Balancing Love and Fear

 Thoughts on the 7^th Sunday after Trinity 2006

Isaiah 44.6–8; Psalm 86.11–17; Romans 8.12–25; Matthew 13.24–30, 36–43

Detail from The Last Judgement by Fra Angelico (c. 1425)

I don’t if you have ever watched a series on TV called The Big Bang Theory? It’s about a group of friends who are self-confessed nerds; a theoretical physicist, an experimental physicist, an astro physicist and (way down the intellectual pecking order, according to the physicists) an engineer, who is the butt of all the put-downs.

The show is a comedy and makes much of their social awkwardness and cluelessness, especially when it comes to their relationships with women, as you’d expect.

In one episode the boys build a terrifying killer robot and the theoretical physicist, Sheldon, looks at the machine with a bit of a romantic tone and says: "Is it wrong to say I love our killer robot?". The astro-physicist, an Indian man called Raj, responds with something bordering on reverence and delivers the following line:  "As with my father, I both love and fear it."

Raj’s relationship with his father is not one I would characterise as healthy but I have never forgotten that line because, divorced from it’s context in the sitcom, there is something profoundly healthy in a relationship with God that rightly balances love and fear.

Our readings today take care to weigh an awareness of the unimaginable power and glory of God against his tenderness and loving care for us.

So in our opening passage from Isaiah we hear, I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. Who is like me? Well of course, the answer to God’s question is, ‘Nobody!’ Nobody is like him. But in the very next breath God says (through Isaiah) Do not fear, or be afraid!

And all this in a passage characterised by an almost playful, even cuddly sense of God’s fatherly love. Chapter 44 begins with this: But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen! Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen (44:1-2).

It’s a real dad thing to give a child a nickname isn’t it and that’s exactly what God seems to do here. ‘Jeshurun’ is a poetic and affectionate Hebrew name used in the Bible for the nation of Israel and it means something like ‘my dear upright one’.

There’s a Psalm appointed for today that says something very similar. The Psalmist prays, Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; knit my heart to you, that I may fear your name. I will thank you, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and glorify your name for evermore; For great is your steadfast love towards me, for you have delivered my soul from the depths of the grave (Psalm 86:11-13).

Teach me your ways and knit my heart to you, that I may fear your name? It’s a striking line isn’t it? There seems to be no conflict in our Psalmist’s’ heart between loving God and fearing him. He knows that this awesome God that he fears is also the loving God that offers him ‘steadfast love’ and rescues his soul ‘from the depths of the grave’.

When the Bible talks of the fear of the Lord it isn’t talking about a craven, submissive terror. God is not a tyrant; he doesn’t need to be. Tyrannical fatherhood (and there are plenty of examples of it in history) is rooted in fear. To dominate in an attempt to maintain conformity and control is always a defensive posture. God is not afraid; neither is he defensive.

Quite the opposite, how can we say that the God who handed himself over to us as a defenceless infant and turned the other cheek to his persecutors and executioners is in any sense defensive?

The Hebrew phrase for the fear of the Lord is ‘yirat Adonai’ which means reverential awe, deep respect, and loving devotion to God.

We have been so conditioned, by postmodern thinking, and the failure and corruption of members of our Royal Family; of our politicians; of our clergy; even of our traditional institutions, to be very suspicious of those we have traditionally been encouraged to stand in awe of and respect.

Fear in the negative sense of the word is at an all time high and fear in the positive sense of the word is at an all-time low. Power and authority, and perhaps especially male power and authority, is routinely feared and denounced, or denigrated and regarded with deep suspicion.

Fatherhood is either portrayed as tyrannical or ridiculed as incompetent. A few examples might make the point even more clearly: I think a good way to gauge modern attitudes to fatherhood and all things paternal is to have half an eye on what the media dishes up as entertainment these days. Watch the Simpsons, or Family Guy or even Peppa Pig if you would like to gorge yourselves on hapless, ineffectual, feeble and contemptible models of fatherhood.

If this is our model of fatherhood then let me suggest that a Biblical understanding can serve as a corrective.

Jesus comes to us as deeply devoted to his Father. He encourages us to call that Father Abba, which is a term of endearment that suggests familiarity and intimacy. But at the same time he teaches us to hallow the name of God in the Lord’s Prayer and tells his disciples again and again that he obeys his Father at all times.

So, just in case we stray into thinking that this Abba is something like a sugar-daddy, who will give us anything we want and give in to our every desire, he also warns us that God will not be mocked.

Our Gospel today serves up a parable for us and it’s a parable that should ignite something like a sense of awe in us. It promises a judgement.

Jesus paints a picture for us and says that the Kingdom is like a field in which there grows both wheat and weeds. A decision is made not to uproot the weeds too early in case, in the uprooting, some of the good crop is damaged in the process but the sorting is promised. Judgement will come as sure as east is east and west is west: all causes of sin and all evildoers will be thrown into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

It’s a kind of ‘wait until your dad gets home’ threat that many of us are familiar with from our own childhoods.

St Paul echoes Jesus here in his Letter to the Galatians: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life (6:7-8)

I wonder how that makes us feel?

Well, I for one am reassured. I like boundaries. I dread to think what might have happened to me in my restless youth if no boundaries at all had been imposed on me from an early age.

I am reminded of a famous live from the Russian writer Dostoevsky who put this line in the mouth of one of his characters: If God does not exist everything is permitted.

I am also reassured because when I look around at some of the evil in the world (I won’t name examples here but I am sure you will be aware of many) the only thing that makes it bearable is the theological hope that there will be a judgement, and that the judgement will come to all, especially those who have escaped judgement in this present life.

Finally, if the judgement comes to all it’ll come to me too, and so I find the parables about judgement reassuring because they remind me to take very seriously my own conduct and the state of my own soul. I like the fact that I have been warned. That strikes me as fair play.

As Jesus preached:  Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye (Matthew 7:3-5).

It’s all well and good to hope that the mischievous element of humanity is judged but Dostevsky also wrote that ‘the line separating good and evil passes…right through every human heart - and through all human hearts’.

So let’s take St Paul’s words from our 2^nd reading to heart this morning: So then, brothers and sisters do not live according to the flesh - for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 

He also says that it has been given to us by the Spirit to call God Abba but let’s remember that although God is not a tyrant, neither is he an indulgent sugar-daddy. God is not mocked.  

Loving God and fearing him (in the right sense of that word) are the same thing. Our love is expressed by obedience and reverence.

Our love is proved by what used to be called filial devotion: a profound and deeply held love and respect that manifests itself in a desire to do nothing that displeases the Father.

As the Psalmist says,  Teach US your way, O Lord, and WE will walk in your truth; knit OUR hearts to you, that WE may fear your name.

O Lord, grant us true repentance, and your Holy Spirit, that those things may please you which we do at this present; and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy; so that at the last we may come to your eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.