Fear
I was ordained on September 11, 2011. Less than a month
later, I was in an airport on my way to England to begin my PhD. I remember
that near the gate to my plane, there were several men with long beards who
were prostrating themselves repeatedly in prayer. At the time, the news media
were showing similar images whenever they talked about the prospect of
terrorism. So, as I watched these men pray, I felt a vague fear creep into my
heart. I am a little embarrassed to admit it. But I understand now that I was
being shaped by forces beyond my comprehension. As Paul says, we wrestle not
with flesh and blood, but with unseen powers and principalities (Eph 6:12).
One of those chief powers and principalities is fear. And the fear that I felt was not entirely of my own making. It came from the images that were shown in the media repeatedly, the warnings that were proclaimed repeatedly, the slander that was so commonly and casually lobbed in the direction of Islam and its practitioners.
Fear has a canny knack for resisting the truth. To begin, fear keeps its distance. I never thought to approach those men and ask them about their faith. I imagine now we could have had a fascinating conversation. But I kept my distance. Sort of like Pharaoh, in today’s scripture, “who did not know Joseph” (Ex 1:8). Fear does not take the time to get to know the other person. It keeps its distance.
And because it keeps its distance, it is easier to distort the other person. We talk about our “worst fears,” but the truth is that every fear is a “worst” fear. Every fear catastrophizes and envisions the worst. Yes, those men prostrating themselves in the airport could have been terrorists. But it was infinitely more likely that they were faithful seekers of God. Likewise, Pharaoh absurdly claims that the Hebrew people are more numerous than the Egyptians and may one day pose a military threat. The irony of Pharaoh’s distorted fear is that these Hebrew people are the opposite of a threat. Not long before, it was a Hebrew man who saved the land. Joseph foresaw a great famine and ensured there would be a sufficient food supply for all the people. But Pharaoh could not see this, because fear imagines the absolute worst.
And because fear imagines the absolute worst, it demands absolute control. We all know how airports have changed in the last couple of decades. Pharaoh took things a few steps further and enslaved the people whom he feared. The Egyptians, we’re told, were “ruthless in all the tasks they imposed on them” and “made their lives bitter” (Ex 1:13-14).
Fear distances, distorts, and demands absolute control.
As it happens, in England I would share a flat with a business PhD student named Reza, a practicing Muslim from Iran, and I would meet many more Muslims who were scraping out a new life in England despite daily being misunderstood and mistreated. If fear distances, distorts, and demands control, then I have found that relationship does the opposite. As I became closer to Reza, as I got to know him firsthand, the distortions and demands of fear slowly evaporated. I learned how we share the same hopes and fears. I learned how our faith in God has much more in common than I may have guessed, how it nourishes us and invites us to live in the way of love. Now the sight of a person prostrating themselves is more of an inspiration than a threat. I see a person submitting to God rather than a terrorist preparing for war.
The “Fear of the Lord”
If unchecked, fear grows. It cannot be satisfied. Thus the king of Egypt is not content to keep the Hebrews enslaved. Instead he pursues a policy of infanticide, demanding the all Hebrew baby boys be killed. So he calls the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, who may be Hebrew or Egyptian—the text itself is ambiguous, accommodating not only the translation “Hebrew midwives” but also “midwives to the Hebrews.” The ambiguity of the midwives’ ethnicity is significant because it suggests that their faithfulness to God transcends nationality or religion. Faithfulness to God is not an exclusive property of a flag or a confession, of Christians, Jews, or Muslims. It is a matter of the heart, where one truly prostrates oneself and submits to God.
What’s fascinating in our story today is that the midwives’ faithfulness to God is described by the same word that characterizes Pharaoh and the Egyptians: fear. “The midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live” (Ex 1:17). Clearly the midwives’ fear is different than Pharaoh’s. They do not keep a distance from the baby boys but rather find themselves inextricably attached to them, bound to protect their lives. There is no distortion of reality or demand for control, but rather an open-handed acceptance and honor for the life that is emerging among the Hebrew people.
The expression “fear of the Lord” is common in the Old Testament. Fear in this case refers less to danger and more to awe, less to struggle and more to obedience. There is still, to be sure, an overwhelming sense of one’s own smallness and lack of control. The only difference in this fear—and it makes all the difference in the world—is that it does not resist life but reveres life. To get a sense for what “fear of the Lord” means, we might consider the lofty passages of life, like marriage or a new birth, like leaving home or a loved one’s death, moments that overwhelm us with a sense that life is so much more meaningful and mysterious than the little plans and programs we’ve designed to contain it, moments that mark a loss of what we know and a sense of wonder about the possibilities for new life. The “fear of the Lord” can be frightening, but it also fixes us in an unassailable faith.
To give a trivial example from my recent past…I remember driving home from Portsmouth with two silent, frightened kittens in the cat carrier beside me. I drove more cautiously than usual, feeling that I was carrying the most precious cargo. When I got home and set the kittens up in the safe confines of a bathroom, I watched them with tender eyes as they explored their new surroundings. When I left the house, I would lock the door and wish that I could lock it still more. Completely irrational, of course, but the “fear of the Lord” is a matter of the heart, not the mind. It is sensing the fragile preciousness of life and feeling bound to serve. I would imagine this experience I’m describing is but a drop in the ocean of what mothers and fathers feel toward a newborn or what committed partners feel in times of great suffering or joy.
We all know the “fear of the Lord.” The challenge is to acknowledge this experience, to allow this feeling, to let it break our hearts open, to live faithfully from its wisdom. It is a challenge because it requires us to relinquish control. The “fear of the Lord” means the risk of life rather than the security of the same. The midwives risked everything for those Hebrew children. A loving parent may risk everything for their child. Jesus risked everything. And this, we’re told, is the fullness of life.
Of Empires and Midwives
I mentioned earlier my fear in the airport twelve years ago. At the time, there was much suspicion about Islam. I wonder what fears dominate our world today. I say this as an observation, not as a judgment: I believe we live in the world’s greatest empire. Just as Egypt was the world’s greatest empire at the time. And empires fear what threatens their control. I am particularly mindful today of the unhoused population and immigrants and individuals involved in drug and gang activity. It is so easy to let these groups become political objects of debate, which is to say, situations that I stand apart from and try to control. It is easy to live in fear and to distance myself from the people involved, to imagine the worst, and to demand measures of security.
Now, I don’t know that I am called like the midwives to become the savior of these populations. That strikes me as a legendary, larger-than-life feature of today’s story. But I do believe that I am called like the midwives to live in the “the fear of the Lord,” which means not to be inhibited by culturally manufactured fears, not to let my heart be hardened these little fears, but rather to see the individuals in these groups as the infinitely precious children of God that they are, to let my heart be broken open by them. Here, I find guidance in the example of the Jesuit priest Greg Boyle, whose work in gang-intervention and rehabilitation has led him to serve these three populations. He never tires of pointing out that the problem is not what it seems on the surface, whether that’s houses for the unhoused or the violence of gangs. The problem is a lack of kinship. The problem is that these individuals are living with the trauma of unspeakable wounds from unthinkably early ages—whether it’s abandonment or abuse or addiction. Tragically, the world’s fear keeps them isolated and wounded, and the fear becomes its own sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, as they live into the only, desperate roles that have been given to them.
My experience in England with my housemate Reza and the story of the midwives in Egypt both point me to the abundant life that is found beyond the small cultural fears that distance, distort, and demand control. The good news of the “fear of the Lord” is that there is so much more to life than the security of the same. If I can relinquish control and open myself up to the preciousness of God in all things, life will be an adventure well worth the risk.
Prayer
Who is smitten with us
And smitten with strangers—
Thank you for those moments
When we have felt your awe and reverence
For the preciousness of life.
Help us in those other moments,
Moments of fear,
When we are tempted instead
To distance, distort, and demand control
…
May we, like the midwives,
Know the courage and joy of the risk
Of sharing life with others.
In Christ, who came to us while we were far off: Amen.
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