Good Friday, Meditation 2

April 6, 2007

The Rev. Thomas William Blake

Fear can kill

John 18:28—19:16a

President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous statement seems as apt as ever right about now: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” Roosevelt’s words emerged from a context of depression and uncertainty, and from a century known for destructive quests for power, tyranny, persecution, and sheer wickedness. We know the same world all too well. Jesus knew it too in his earthly life. It is all too apparent in the Passion narrative we read this day. Fear is a powerful emotion.

At its most basic level, of course, fear may be thought of as something good, an instinct of survival, and even a gift from God. When we are standing near the ledge of a cliff looking down, a little bit of fear imposes a bit of healthy restraint for the sake of our survival. We need this kind of fear. Or when walking along a path in the woods and hearing the rattle of a rattlesnake, fear may helpfully steer us out of harm’s way.

But fear can so quickly become destructive. It can lead us to becoming irrationally paranoid and unable to function normally in the world. This is an unhealthy kind of fear and one for which we would rightly seek treatment. Fear is also destructive when used to control people. Terrorism is based on this kind of fear. Fear can be used to justify irrational hatred and conflict, racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism. At its very worst, fear can devolve into violence and murder and even angry lynch mobs like the one we read about today.

Indeed, fear is evident in the Passion narrative at so many levels. The evangelist John portrays Jesus as seemingly cool and collected in the midst of what becomes a lynch mob, but we know from the other evangelists that Jesus did experience fear, as all of us no doubt would as well in the same situation. Remember the images from Luke’s account, “in his anguish Jesus prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.” Jesus’ fear may be understood as a healthy human reaction.

But the other displays of fear in the story are unhealthy and destructive. The high priests and temple authorities are fearful because they perceive Jesus as a threat to the status quo. Jesus’ radical reinterpretations of the Jewish faith and his unapologetic prophetic voice are not simply polite differences of opinion. They are not just religious or philosophical disputes. They threaten the very livelihoods of the Jerusalem establishment figures and the temple elite. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Jesus must be stopped. He must die. Nothing short of that will do. They refuse to hear ‘no’ even from Pilate.

And speaking of Pontius Pilate, he thinks the whole scenario is absurd. Here is this out of control crowd shouting, “Crucify him. Crucify him.” Pilate can find nothing to justify putting Jesus to death. He doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. He wants to release Jesus. He pleads with the crowd but to no avail. He could stop the whole chain of events from progressing any further, but he doesn’t because, powerful as he is, he is nevertheless afraid. There is this angry lynch mob outside that could potentially threaten peace and stability in his province, and he fears for the worst. It is much easier to give them what they want. Standing up for what is right would have been risky business.

There is fear at other levels as well. There are elements of fear in John’s telling of the story many decades later. John’s gospel repeatedly makes pejorative references to “the Jews,” that have been used to perpetuate anti-Semitism ever since. John almost certainly didn’t mean to imply a whole ethnic group by his words, “the Jews,” but they have indisputably been used that way over the centuries, and horrible occurrences like the holocaust have happened as a result. There is clearly a tone of “us vs. them” in John’s words, whatever he meant by them. There is a tone of over-generalized blame. We tend to do that, you and I as well, when we are afraid of something. John was afraid.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” I find wisdom in those words. On this day in particular, we come face to face with the powerful destructive forces of fear that bring out the worst in us. The results are darkness, pain, suffering, death, and grief.

The story of our Lord’s Passion is real. And what’s more, it is not only real, but you and I are actually in it. If we are human, we have been victims of fear gone awry and we will be again. We have also made victims of others because of fear, and we will do so again. There is a vicious cycle that begins to consume us and we can’t find our way out of it by ourselves. God grieves because we are caught up in that cycle. God wants us to stop wasting so much energy in negative ways and live more fully into who we were created to be. And so God comes into that vicious cycle, meeting us where we are, agony, suffering, death and all, and gives us a way out. He shows us another way.

One of the major headlines this week had to do with the standoff between Britain and Iran over sailors captured and held by the Iranians. Fear was written all over this crisis. There is fear on so many levels in the Middle East. The presence of foreign powers and emerging realignments of power in the region concern the Iranians. They fear the consequences of foreign intrusion and regional instability. As a result of their fear they feel the need to be assertive and put fear into others for the sake of control. Toward this end, they are probably seeking to develop nuclear weaponry, even though they say they are not. Capturing the British soldiers was a similar means of using fear to control.

The crisis is hardly one-sided, though. The British were once colonialists in the region, and their presence there was not universally perceived as good. Some of the ways in which they developed their empire had negative effects on local cultures and local peoples. And let’s face it: no one wants to be occupied by foreign powers. Imagine how you and I would feel if such were the case in our land. The presence of Britain in the region again evokes feelings of fear and uncertainty. Their alliance with the United States only intensifies those negative feelings. And like the United States, Britain is in the position to flex its military muscles to assert its dominance. The message for countries with weaker military muscles is, “Don’t even try to mess with us.” Fear can be a powerful deterrent.

That is only one example, but there are many others. Fear is a factor in Iraq, in Palestine and Israel, and even right here at home. The battle to end slavery was hard fought because of fear. What would be the social implications, but more to the point, what would be the economic implications of ending slavery?

We have always talked a lot about the importance of personal rights in this country, but we haven’t always followed through with our actions right away. Civil rights for women, African-Americans and various other ethnic groups, and for gay and lesbian persons have still not completely been achieved, and fear is continuously used to hold back those rights. Some people have mistakenly been led to believe that extending equal rights to gay persons will somehow be threatening to heterosexual marriage or even to the backbone of Western civilization. Creating fear is a tool of control.

The notion of withdrawing from Iraq and bringing our troops home, though increasingly popular as shown by the last election, is nevertheless a fearful notion. We are afraid of being perceived as losers. We are afraid that we may have to admit that we were wrong. We are afraid that others may be emboldened to stand up to us in the future. We are afraid of the diminishing of our power within a region of economic significance. What will be the economic impact at home?

I find the example of Jesus enlightening. There’s all this posturing between the religious authorities and Pontius Pilate. There’s all this fear being lobbed back and forth, and Jesus doesn’t try to fight it. He refuses to get caught up in it. Pilate asks him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” and Jesus gives the strange response, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over.”

Shortly thereafter, Pilate says to him, “Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?” to which Jesus replies, ‘You have no power over me unless it has been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.’”

By worldly standards, Jesus’ passivity is foolish. If he had played his cards right, maybe he could have talked Pilate out of sentencing him to death. But Jesus refuses to be drawn into that vicious cycle of control. He refuses to let himself be controlled by fear, even to the point of death on the cross. He refuses to control others by fear as well. Such stubborn refusal, he shows us, is the only way out of the vicious cycle. And he invites us to follow him and model a new way for the world.

What is this kingdom he talks about, this kingdom not of this world? Maybe it is about peace and reconciliation of the sort that can only come from God. Maybe it is about resisting the forces of evil that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. Maybe it is a stubborn insistence on respecting the dignity of every human being: even those who want to kill you, even those who strive to control you, even those who make you afraid.

Amen.