Getting Closer to God: Removing Obstacles

The scriptures referred to are Joel 2:1-2, 12-17, 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10, and Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21.

I am fortunate that the first fandom I got involved in was that of Sherlock Holmes. Unlike a lot of fandoms, Sherlockians do not generally get into fierce arguments about the minutiae of the stories. They make trying to reconcile the contradictory details in the 60 stories into a game. Thus they come up with elaborate explanations of Watson's wandering war wound and they try to deduce Holmes' birthday. Once, on that birthday, January 6, Rex Stout famously presented a paper at the Baker Street Irregular's meeting in New York in 1941 proving that Watson was a woman. Since the meeting in those days involved lots of alcohol, the members picked up the reed-thin creator of Nero Wolfe, carried him outside, and dumped him in a snowbank. But they still honor that paper as a shining example of the Great Game. Because they know that the purpose of reading and writing about and watching depictions of Sherlock Holmes is to be entertained.

Not only did reading playful commentaries and articles on the Great Detective inoculate me against the silly but heated arguments that fans of Harry Potter, Batman, and Doctor Who can get into, it protected me from getting into the same arguments in Christian circles. I realized this when acting as a research assistant for one of my professors in college and noticed that in some theological papers, people were making the same kind of tenuous arguments Sherlockians do—but in deadly earnestness! And we have all seen people who get lost in the smallest details of the Bible or theology or liturgical matters and get into arguments that generate more heat than light. I was invited by a friend to a discussion group in a mosque on the Quran and one guy there was constantly interrupting the imam with bizarre interpretations of the text and side matters and making theological mountains out of molehills. And I thought, “Wow! I've had that guy in Bible study!” I am convinced that such people are not created by religion or fandoms but are a specific personality type.

And the problem is that just as rabid fans forget that the purpose of what they consume is to have fun, the folks who get all tangled up in the non-essentials of the faith forget that the purpose of it all is to help us get closer to God. Don't get me wrong: I love all the little details, large and small, about the Bible and theology and church history. But I know not to let them get between me and what is essential: Jesus.

This Lent we will be looking at ways of getting closer to God. And we are starting today with getting rid of obstacles to that. And this being Ash Wednesday, that means our sins, of course. In a few minutes we will pray the litany of penitence, so I don't think I need to elaborate on them.

What I would like to concentrate on are the obstacles to properly understanding God. If we want to get close to him, we need to know who he is. Unfortunately, through poor Sunday School lessons, books of bad theology and preachers with erroneous or incomplete takes on all manner of things, a lot of people are left with some major misconceptions about God. Let's look at a couple and get some correctives from scripture.

Like most things, ideas about God exist on a spectrum. And at one end is the Hateful God, who has innumerable rules, some quite picky, who is always angry with us for not being able to keep all of them and who can't wait to throw people into hell. A lot of us get this idea as kids and never quite shake it. And some of it, to be frank, comes from an uncritical reading of the Old Testament. God seems to be always mad at the Israelites for doing this or not doing that and warning them that his wrath will come down on them.

I have two observations on this. First, this view was influenced by a life without the generous margins of error some of us have today. Life was very harsh back then. We hadn't developed medicine, democracy, Social Security, human rights, international law, farm subsidies, disaster insurance, disaster agencies, police forces, or any of the safety nets we now have. To survive back then a society had to operate with military discipline and efficiency. Everyone had a job to do. If the fields were not plowed, planted, and harvested on time, you starved. If you didn't reproduce, when you got too old to work, you starved. If the elders of your town didn't enforce the rules, anarchy reigned. Punishments were harsh because you didn't have an elaborate corrections system. The ancient Near East was like the Wild West: an often hard and unforgiving environment, to which people responded with hard and unforgiving rules so that the community could survive. They wanted a tough God who enforced the rules and protected them from things outside their control. And yet the world in which we live today has changed largely through the idea of a God who is just and merciful and expects the same of us.

Second, when you look at the things God gets upset about, they are mostly things that make life worse. They are things we would get upset about. The prophets point out two main areas in which the people are failing to act as they should. One is their duty to God. They are following other gods, like Baal, a storm and fertility god, worshiped through orgies (Isaiah 57:3-8). Or Molech, to whom people sacrificed their children (Leviticus 18:21). People come to resemble what they worship. Except when they choose not to. The other fault the prophets saw was that when they worshiped God, the people were just going through the motions and not really changing to a more moral lifestyle. (Isaiah 58:1-5) Ironically people were more attracted to sexy or brutal gods than the God of justice and mercy.

The other main failing the prophets point out is people's neglect of their duty to their neighbor. They ignored the plight of the poor, mistreated and exploited them, oppressed the foreigner living among them, and did not take care of the sick and handicapped. (Isaiah 58:6-10; Leviticus 19:14, 34) Jesus summarized the whole law as consisting of loving God and loving other people. Would a loving God turn a blind eye to injustice? Wouldn't we be bothered if God wasn't angry at such blatantly unjust actions?

Which leads us to the other end of the spectrum. The opposite misconception to the Hateful God is the Sentimental God who is so loving and forgiving we do not have to worry very much about what we do. God looks at flawed humans and says, like an indulgent uncle, “Oh well, boys will be boys.” This kind of God just can't bring himself to come down hard on us. But he isn't showing love so much as benign neglect. And if he doesn't hold bullies and those who harm others accountable, then obviously he doesn't love everyone equally. There's very little difference between such a God and one who is blithely indifferent to human suffering.

But as we've seen, neither is a true picture of God. He does care for us. And he expects us to care for each other. He is rightly outraged by our mistreatment and neglect of the less powerful and less fortunate. And God is also upset about how we mistreat and neglect ourselves. He created us in his image. He knows what is good for us. The rules he gives us are for our benefit as well as that of others.

Writing during World War 2, C. S. Lewis used the example of the ship convoy to illustrate the 3 sets of ethical rules. Obviously the ships must all be going to the right destination as specified in their orders. They must also stay in formation, maintaining the appropriate distance and staying in good communication with each other, so they don't crash into each other or get lost. And finally, the ships must be properly maintained or they will sink or stall or, again, crash into other ships. These 3 types of rules relate to our relationship to God, our relationships with others and our self-care. We talked about the first two but we must not neglect the last either.

Right now we have an epidemic of suicide in this country and I think some of it is due to lack of proper self-care. Among the elements of suicidal thinking are a feeling that life has no purpose, that one is trapped and that there is no hope. Suicidal people usually withdraw from others. Following Jesus, on the other hand, gives one a purpose in life. It gives one hope. It gives one a community that cares. Obviously if a person has clinical depression or some other serious mental health issue, like substance abuse, they need to get professional help. Even so faith in God helps those fighting such problems. But let's say you don't have such mental or emotional issues. Let's say you are drifting through life rather easily. When you get hit by a serious medical illness, financial problems, relationship problems, and other personal disasters, if you are without a spiritual dimension to your life, you will have little to give you hope and comfort and strength to face the days ahead. When my arms, legs and torso were broken, when I couldn't rely on my body, thank God I had spiritual resources to draw upon.

There are other misconceptions about God which are covered in J.B. Phillips' excellent book, Your God is Too Small, but for this short time I think these 2 are the most important. We know that God does not hate us but loves us. He is however just and will not ignore how we treat him, others or ourselves. He is however merciful. As it says in the psalms, “For you, Lord, are good and forgiving and abundant in mercy to all who call upon you.” (Psalm 86:5) Yes, God is unhappy when we abuse or neglect others or ourselves. But he is ever ready to forgive those who turn from such things and turn to him for help in changing those aspects of our lives. Were he not, Lent would be a tremendous waste of time. God's call to repent is a sign of hope. It means we can change. We are not trapped in the patterns of our old life. Our past need not determine our future. We can do what we need to, with God's help.

Think of this time as analogous to your yearly medical check up. Lent is our yearly spiritual examination of ourselves. The purpose is not to beat ourselves up but to get closer to God. Yes, we have destructive and self-destructive habits of thought, word and deed, called sins, which we need to shed. That's because they are obstacles to our getting closer to our loving God. At the same time we also have various practices to take up. Think of them as doctor's orders from the Great Physician. And on the Sundays during Lent those are what we will look at.

I have a little suggestion to begin with. Start reading one chapter of the gospel of Mark each day, skipping only Sundays. It's the oldest and shortest of the gospels. When you're done, do the same with the last gospel written, the gospel of John: one chapter a day, and take a break from it on Sundays. That will bridge the time between today, Ash Wednesday, and Good Friday. Getting closer to God means getting closer to Jesus, God Incarnate, and this will reacquaint you with 2 different sides of him. It's an easy but meaningful Lenten discipline.

Right now, we are going to look at our sins. Let's rip the band aids off and cleanse our wounds.

Metamorphosis

The scriptures referred to are Matthew 17:1-9.

Peter is one of the most relatable people in the New Testament. He runs the gamut of human responses. He is impulsive, quick to jump out of a boat and try to walk to Jesus on the water. (Matthew 14:22-33) He is brave, drawing one of the only two swords they had to defend Jesus from the troops sent to arrest him. (John 18:10-11) He is also a coward, denying Jesus 3 times when asked by those standing outside the high priest's house as Jesus was tried. (Mark 14:66-72) He is remorseful, going off and weeping immediately after his denials when he realized what he'd done. After the resurrection, he is back to form, jumping out of a boat to swim to Jesus. (John 21:1-7) He becomes the spokesman for the Twelve on Pentecost (Acts 2) and defies the authorities when told to stop proclaiming the gospel of Jesus (Acts 5:27-33) He at first reluctantly preaches to and then baptizes some Gentiles. (Acts 10). He then backs up Paul's ministry to the Gentiles (Acts 15) and yet he waffled when confronted by Jewish Christians. (Galatians 2:11-14) All of us contain contradictions but Peter seems to ricochet between his more than most.

And, knowing this, Jesus may have had Peter in mind especially when taking him, James and John up the mountain in today's gospel passage. Immediately before this, in the previous chapter of Matthew we are told, “When Jesus came to the area of Caesarea Phillipi, he asked his disciples, 'Who do people say that the Son of Man is?' They answered, 'Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.' He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?' Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' And Jesus answered him, 'You are blessed, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven! And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you release on earth will be released in heaven.” (Matthew 16:13-19) So that must have made Peter feel very good.

But then we are told: “From that time on Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. So Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him: 'God forbid, Lord! This must not happen to you!' But he turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, because you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but on man's.'” (Matthew 16:21-23) Peter pivots rather quickly from telling Jesus he is the Messiah to telling Jesus he is wrong. And Jesus goes from saying God revealed his identity to Peter to telling him that Satan is speaking through him. It must have left Peter shocked and confused.

Jesus knows that things are going to get a lot harder for him and for his disciples. How can the Messiah die? When the worst happens, it will be difficult for them to retain their faith in him. So Jesus takes the core group high up a mountain and there he is transfigured. The Greek word for this is the one from which we get the word “metamorphosis.” Its root means “changing form in keeping with inner reality.” So Jesus is showing the three disciples what he really is. Visually this translated into “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.”

Light is a common metaphor for God and for Jesus. In 1 John it says, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) In Revelation it says of the new Jerusalem, “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.” (Revelation 21:23) In the prologue to John's gospel it says, “In him was life and the life was the light of mankind.” (John 1:4) And Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” (John 8:12) And here Jesus is making the metaphor visible to impress it upon his disciples.

Jesus always seeks to communicate the good news in the most effective way. He didn't merely preach that God's kingdom was present; he demonstrated it. By healing the sick. By feeding the hungry. By forgiving the sinful. By giving life to those considered beyond hope. Everything he thought, said and did shouted “This is what happens when God reigns.” People needed to hear that.

And I think at this moment, James, John and especially Peter needed to see Jesus as he really was, bursting with glory. They needed to see him visibly connected with the foremost representatives of the Law and the Prophets, Moses and Elijah. They needed to hear God call him his beloved son. They needed to see Jesus ablaze with divine light.

Because the dark times were coming. They would see Jesus betrayed and arrested and beaten and flogged and stumbling through the streets under the weight of the cross beam and hoisted onto the upright and nailed to the tree and bleeding and struggling for breath and pierced with a spear and cold and dead and wrapped up and laid in the tomb. The sun would hide itself and things would look dark indeed.

But after a flat and sullen Sabbath, at the first dawn of the week, when the women would come running from the tomb, crying and laughing and babbling about angels and a risen Jesus, they needed to remember that he was not merely flesh and blood, but the light of the world, who enlightens everyone, and whom the darkness could not overcome.

Peter needed a dramatic vision of who Jesus was to make it through the darkness he and the others would face that Passover. And after the resurrection of Jesus, Peter was not instantly perfect. He was still a mass of contradictions. But transformed by his experiences with Jesus, he became one of the leading lights of the early church.

So what does this have to do with us? Remember how the root of the Greek word for “transfigure” means to change form in keeping with inner reality. It is also the word used when we are told, “Do not be conformed to this present world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind...” (Romans 12:2) As followers of Jesus, filled with his Spirit, we are to let ourselves to be transfigured as well. Jesus said that we, like him, are to be the light of the world. “Let your light shine before people, so that they see your good deeds and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16) People need to see Jesus at work in this world to get through the times of darkness. If we obey God, if we fully cooperate with his Spirit at work within us, we will glow with his glory and people will see his light and take hope that the reign of God is dawning.

It's Not Magic

The scriptures referred to are Isaiah 58:1-12, 1 Corinthians 2:1-16, and Matthew 5:13-20.


I was reading an interesting theory about the relationship of magic to religion. Both are responses to things we can't control—health, weather, love, etc. In magic one tries to take control of such things through rituals, incantations, and magical items. Religion, this article asserted, was about acceptance of those things we can't control and trying instead to be in harmony with them. There is a lot of truth in that. But it is incomplete.


Early religions were indistinguishable from magic. In fertility religions, ritual sex in the temple or at festivals was supposed to encourage the gods to make the earth fertile. You could bring a clay replica of the part of your body that is afflicted to the temple of Asclepius to remind the god of what you wanted cured. And even in modern religion, elements of magic persist. Say this special prayer, wear this religious item, copy and repost this meme on Facebook, and God will grant your wish. In fact, Rodney Stark, the sociologist of religion, says that the reason the church opposed witches was in part because they were competition. If you wanted a healthy pregnancy or a good crop you should go to the priest, not the wise woman. Magical wards against demons and even curses pronounced upon people have been found scratched into the stone walls of medieval churches. The average person really didn't see the difference between magic and religion. One of the reasons why in the Ten Commandments God forbids the misuse of his name is precisely so that it will not be used in magical incantations, the way the names of angels and demons were invoked. God is not a genie and you can't get him to do things by simply performing rituals.

That's his beef in our passage from Isaiah. The people of Israel are wondering why their holy fasts are not effective in making God hear them. And God tells them straight out. Fasting and bowing and lying in sackcloth and ashes do nothing to make God hear you if you don't hear him first. Fasting should indicate that your spiritual needs are so important that you are willing to forgo your physical needs for a while. Yet the people were just going through the motions. God says, “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.” If you want to send a message by radio you need to be on the same frequency as the person who is to receive the message. And you want to minimize any interference that will block or drown out the signal. The people's hearts weren't tuned into the love they should have for their neighbor. how did they expect the God who created their neighbors in his image as well to hear them, especially over the interference of violence and oppression?

This is especially ironic because what the people want are “righteous judgments.” Yet they neglect God's “ordinances.” Now in Hebrew the word for ordinances and judgments is the same. Why should God give them justice when they deny justice to others? If you act unjustly how can you be surprised when you suffer injustice in return? If you punch someone, why are you astonished when they punch back? You can't ask God to only restore justice to yourself or your class or your people and ignore the injustice you do to others, any more than it makes sense to ask your doctor to cure your lung cancer so you can continue to smoke. God wants to cure the whole body but how can he do it if you don't cooperate?

And in case these people don't get what he is talking about, he goes into detail. “Is this not the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” The yoke was a common metaphor for social oppression. Then God moves from metaphors to concrete examples. “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not hide yourself from your own kin?” Take care of the needs of poor—the hungry, the homeless, and even your own relatives. Who doesn't take care of their own family? Let's give it a more modern name: neglect. Do we know of people who neglect their family members? Yes. As a former home health nurse, I don't know what's sadder: the patients I took care of who had no family or the ones I took care whose family never helped or visited. Sure, some of the patients were difficult. And being sick or in distress can make you more difficult. But we are expected to take care of those we love even when they are less than pleasant. Or else every baby would be abandoned the first time it wouldn't stop crying or when it filled its diaper with the most noxious substance known to man. Love isn't "not having to say you're sorry;" love is not giving up on someone when it would be so easy to.

There is another problem, one we seldom see. When they do studies, most psychologists and social scientists use the people they have easy access to: university students and city folk. In North America and Europe, they have an acronym for this. The societies these people come from are W.E.I.R.D. That stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic. And that colors their findings. So today more studies are striving to include people from societies that cannot be described that way. But because we have grown up in a W.E.I.R.D. society, we tend to see everything through that lens. And that includes the Bible.

Specifically, in the West we put more emphasis on the individual and so we tend to think that in the Bible God is mostly talking to individuals and that the commands he gives are primarily the responsibility of individuals. But the opposite is true. God is generally talking to entire countries, whole societies and complete cultures, and expecting them to carry out his commandments. God is not just telling you or you or you or you to act justly; he is telling all of us to act justly together. He doesn't want random spots where one individual is trying to do justice. He wants us to be a just society, a just nation.


And if that happens, “Then your light shall break forth like the dawn.” A just society is a beacon in this world of injustice and oppression. In the same vein Jesus says in our gospel passage, “You are the light of the world.” In the Greek the “you” is plural. Jesus is not speaking to “you” the individual, but to all his disciples. If he were southern he would say “Y'all are the light of the world.” And this is backed up by the next thing he says: “A city on a hill cannot be hid.” A city, a community of people, not one person. Even at night a city cannot be hid because it becomes a huge cluster of lights. Ever land at an airport at night? Even if it is a familiar city, the patterns created by the lights are fascinating and beautiful. Traffic becomes an elaborate dance of white headlights and red taillights, moving and stopping, turning and weaving. Now in Jesus' day, though they had no street lamps or cars, they also had no light pollution. So if you were unfortunate enough to be caught still traveling by nightfall, the small clusters of candlelight and oil lamps glimpsed from windows, or the torches on the city wall where the night watch kept lookout, would stand out in the inky darkness and whisper “Here is rest and safety.”

That is what Jesus calls us to do. And he is not merely talking about personal piety being our light. He says, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” [emphasis mine] It is our good works that will catch people's eyes and reveal God's glory. Last week, because we celebrated the presentation of our Lord at the temple, we missed the traditional reading for the 4^th Sunday in Epiphany, which is the Beatitudes. They immediately precede today's reading. In Matthew 5:6, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” We tend to think that Jesus is only talking about personal righteousness, but the Greek word also means “justice.” It means the quality of treating people with equity. It is also used elsewhere of Jesus judging people impartially upon his return. So it's about being a person who acts justly, not self-righteously. In the Beatitudes it is bracketed by “Blessed are the meek [or humble]” and “Blessed are the merciful.” Jesus is talking about how we relate to others.

Both Isaiah and Jesus are saying that our light, our reflected glory from God, is our just actions in a just society. And the reason the disadvantaged, the despised and the destitute are singled out is because they are the ones who need justice and mercy. The powerful do not need to worry about justice. They have lawyers and lobbyists and friends in high places. The powerless need people to protect their rights.

I am always nonplussed by billionaires who act as if a single change in the way they do business will turn them into paupers. That would never happen. Not even bankruptcy leaves the rich penniless. Money is power and power buys protection. To put it in terms anyone can understand, Superman doesn't need protection from the giant robots stomping around the city. Nor does Lex Luthor, the rich supercriminal genius. (In fact, he probably built the robots.) It's the non-superpowered people who need protection. A just and good person uses whatever powers or assets God has given them to help others. There's nothing heroic about simply looking out for yourself.

Jesus calls us to be heroes. He calls us to help the hungry and thirsty and threadbare and foreign and sick and imprisoned. And—plot twist—it turns out they are Jesus' siblings and what we do or do not do to them, we do or do not do to him. (Matthew 25: 31-46) He calls us to love even our enemies. (Matthew 5:43-48) It turns out they were also created in God's image. And Jesus died to save them as well as us. In fact Paul says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) While we were still enemies of God, Jesus died for us. So we can reach out and try to be peacemakers with our enemies.


This requires having the mind of Christ as Paul says in our new Testament passage. When Peter turned from saying that Jesus was the Messiah to telling Christ he was wrong to say he would be killed, Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are not setting your mind on God's interests, but on man's.” (Mark 8:33) It is human to care primarily about your own self-interests. God cares about everyone's concerns and especially those who have been denied the power to take care of them for themselves. And as Christians we should know this because we have the Holy Spirit within us and the Spirit of God knows the mind of the God who is love.

Jesus says, “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Remember the Greek word for “righteousness” also means “justice.” Unless you are more just than those who oppose Christ, you will not be the kind of person who fits in the kingdom of God. You must, as Paul put it, “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2) The kingdom consists of those who have the same mindset as Jesus (Philippians 2:5) so that whenever 2 or 3 are gathered in his name, there in the midst of them is Christ. (Matthew 18:20) Again this is something it takes more than one person to achieve. After all, how could one person fully reflect the glorious love of Jesus? It takes all of us with our unique gifts to function as the body of Christ on earth.

Ask yourself this: Could there be discrimination in the kingdom of God against anyone for things outside their control: what they look like, where they were born, or how they were born? No. That would not be fair; that would not be just. But those things exist now everywhere in every country. So to spread the kingdom we must change them. But first we must be changed. As Fr. Stephen Olds said at our clergy retreat, only a baby with a soiled diaper really wants to be changed. But we must be, and for the pretty much the same reason. And the change must start with our minds. Then, if it is sincere, it will inevitably change what we do and how we do it. It won't happen by magic, by merely saying words or playing with rituals, but by asking our loving heavenly Father to change us and guide us. And that why I said, the idea of religion being about accepting what we can't change was not quite complete. Yes, we accept that we cannot change God and the things only he controls. But we can let his son, Jesus Christ, change us and through us change society and the world.

It won't be done in a flash or with the wave of a hand as magic is supposed to work. It will require the taking up of our cross daily (Luke 9:23) and the renewal of our inner person day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16) It is a process and it is hard work, like repairing a breach or restoring streets till they are livable for all. It will require our obeying God or, as Fr. Olds puts it, fully cooperating with God. But the end result will be wonderful. Paul says, “...no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him...” Or as it says in 1 John, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2) That is, the image of God, in which we were created and which has been marred by the damage of our sin, will be seen perfectly restored in Jesus who is the very image of God. (Colossians 1:15) And when we see ourselves in his face, we will know that we are at last who we were meant to be: beloved children of God.

Fear of Death

The scriptures referred to are Hebrews 2:14-18.

It may simply be that I have just reached that age when people who were young adults when I was a kid are now up in their 70s and 80s, but it seems like a lot of celebrities have been dying lately. Over the last year, Doris Day, Tim Conway, Rip Torn, Valerie Harper, Cokie Roberts, Peter Fonda, Eddie Money, Diahann Carroll, Peter Mayhew, Caroll Spinney, Jim Lehrer and many more have been taken from us in what feels like a kind of slow motion Rapture. True, most had lived long lives and died from disease. But the death roll is peppered with people who did not die in old age nor from natural causes. Kobe Bryant and his 13 year old daughter Gianna are the most recent.

Looked at dispassionately, death is about the fairest thing there is. It's one per person. But it's the age at which some people die and the manner of their death that makes it feel unfair at times. The ideal would be that everyone lives a good long life first. And indeed that's how the Bible looks at it. Of wisdom the book of Proverbs says, “Long life is in her right hand...” (Proverbs 3:16) And certainly making wise decisions will increase the odds of a person living longer, just as making unwise choices increase the odds of death or disability. As a nurse I have seen too many lives ended or upended by needlessly risky behavior involving alcohol, drugs, guns, rage and just plain recklessness. (I once had a patient who was in the hospital because his truck was hit by a train at a crossing. For the second time in his life.)

But as our passage from Hebrews points out, fear of death can result in a life of slavery. People's phobias can severely limit the life they live. Now some fears are legitimate. There is a difference between courage and foolhardiness. It makes sense to use your seatbelts, look both ways when crossing a street, wear a helmet when on any two-wheeled vehicle, and take similar common sense precautions. Just this week I met someone who knew the woman who drowned when her dinghy capsized recently in Key West harbor. He said he had warned her over and over to wear a life vest.

But we all know someone whose life is curtailed by a fear of highly improbable threats. Some folks will not fly, though cars kill far more people. You are 86 times more likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash. In fact you are 3 times more likely to choke to death on your food than to plummet to your demise in a plane.

Some folks fear certain animals like sharks and bears. However, the most deadly animal in the US is not them, nor the pit bull, but the deer. They cause 1.2 million car accidents a year, resulting in 200 human deaths. Even so all animals are only responsible for 400 deaths in the US. Actually, accidental poisoning is the leading cause of unintentional injury deaths, followed by traffic accidents and falls.

Overall, the number 1 cause of death is still heart disease, followed by cancer. Homicide, which, if you watch a lot of TV shows or local news, would seem to be a pervasive cause of death, doesn't even make the top ten. If you really want to cheat death, having a gun or learning krav maga won't buy you nearly as much time as those boring old standards of eating healthier, losing weight, and exercising.

But even if you adopt the healthiest lifestyle possible, as the Shel Silverstein song goes, “you're still gonna die.” You don't want to hasten it but ultimately you cannot avoid it. As the Book of Common Prayer puts it in the Burial Service, “in the midst of life we are in death.” So the question is, what do we do about that?

If this is the only life we get, there are two ways to approach it. You can be very cautious and strive for the optimal quantity of life, at the expense of foregoing a lot of pleasurable experiences. Or you can gratify every desire and seek out every pleasure in an effort to maximize the quality of your life, even at the expense of your longevity. Most of us split the difference, trying for a balance between a reasonably pleasant life and a fairly long one. But there are no guarantees that we will succeed in either endeavor, because we cannot control for things like unexpected disaster or disease. Though the hedonistic approach is more likely to result in tragedy.

The Old Testament rarely mentions any life other than our earthly one. So the advice it gives is concerned with having a life that is good in both senses: one that is enjoyable as well as being characterized by ethical behavior. And the rules it lays down are sound.

“My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.” (Proverbs 3:1-2) The basic commandments are the famous Ten, which Jesus summarized in the two Great Commandments to love God with all you are and have and to love your neighbor as yourself. And certainly that will more likely increase both your life and life satisfaction. Science backs this up, showing that having an active faith gives one all kinds of mental and physical benefits as does having social support. The director of the 80 year long Harvard Study of Adult Development says the secret of a long life is love. It is far better than the alternative, which is to hate God and to hate your neighbor. Hating God leads ultimately to hating the world and even one's own life. Hating your neighbor, which according to Jesus is anyone you may encounter, leads to a life of strife and stress.

There are other things the Bible says help you live a long life. We mentioned wisdom, the personification of which says in Proverbs 9, “For by me your days will be multiplied and years will added to your life.” (Proverbs 9:11) Being an honest and just person is also important. The Old Testament is particularly interested in businesses being fair, which meant the tools that were used in commerce had better not be rigged. “You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly.” (Deuteronomy 25:15-16) And of course, you can't get away with being dishonest for long; it will impact your business and your personal reputation. And depending on whom you cheat, it may shorten your life! Whereas being known as honest and fair is much better for your life and livelihood.

Other things the Bible associates with long life is honoring your parents (Exodus 20:12), having a proper respect for God (Proverbs 10:27), obeying him (Deuteronomy 4:40), and worshiping him (Exodus 23:25-26). And these are excellent and will definitely make your life better and longer. In good times.

The problem is that when injustice is in the ascendancy, being a good, God-fearing person can get you into trouble. The prophets knew this. Amos, Elijah, Jeremiah and others suffered for standing up for God. Jesus accused the religious authorities of his day of following in the footsteps of their ancestors and persecuting those sent by God. And of course Jesus is the ultimate example of the good and just person persecuted and executed for speaking the truth to power.

Jesus predicted that his followers would also be persecuted. (Matthew 10:16-23; Mark 13:9; John 15:20) And not only was this true in the days of the New Testament but it continued afterward under various Roman emperors. When the empire became officially Christian, missionaries to the numerous tribes beyond the borders frequently became martyrs. Missionaries still risk losing their lives when meeting new groups of people. I went to college with a girl whose missionary father was killed by a tribe in Ecuador. Her mother continued her late husband's work and converted that tribe.

The bigger threat to Christians throughout history has been persecution within their own countries by hostile regimes. Catholics and Protestants who hid Jews and otherwise defied the Third Reich were exterminated by the Nazis. And there are still governments where you can be imprisoned for being a Christian and executed for evangelizing others. Which is why Christians in America need to stop claiming they are persecuted simply because they can't do absolutely everything they wish. It dishonors the actual suffering and deaths of our brothers and sisters in Christ elsewhere in the world.

So following Jesus is not always a safe way to live. Jesus got attacked for hanging out with the wrong people, like tax collectors and prostitutes. (Matthew 11:19; 21:31) He didn't observe all the religious rituals respectable people did. (Matthew 15:2) He worked with the poor, the hungry, the handicapped, the sick, the foreigner, and women—those who had little to no power in his day. They still do. And people who minister to them and follow in his footsteps put themselves at risk. Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated for speaking out against poverty, injustice and torture in his native El Salvador. Wang Zhiming worked among the minority Maio people in China and was executed in a stadium in front of 10,000 people during the Cultural Revolution. Annalena Tonelli fought hunger in Africa and later built a TB hospital in Somalia, which was financially supported by her family and friends back in Italy. When she admitted HIV/AIDS patients the community was outraged. In 2003 she was shot in the head as she worked in her hospital.

Nobody gets out of this world without dying. But many die without having a purpose in their life other than just existing. Even skeptic Mark Twain said, “Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” Jesus goes farther. In his parable about the last judgement, he says to those who feed the hungry, quench the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the foreigner, care for the sick and visit the imprisoned, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." (Matthew 25:31-40) It's good to live a life that benefits others; it is better if such a life is rewarded with everlasting life.

And if you realize that you will live forever, you lose your fear of death. You are liberated from the slavery of keeping your actions in check because they might shorten your earthly life. Think if all the good you can do if you don't fear death! 

But if you will live forever, what's to keep you from doing bad things? Set aside the traditional way of thinking of final judgment for a minute. C.S. Lewis pointed out that if you are going to live a normal lifespan and then cease to exist, it doesn't matter in the long term what you do. Hitler killed millions and then took himself off the board. No afterlife, no personal consequences. But if you have to live with yourself forever, with the person you are becoming, there are consequences for your direction in this life. Because of your trajectory, you can become ever more jaded, unfulfilled, disappointed, distrustful, angry, resentful, bitter, self-loathing and closed off. Or you can become more loving, more appreciative, more peaceful, more trusting, more hopeful, more connected, and more open. You can devolve into an ever more hellish creature or grow into an ever more Christlike person. The choice is yours.

There is no choice between life and death in this world. We all die. The real choice is between a living death or a truly abundant life, a life that really is life, life eternal with the one who is life, light and love incarnate. Choose wisely.