Based on 1Kings 19:7-15, Galatians 3:23-29, Luke 8:26-39
Of what are you most afraid? Common fears include spiders, snakes, the dark, large crowds, confined spaces, drowning, burning alive, loss of independence or mental acuity, being left alone or being isolated. We all have fears, and for some folks they are quite debilitating. Some people go to great lengths to avoid situations where they might come into contact with that which elicits the bodily responses we know as fear. Researcher Dr. Karl Albrecht notes that while we have many fears, they all stem from just five archetypes.
Those five major fears are: extinction – the fear of our lives ending; mutilation – the fear of losing a body part or having our body’s boundaries invaded; loss of autonomy – the fear of being controlled by circumstances beyond our control; separation – the fear of abandonment or becoming a non-person; and ego-death – the fear of humiliation, shame or profound self-disapproval. All human fears will fall under one of those major categories – for example, fear of snakes or spiders falls under the category of mutilation because we are afraid that those critters will invade our space and harm us.
We humans are afraid of many things, so it is no surprise that the words “fear not” and analogous phrases appear often in the Bible. There is a myth floating around the internet that the words “fear not” appear 365 times in the Bible, one for every day of the year. It’s a nice sentiment and makes for a good bumper sticker, however, it turns out, that those words and like phrases appear less than half that amount – about 100 times in the First Testament and another 44 in the New Testament.
It is clear in scripture that God expects us to be afraid and wants to assure us that we need not fear God (we are to be in awe and reverence of God but not fearful) and that we need not fear our circumstances as God is with us. This is what our scripture readings reinforce for us today. Paul’s letter to the believers in Galatia reminds them that they have been set free from living under the Law of Moses by the actions of Jesus. Now, every baptized believer is one with the Christ and one with each other – without boundary or restriction. We need not fear that we will be left out because if we belong to Christ then we are heirs of the promise made to Abraham by God.
Elijah fears for his life because Queen Jezebel has vowed to kill him for Elijah’s elimination of 850 prophets of the pagan gods Baal and Asherah. He runs away into the wilderness and asks God to end his prophetic life as he has had enough. But God revives him twice with food and water and then Elijah treks 40 days and nights to Mount Horeb (God’s Holy Mountain). Once there, Elijah finds a cave to call home, but God visits him and asks what he is doing there. Elijah tells God that he fears for his life because he is the last of God’s prophets left alive. God tells Elijah not to fear for God is with him always and will raise up another prophet to take his place.
The disciples have barely recovered from their harrowing journey across the Sea of Galilee (where Jesus stilled the storm) when they arrive in the Gentile lands of the Gerasenes. Disembarking from the boat they meet a wild man who is possessed by many demons. The townspeople have made him stay in the cemetery because they feared him. The demons within the man immediately recognize Jesus as the “Son of the Most High God” and fearfully beg Jesus to not send them into nothingness. Jesus agrees and sends them into a herd of pigs who then run into the lake and drown. The townspeople come out to the cemetery after the astonished swineherds tell them what happened. The crowd arrives and encounters the deranged man in his “right mind” and sitting at the feet of Jesus – and the people were afraid. Once they heard that it was Jesus who had cured the man, we’re told that they “asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear”. The formerly possessed man wants to come with Jesus, but Jesus tells him to stay and to proclaim all that God has done for him.
I asked you in the beginning of this reflection what it is that you fear. I suspect it would be a long list, and you might equivocate and say that there are not so many things which you fear, but that there are many things that leave you anxious and feeling vulnerable. This is to be expected, not just because as a species we are prone to being fearful, but also as a result of the constant news cycle which tells us that we should be afraid of everything from antisemitism and white nationalism to immigrants and political party rhetoric. There are many wars and rumors of wars to add into this mix, and we all fear that the world will just devolve into another full-scale time of violence which will need to be met with more violence. We fear we really didn’t learn anything from the destruction and death that defined the 20th Century.
Additionally, some of us are fearful of the lack of authority of the Church to speak into this challenging time. Fewer people have a relationship with a faith community of any kind, not the least of which a Christian faith community. Each year less people profess a belief in the Judeo-Christian God and in the teachings of Jesus and the Church. We have two generations of people who are “spiritual but not religious” and it is my considered opinion that those folks really have nothing substantive to lean into when they fear that the world has lost its collective mind.
That is why I find such blessing and peace in troubled times as an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ. Through spending a substantial portion of my days immersed in prayer and scriptural study, I find much to help me in my day-to-day living. I find compelling narratives to calm, comfort and reorient me in the Bible. Our scriptures for today speak directly to counteract any fear in my mind and heart. Elijah knew great fear. He had been, in his own words, “very zealous for El Shaddai, the LORD God Almighty” and had publicly repudiated the faith that Queen Jezebel had in the Baals and Asherah. She was humiliated and angry and vowed to kill him by the next day.
So, Elijah fled to the wilderness and sought his life’s end. However, God was not finished with him and needed to remind Elijah that God was still caring for him. Therefore, God sent an angel to minister to Elijah and to lead the prophet to God’s Mountain. God appeared before Elijah not as a mighty wind, earthquake or fire, but as a “gentle whisper”. The Almighty God proved God’s omnipotence and presence not through gaudy displays but by the “sound of sheer silence” or in the NIV translation, a “gentle whisper”. This is how God comes to many in the Bible, not in thunderous displays but with a still, small voice. A voice that is comforting and intimate rather than overbearing, violent or fearsome.
Likewise, the Messiah Jesus does not need a showy display of his divine power. He spoke to the storm and calmed it to allow safe passage for him and the disciples. The next day, he met a Gentile man who was possessed by many demons. Jesus rid the man of these occupiers by simply giving them permission to move into the herd of pigs close by. The restored man then is given a charge to become the first evangelical missionary in the Gentile lands. Biblical accounts suggest that he was very zealous for God and converted many people to belief in Christ.
God is always with us – when we are calm - when we are possessed by many fears, and all times in between. To discover this presence, we need only to lean into the belief that Emmanuel, “God With Us” is still with us in the Holy Spirit. We do this through prayer, through conversations with other believers, through missional work, through attending the ordinances of God like Holy Communion, prayer, fasting and study of scripture. We find the ever-present God ready to calm our fears and to replace them with a resilient hope that the Almighty God of our ancestors is the same today as then. We will still experience times when our fears will try to possess us. However, when we realize the truth in the words “fear not, for I am with you always, even to the end of the age”, then we will know the peace that passes our understanding. Thanks be to our abiding God who conquers all fear, amen!