand, all the way down to the hairs of our head. “Fear Not.” God is in charge!
“Fear Not” can also be a promise. When God says, Fear Not,” He is giving us a promise that some day, if we persevere along the path of regeneration, the day will come when we no longer fear. Eventually, when reach the Spiritual state described as the Holy City, we will never truly fear anything again. We will know all is well, and feel only immense love.
So then the words “Fear Not” are a reminder and a promise. And there’s more.
When we explored Revelation yesterday, we learned about our innate tendency to be caught between the two polarities of religion, both of them immature. There is the “Thinking Alone” approach (dragon, “Faith Alone”) and the “sheer self-determination, I’ll just try hard enough” approach (Babylon, “works”). (It’s no coincidence that the tower of Babel was one people’s attempt to climb up to heaven by their own power.) If we covered all the material I hoped, we would have explored how these two unbalanced approaches are actually two sides of the same coin. Where you find one, the other is not far away. They don’t actually compete with each other, they mirror and balance each other in a dysfunctional sort of way. In fact, in Rev. 19, the Woman of Babylon is seen riding the dragon. We don’t want to find a middle between them, we want a shift to a higher order of unity in ourselves. We don’t want a dragon and whore married inside us (control and arrogance)–we want a bridegroom and bride (wisdom and love.)
A recent poll taken to discern whether people in any given congregation believed salvation was due more to our personal response to God (works-based or Catholic) or due to believing the right stuff and not at all to personal effort (faith-alone or Reformed). What they discovered was that in any given congregation, no matter what denomination, the people tended to fall along a 50/50 or 60/40 split in their view of salvation. This study did not measure what people said with their mouths when directly asked, but in how they judged various scenarios and assigned responsibility and/or merit accordingly.
What this tells me is that all of us have a tendency to lean one way or the other. This also reminds me not to assume that just because Swedenborg said the “new church” will have a perfect marriage of the two, that you or I do, simply because we like to call ourselves “New Church.” Everyone of us on this planet has the same path to walk, and the Lord is good to all of us, not just a few lucky ones.
So, having said that, should it worry us that we tend subconsciously to lean more towards thinking or towards struggling? Not at all. In fact, the way I read Revelation and Swedenborg’s somewhat abstruse treatment of it, we can dance for joy, because it is telling us that the process described in Revelation is the process of sorting this tension out for us. The things that die or are cast down aren’t us, they are broken and dysfunctional ideas and behaviours. They will be cast down as we are ready to be lifted up. There has been, still is, and always will be a “last Judgment,” in the world and in each one of us. The Lord can and does and always will do everything He can to help you and me and every one of us rise up from our divided state internal state into the heavenly marriage. He knows how we are made! He formed each one of us in the womb. He doesn’t expect perfection today or even any time soon! He doesn’t judge us for being tiny, imperfect, stumbling newbies at this whole regeneration thing. In fact, in His eyes, we are precious beyond compare. And He knows just how to lead each one of us. We simply need to be open to Him.
So “Fear Not” speaks words of comfort, promise, and reassurance.
Perhaps the Book of Revelation is written the way it is, not as a warning, but as a reassuring description of what the penultimate stages of personal regeneration can look like. Yes, like the events in Revelation, it can look and feel like the stars are falling and everything we rely on and trust in are crumbling and in flames. But God says, “Fear Not.” Perhaps this is why the birth process for our race looks so messy, dramatic, and well, frightening to the uninitiated. If you ask a new father, he might talk of blood and screaming, and the woman in labour might talk of pain and even sometimes wanting to die. But if you ask a midwife, she will tell you that the birth of a child is the most beautiful thing on the whole earth.
So, which one is telling the truth about the birth of a new human being?
The Last Judgment is the last final push–the moment of transition from a previous, incomplete state to a whole new, triumphant reality. And just about anyone associated with the human birth process will tell you that the phase called “transition” is the hardest and most apparently “out of control” or “chaotic” phase there is. The Last Judgement in the Word is describing a final transition in our spiritual rebirth.
And any spiritual midwife worth his or her salt will tell you, “Fear Not,” no matter how melodramatic the process feels to us. The spiritual soul in labour might want to poke their eyes out at that moment, but that’s okay. All of it, ALL of it, is okay. This is simply what the process looks like for us messy beings–cataclysmic, earth-shattering, and beautiful beyond our wildest dreams. So,
“Fear Not.”
What is your greatest fear? Think about it for awhile. If you can name your absolute greatest fear, you are part way along the path to naming your greatest vulnerability, AND your greatest love. You are also drawing close to recognizing what you might define as salvation–not intellectually, but emotionally. Our feeling reality is often quite different than our intellectual reality. And if love is the life of every human being, than our feeling reality may hold more gems of self discovery than ever our thinking reality does.
So, what do I fear the most? Sometimes it is loneliness. Sometimes it is being rejected, or being told I am unlovable. Other core fears can be powerlessness, vulnerability, dependency, poverty, damnation, pain, death, worthlessness, dying alone; or, a real kicker: the death of a loved one. I’m sure there are many more things we might list. I think my deepest fear is the fear that deep down, I am just too stupid and selfish and ugly to ever have God love me or save me.
Our deepest fears don’t have to make sense. It is irrelevant if we can think of arguments against them or evidence against them. Without question, our core fears arise from early, early experiences of life–experiences that shaped us before we had conscious choice. They live at a pre-rational level, and can rarely be addressed by rational argument.
But comprehending them brings enormous peace. Turning them over to God, can be powerful, and at times, well-nigh impossible. That’s not our fault either. So we can let go of that too. And still, God says, “Fear Not.”
Okay. This is all far easier said than done, but the God of the whole universe knows that too. After all, we were born to become angels, so what have we to fear? And if you think about it, fear is the actual opposite of love, not hatred. It is fear that closes us off from loving others. “Hate” is simply one face of fear–fear of pain, fear of lost love, fear of all things that threaten what we love. So “Fear Not” is another way of saying “remember love.”
In psychology, they say there are two responses to fear, one is to close down and try to take control, and the other is to open up and try to work things out in relationship. The first is our knee-jerk response. The second takes tremendous courage and sophistication. Sometimes, choosing the courageous path may simply be beyond our capabilities. But not always. And when we dare open up to love in the face of our fears, miracles can happen. If we shoot for the sun, we might just hit the moon.
“Fear not.” “Trust me,” says God. “Choose love,” says God. “I’ve got you,” says God. “Fear Not.”
Amen
