Musings on the Daily Lectionary

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear,
though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

"We will not fear." So says Psalm 46, but I and a lot of other folks have trouble living this. The mountains might not be shaking or the waters roaring, but there's the economy and ever present fears of terrorism. Not to mention politicians and commentators on TV screaming for us to be afraid.

The Bible may insist that God is in charge of history, that even those forces that seem to be opposed to God are actually, in some mysterious way, moving things toward God's purposes. But it can be difficult to see that. Perhaps God is in charge of my spiritual well being. Perhaps God can safeguard my soul, but God seems pretty far removed from stock market tumbles that affect my retirement account, from political rancor that polarizes and paralyzes, from rogue nations bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.

As human knowledge has advanced over the years, the things we attribute to supernatural causes have steadily diminished so that God is directly in charge of less and less. And we sometimes seem to think that God can only be in charge of those things that we don't understand how they work. That makes it pretty hard to trust that God is our refuge, that we will not fear no matter how messed up the world might seem.

I suppose it's a good thing that God's faithfulness is not dependent on our trusting God. God's love for us simply is. 1 John says that we are able to love only because God first loved us. It also says "perfect love casts out fear." Hmmm. There seems to be an awful lot of hate, anger, yelling, and screaming in our culture. Is this because we're afraid, or is it actually creating more fear. If love casts our fear does hate add to it?

What if loving our neighbors, even loving our enemies, is less an ethical command and more a statement of faith, something we can do only if God's love transforms us, becomes so much our refuge and strength that we are no longer afraid.

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