Faith over Fear to Move Forward
We are in transition, on the way from the known to the unknown. We don’t know who our next state governor is going to be, or if the midterms will proceed smoothly, or how or when the Strait of Hormuz will open or gas prices will come down or… or..we can all plug in our own unknowns, right? Some of us are facing surgeries, some of us are facing the unknown territory of changes in family members health, some of us are attempting to remodel our kitchens, or remodel our psyches! Some of us are in the process of coming out as gay, some of us are transitioning genders – All of us are in the transition of aging.
It’s safe to say that most all of these journeys – from the known to the unknown – from the smallest to the largest – require courage and trust and faith.
And that’s what we get in the story of Abraham and Sarah leaving their country and their people to go to a new land, simply on the basis of having been called out and responding with yes, ok, we’ll go. Responding with yes on the basis of a divine word for which they had no proof. And the always amazing thing, every time we come to this story, is that they this wild word of adventure and hope and danger and possibility resonated with something inside them, and they trusted it, trusted the future of following this call. And so can we. But before we look forward let’s peer back into the scriptures – The story is that about 4,000 years ago a family of semitic nomads left Ur of the Chaldeans, perhaps in southeastern Iraq near Nasariyah. They settled in Haran, Turkey, on the Syrian border, where a child named Terah was born, and lived.
When Terah died, it was his son Abraham who heard the voice of God calling him to continue the journey his ancestors had begun. So this word didn’t arise out of nowhere. His ancestors were already journeyers. It’s just that they had stopped and settled and become quite successful. But now the word to continue the journey comes: “Leave your country, your people, and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.” Abraham believed this word that came from the divine, and so, at the age of seventy-five, “Abram left, as the Lord had told him.” Maybe this voice appealed to an inner nature of adventure, maybe to some restless quality of his nomadic ancestors was passed down to him – who knows? But it’s no wonder that Paul uses Abraham’s astounding faith and trust to ground his theology in his letter to the Romans. By the way, we will be reading through Romans for most of the summer.
Because I am keenly interested both personally and as a preacher in this movement from fear to faith, as I think Paul was as well, I want to spend some time on three basic fears that are common to all of us, fears that could have kept Abraham from moving forward but that he overcame through trust in God – whom I should point out, he more intuited than knew at the beginning of this journey. He and God were not well acquainted. He was busy being a businessman, a high-level rancher, a successful man of the community. He was not a mystic or religious guy. We tend to put these people on a pedestal but they were a whole lot like us.
Ok – so three fears that can enslave us to the past and to the known, even when what we already known is not healthy or helpful. I’m indebted to theologian Dan Clendinin for outlining these three movements from fear to faith.
- Ignorance. We human beings tend to fear what we don’t know and what we can’t control. Our gay and transgendered friends can testify that moving towards being out and about with who they are might be freeing, but it can also be dangerous, because others often react out of fear about what they don’t know and cannot control. A potent spiritual practice is to embrace our own ignorance. Our own lack of control. It’s freeing to do this, and it keeps us from potentially harming others as we attempt to squash what we can’t control. A dear friend of mine contemplated her own gender transition for many years before making visible changes, and she did so without knowing how others would react or receive her, and she was fully aware of how little control she would have over that. But she found that her trust in God deepened with every step forward she took. The thing was that she had to take the steps with as much faith that she had, and then found that God was meeting her there and calling her onward. My friend can testify to the faith that Abraham discovered as he moved forward. The letter to the Hebrews says: “By faith Abraham obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country.” (Hebrews 11:8–9)
- Which brings me to the second fear that enslaves us to the past. Fear of Including others who are different from us. Abraham had to open his mind and his heart to receive the stranger. Actually, he had to endure the discomfort and awkwardness of being the stranger. Right? He was the one journeying. He was the immigrant. As the gay theologian Manuel Villalobos Mendoza writes, “A true coming-out demands acceptance of the other as brother and sister. In a true coming out, blessings flow; cultures are exchanged and enriched; the stranger becomes a friend, the sojourner becomes a citizen.” Through Abraham, the sojourner, the immigrant, the stranger, Genesis says that “all peoples on earth will be blessed.” (12:3). The challenge of inclusion is always with us. God is always setting us towards widening the circle of blessing. Now here’s the rub – widening the circle, including more voices and perspectives necessarily means giving up some power – which brings me to the third fear which is that of powerlessness or impotence.
- This fear is so strong that it can create extreme backlash. Witness what is happening now, in terms of women’s rights over our own bodies, the flood of anti-trans legislation, the swing towards extreme exclusion of immigrants. This fear of powerlessness is deep seated and dangerous. And so, the spiritual practice is to accept not only our fundamental lack of control, but our fundamental powerlessness. One of the central promises Abraham hears from God is the promise that his progeny will be as many as the stars in the sky. But he is 75. His wife Sarah is far beyond child bearing years. And so both Abraham and Sarah laugh, but God replies, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (18:14). And so Abraham leads by giving up insisting on his own control and his own power and trusts that God can do what God promises to do. Now the truth is, Abraham also hedged his bets. He had a plan B and a plan C. But the point is – he tried, in spite of his fears, to trust that God will “give life to the dead and call into being things that were not. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations,” as Paul writes to the Romans. (Romans 4:17, 21). Our own spiritual growth is built on that same rock – God’s ultimate and infinite power to bring life out of death, something good out of nothing. Resurrection. So friends, however fear shackles us, however it manifests in our lives, we can take steps forward into the fullness of life through faith. Maybe it’s on a big adventure like Abraham and Sarah, or maybe it’s just greater ease with what is. However we are called forward, let’s take a deep breath and say yes.
And as we say yes to moving forward in faith, we can use Paul’s words from his letter to the Ephesians: We give Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever.” (Ephesians 3:20-21)
