FEAR AND SINby jonahIs there any relationship between fear and sin? John seems to suggest there is such when he writes: “In love there is no room for fear, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear implies punishment and no one who is afraid has come to perfection in love” (1 John 4: 18).My early recollections are full of dreams and fantasies and fears. I lived in a land of make-believe and feared the unknown. Like comic book characters, I dreamed about conquering pain, suffering and evil in the world. During World War II, I fantasized about discovering a secret weapon that would bring an end to the war by overcoming the enemies of democracy. I dreamed of building safe and secure underground cities. I dreamed that someday I would build a house with glass walls that opened to an inner garden. My mother called me her “beautiful dreamer”. My father said I was too easy going and would never “amount to a damn.”I hid my fears. One of my very earliest recollections was standing at the top of steps that led down into a dark basement and a voice warning me to back off lest I fall into the darkness below. I shared my older brother’s fear that there were monsters under our bed or hiding back in our dark closet. I remember the terror I experienced when my grandfather died and I realized my own mortality. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” I confessed. “I have doubts that Jesus is present in communion.” My doubt was not really that of the presence of Jesus. My doubt was that there really was a God in heaven and that life really was everlasting. My fear was of sinking back into nothingness. I feared the dark basement below. This was the monster under my bed or hiding in my closet—death. When, after many, many years, I look back and reflect on these childhood fears, what do I discover? I really didn’t fear death so much as I feared annihilation. I had come to a realization that there was no reason why I had to exist as a self-aware individual. I had reached “the age of reason”. The age of reason is when we are assumed to be responsible for our actions. This comes with self-awareness. Self-awareness is our human ability to reflect upon ourselves. Not only do we know, but we know that we know. In order for us to know that we know, it is necessary for us to create a mental image of ourselves that we can reflect upon as an object. We have to be able to experience ourselves as a distinct object in a world of objects. And so I was beginning to perceive myself as such a separate and distinct object—alone in the universe. I was becoming an individual. But like Adam and Eve after their expulsion from Garden of Eden, I was becoming aware that I was naked. Intuitively I realized that I was not the reason for my own existence. Intuitively I realized that I came from the mysterious dark basement below and could just as easily be swallowed up by that darkness. Even though there were other objects in my universe, I was not any of them. I was a distinct individual. I was alone in a mysterious world of objects. And I was small and weak. I feared what I imaged to be under my bed or hidden in my dark closet. Intuitively I realized that I was vulnerable and totally dependent upon things beyond my control. I was separate and distinct, but dependent. To begin with, I was dependent upon my parents. They were good parents, but would they always be there for me? My father was not as much a part of my early experience as my mother. However, I very much wanted his approval and enjoyed being with him and working by his side. So my mother and my father were the significant others in my early experience. My mother was the one who explained to me that some day I would have to die. My response was that I wasn’t going to close my eyes. Later when I actually realized that I was mortal and would someday have to return to the mysterious dark basement, I experienced terror. I’ve since realized that this experience of mortality was at the basis of my religiosity. My terror was rooted intuitively in that experience of mortality and of dependence—my vulnerability.Isn’t this a universal human experience? Do not all religions grow out of a universal need to please or in someway to manipulate mysterious forces beyond our control upon which we are completely and totally dependent? In The Book of Proverbs we read: “The fear of Yahweh [God] is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1: 7). Religion, then, was recognition of my vulnerability and of my complete and total dependence. Religion was the awakening of a sense of wonder, awe, reverence that often generated fear of sinking back into the great unknown? My very first cry as an infant was a plea, a demand, a prayer that implicitly acknowledged my total dependence on others for the satisfaction of my most basic needs and desires. I felt a real need to either please or in someway control those upon whom I was dependent. Intuitively I learned that by smiling, for example, I could win approval. I didn’t want to “sin” against them—to displease them. And when I was scolded or punished by my elders, at first I never questioned their judgment. I felt I was at fault. Something about me, or something I did, or something I did not do, was displeasing to them. The problem was with me. I was a sinner. I, a sinner, had “sinned”. And whenever I “sinned”, I was punished. Moreover, whenever I was punished, it was because I was a sinner. In time I realized that, like me, my elders had limitations. But initially, their reprimands and criticisms, as well as their praise and encouragement, shaped my self-image and my behavior. *****The psalms are religious poems, some of which date back to King David in the Old Testament. They are human responses to human experiences of the human condition. Praying the psalms daily, I’ve learned that many of our religious ancestors had an understanding of sin not unlike my own childhood experiences. God for them was the significant other upon whom they were totally dependent. They had a need to please God, this significant other. When things went well for them, God was pleased; when things went poorly, it was because they had “sinned”. God was displeased with them. In parts of the Bible, sin was related to sickness, death, draught, famine, war and the like. Sickness, death, draught, famine, war and such represented God’s judgment on humankind. According to this view, all human suffering comes from God and is a sign and expression of God’s displeasure. It matters not whether there is knowledge and consent. Any time there is suffering, it is because God, who represents the mysterious forces that are beyond human control, has been offended. In this view of reality, therefore, it is possible to unwittingly offend God. It is possible to unwittingly sin. No human is just before God. All humans are “sinners”. For example, when David was bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem on an ox cart, the cart tipped and the ark was in danger of falling off. One of the attendants reached out to secure the ark and was struck dead. He, an “unclean” human being, had presumed to offend God by touching that which was sacred to God. Even David was terrified by this event.In this Biblical view of sin, even children can suffer because of God’s displeasure with their parents. David’s son died because God was displeased with David’s acts of adultery and murder. The Jews had a saying: The fathers have eaten unripe grapes; the children’s teeth are set on edge (Jer: 31:29). In the New Testament, the Disciples asked Jesus, who had sinned in the case of the man born blind? Was it the man’s parents or the man himself? Jesus corrected this view and said that it was neither because of sins of the parents nor of the man himself that he was born blind. The Disciples’ question confirms that this view of sin persisted even into the time of the New Testament.In this context sin, therefore, really represents our human inadequacy and not so much a moral decision. In this view, guilt is based not so much upon our responsibility as it is upon our human experience of being small, weak, and vulnerable. At the root of this guilt is existential fear. Existential fear comes out of our human experience that we are not the reason for our own existence but that we are small, weak and vulnerable; that we are at the mercy of forces beyond our control. Even today, many experience good fortune as a blessing—a reward for virtuous living—and misfortune as punishment for sinning. When things go badly, we try to fix the blame. Is it because of something I did or that I failed to do—because I sinned? Or is it because of something someone else did or failed to do—because they sinned? When we can’t fix the blame, we say that it is an “act of God.” We “blame” God who represents forces beyond human control. Today many moderns don’t call their understanding of Ultimate Reality “God”, but they have a pessimistic view of Reality. They view Reality as an irrational and arbitrary accident. Even some Christians see Reality as harsh, demanding, arbitrary and unforgiving. Parts of the New Testament suggest such a view of Reality. “Depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire,” is indeed harsh. The Christ figure in The Book of Revelations is at times frightening. But Jesus himself seems to have had a more positive understanding of Ultimate Reality.Jesus spoke of God as ABBA, a loving, provident, nurturing, compassionate, forgiving parent. He seems to have experienced the forces in the universe beyond our control as benign. In the garden, he prayed to be spared but ended his prayer: “Not my will but Thine be done.” This was an expression of absolute trust that ultimately Reality is good. On the cross he expressed his deep anguish of soul in the words of a Psalm: “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.” But his dying breath was an affirmation of his absolute trust: “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” He taught us to trust—not to worry about what we’re going to eat or what we’re going to wear. He points to the birds and how God feeds them. He points to the flowers and how God clothes them. He tells us that God is good—that God is ABBA, a loving parent. I share Jesus’ optimism.God is. God is what is. This is a philosophical statement. Furthermore, I am. And that I am is proof that I am loved. I am not responsible for my own existence. My parents are not responsible for my existence. They had no idea of who they were bringing into this world. That this “I” that I call “me” came into this world at a certain time in a certain place was purely and simply “an act of God”. My conception and birth were not by luck or by chance. My conception and birth were by choice. I was chosen. This is true of me and it is equally true of each and every one of us. We all are chosen. Jesus said: “You have not chosen me but I have chosen you.” John wrote: “it is not we who loved God, but God loved us” (1 John 4: 10).You and I are works in progress. We are still being created. We are not yet all that we are going to be. Perfection is inhuman because our human condition is such that we can always be better than we are. We both endure and afflict suffering and pain upon ourselves and upon others because we are not yet perfect—we have not reached our ultimate destiny. But someday we are destined to realize fully that we are more than human—that we are God’s children. We came from God and we are returning to God. God didn’t make me—or you—in haste. The stuff that is in me was born in the intense heat of a star that died billions of years ago. The stuff that I am made of was flung out into the universe when that star violently exploded. But then this stuff was reassembled to form new stars and new planets. I have absolutely no idea of how often this happened. Through eons of change and development, some of that stuff took on the form of the building blocks of living substances. In time it formed living cells, probably in a toxic ocean. Then ages and ages later, in the heat of passion, from among billions of living cells, two of these living cells fused in the womb of a specific woman at a specific time in a specific place and I was conceived. The calculation of the odds of any one of us being conceived is beyond the capacity of our most powerful computers. And then after only a few months of growing and developing, I was violently ejected from the sanctuary of the womb. So here I am. What greater blessing can be imagined than the gift of life. What greater proof can there be that we are loved than our very existence? “You have not chosen me but I have chosen you.” And so, even though I am small and weak, even though I am a sinner, I am loved. And “in love there is no room for fear.” posted by Jonah 1:29 PM . . .
