Fear the Lord Your God
The language of Maritimers is often colourful and peppered with expressions. One expression that I grew up hearing a lot was when something was terrorising was that it struck the fear of God in you. "My grade one teacher yelled so loud that she struck the fear of God in all of us."
The Psalmist writes, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. " x2
Now, if I think that God wants me to be terrified of him I cannot see how that could be the beginning of wisdom. I struggled with this phrase for a long time until I asked a professor of mine, Peter Wyatt, what the fear of the Lord means. Why should we be afraid of God?
Peter said, "We have a lack of fear of God in our society. We have a lack of wisdom, caring and compassion."
We were at downtown Toronto together and he stretched his arm out to the streets of the city. He said, "When there is a man driving his BMW down the street and his number one concern is where he is going to find a parking spot and then there is another man who lives on the street and his number one concern is where he is going to sleep that night, there is a lack of fear of God in our society. There is a lack of wisdom, caring and compassion."
Ok, so we don't live in downtown Toronto, we don't see those extremes in wealth. By in large we live in a community where people have job opportunities and those who are down on their luck are taken care of by their families. Do we lack a fear of God?
When I say fear, I don't mean that we should be terrorised that God is going to get us; that God is going to strike us down with lightening or send us to hell because we have done something wrong. Rather, I mean fear of God as in awesome reverence for God - a respect for God's opinion - a sense that we are accountable to God. This, according to the Psalmist, is the beginning of wisdom.
I have a friend whose uncle is a drop out dad. He doesn't even have photos of his first family around the house. He rarely sees his grown children, mostly during family get-togethers and special occasions. I wonder if he lacks a fear of God, if he has thought of the explanation he will give to God when he dies.
Do we fear God? Do I fear God? Does that awesome reverence and sense of accountability affect the way I live my life?
While on vacation we rented the movie the Green Mile, staring Tom Hanks. Its a story about the relationship that grows between Tom Hank's character, who is the head of security at a Louisiana prison's death row and a 7-foot, simple-minded, gentle black man who is incarcerated there and will be electrocuted, a character by the name of John Coffey. John Coffey's initials tell you something about his role in the film's ethical and spiritual scheme of things.
As the film develops, we learn that John Coffey has a mysterious and mystical gift. We learn that he is able to heal people and bring mice back to life. We learn that he is a precious gift from God. The audience learns this and so do the prison guards.
Tom Hanks' character realises that this gift from God is an innocent soul who is caught in a world of violence and injustice. So he goes to him and asks John Coffey what he wants him to do. He says, "Do you want me to open the gates and see how far you can get, how far you can run away from this prison."
John Coffey replies, "Now why would you go and do such a fool thing?"
Ton Hanks' answers, "When I die and meet my maker; when I am judged on my judgement day. I don't want to say that I killed a gifted angel because I was just doing my job."
That is a healthy fear of the Lord. Not terror but respect for God and accountable to God. We are accountable.
Do we have a healthy fear of God? Do we respect God and feel accountable to God? And how does our awesome reverence for God affect the way we live our lives? If we thought about our accountability to God, if we thought about our judgement day, like the character in the Green Mile, we would treat people differently, wouldn't we?
Wouldn't we wish well for everyone? I've heard people begrudge others success. I've heard people angry because others have wealth but they didn't work for it. I've heard people wish for other's misfortune.
In our society, in our capitalist society we think we deserve what we get. We think we have earned what we have. But the message of the scriptures is just the opposite. The message of the scriptures is that God loves us and cares for us even when we don't deserve it and sometimes especially when we don't deserve it. And there is even a special word for that - its called Grace.
We live in a wonderful and wealthy town in a wonderful and wealthy province in a wealthy and wonderful country and we don't deserve a bit of it. This is what Christianity is based on. The idea is that it is absolutely impossible to get to heaven on our own merits. We are supposed to realise that we are completely undeserving of God's grace, God's eternal life, God's wisdom and so we beg and cry out to God to have mercy on us. And God will have mercy on us, and we will receive eternal life even though we have done nothing to deserve of it.
As long as we fear God we will not become arrogant. As long as we fear God we will not forget we are undeserving. As long as we fear God we need not fear for our lives. Amen.
