The Power of Fear

'When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him."'

--Matthew 21: 22-32

When I was a kid one of the most terrifying comic book villains I knew was the Scarecrow, who is a member of Batman’s rogues gallery that specializes in fear.  He doesn’t have any supernatural powers, instead Scarecrow preys on the people’s everyday fears and exploits them for his gain.  As a kid I had nightmares about the Scarecrow because the weapon he utilized was the most real weapon of all, the weapon of fear. 

Scarecrow.  The stuff of nightmares!

Fear is incredibly powerful.  It can paralyze us, drive us into mental and emotional instability, and destroy our relationships.  So often the Scriptures show us examples of how powerful fear can be.  Adam and Eve feared God when they found out they were naked.  Jonah feared being a prophet and ran away from God.  Peter feared letting Gentiles join the church, afraid of what change might occur.  There may be no characters in our biblical narrative, however, that are more controlled by their fears than the religious authority figures of Jesus’ time. 

Whether we're talking about the elders, scribes, chief priests, or Pharisees, all of these folks fell in the same category:  religious fundamentalists who were terrified when they saw the rapidly changing religious landscape around them. Perhaps no one embodied their fears quite like John the Baptizer.  He was a member of a group called the Essenes, who had retreated into the dessert when the corruption in the cities became too much to handle.  Out there, away from security of the Temple and their Roman overseers, who provided protection in return for obedience, the religious authorities came face-to-face with their greatest fear, a madman who was calling people to repent of their sins and inviting them to do so through a new form of mikvah, the Jewish ritual bath. While the people adored him for the bold ways that he spoke truth to power, the people in power themselves were scared to death of John. 

At the end of the day, though, they could ignore John since, after all, he spent all of his time wailing in the dessert.  They could not ignore Jesus.  Unlike John, Jesus walked the city streets with the Pharisees and ate dinner with them.  He spoke among the chief priests, unpacking the Scriptures and teaching right alongside them and the synagogue elders, all the while doing so with a kind of authority that none of them had ever seen before.  They thought, because he wasn't as crazy as John, that they could control him.  They were wrong.  They thought because he was a simple carpenter from a town that was not supposed to produce a prophet--or any thing good, for that matter--that they could trick him or foil his schemes.  They could not.  Ultimately, it is they who get tricked, as we read in this passage from Matthew, which is among the last times that Jesus visits the Jerusalem Temple.  Here the great fears of the authorities come shining through. 

You see, the authorities were the kinds of folks that, because of their fears, tried to play both sides. They desperately tried to maintain their positions by denouncing John as a demon and consistently conspiring against Jesus., who they called a false prophet.  Yet their fears of losing those positions also caused them to acquiesce to the crowds who loved John and Jesus and regarded them as prophets, if not more. Their fears of change, of losing their power, of being exposed for the hypocrites that they were, drove nearly every decision that they made.  What's more, if we read through the lines of dialogue between them and Jesus we can see just how ashamed they are.  They know what they're doing.  Yet in order to keep their positions, out of tremendous fear, they maintain their front.  They lie to all sides in order to gain favor, and their shame grips them. Even in the above passage, when Jesus asks them to declare whether John’s baptisms were of human origin or divine, they are too fearful, to ashamed, to say anything; afraid of Jesus’ judgment if they say it was from heaven, and afraid of the crowds if they say it was not. They cannot even come up with an answer.  Why?  Because they are ashamed.

Shame is one of the most oppressive by-products of fear.  Shame causes us to throw up walls around ourselves, out of fear that if people see the real person inside they will hate us.  Shame tells us to pretend that everything is ok, that we must maintain our public image and put on a happy face, for fear that if we let our true emotions out something terrible will happen.  Shame forces us to lie to others, to ourselves, and even to God, in order to maintain the facade that everything is ok.  The religious authorities were shameful lot, and they projected that shame onto others—especially folks like the tax collectors and prostitutes that Jesus mentioned.  Rather than address their own fear, the authorities shamed folks like these, saying they were the real problem, stigmatizing them and forcing them out of their worship spaces, all the while reassuring folks that they themselves were perfectly fine.  That’s some mighty powerful shame that comes from some mighty powerful fear.

Yet Jesus takes that fear, that shame away, even from the tax collectors and prostitutes.  They had been shamed by the authorities and their communities, and surely they lived in fear.  In spite of all of that, they knew Jesus, the one person who said to them, "Bring that shame and fear to me, and I will give you a new life beyond all of that!"  They knew that to truly know Jesus meant that they didn’t have to be ashamed anymore, that their fear did not have to rule their lives.  They got it in a way that the authorities never could because they were able to let go of their old selves, able to let Jesus truly take up residents in their hearts.  The authorities fought this took and nail, but the "sinners" knew:  Truly loving God and knowing Jesus means they don’t have to be fearful or ashamed.  That’s why Paul says in chapter 1 of Romans that he is not ashamed of the Gospel--the Gospel was as losing story, and the cross was the ultimate symbol of shame, yet Paul rejoices in them--and why the First Letter of John, chapter 4, says that perfect love--that is, the love of Jesus--casts out fear.  If we know Jesus, really and truly, we need not be fearful or ashamed. 

What are you most fearful of right now?  Are you fearful of losing something or letting go?  Are you fearful of some great change or the uncertainties of the future?  Has your fear taken you to a place of shame, where you beat yourself up or throw on a nice face just so folks can’t get inside?  Today I invite you to give all of that to Jesus.  We Anglicans talk about "knowing Jesus" in our heads and hearts, but I'm talking about literally.  Hand off your fear, and tell Jesus your shame (he sees all of it, anyway!).  If you attend a church, the next time you come to the Communion rail, lay those burdens down as you take Jesus in your very hands. Fear is absolutely the most real, most powerful weapon there is, and if left alone it will ultimately destroy us from the inside out, as it eventually destroyed those religious authorities.  But we have Jesus!  And when we empty ourselves of our fear and shame, all that is left is him and his love.  We need not give in to fear, brothers and sisters, but merely abide in to the love of Jesus that casts out all shame and fear.