Midweek Faith Lift
January 22, 2020
Perfect Love Casts Out Fear
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that,” said Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We begin today with a quote from Rev. King that is not as well known as his “I have a dream” speech, which came much later in his ministry. We honor Dr. King as a civil rights activist, but what is most true about him is that he was Rev. King, a black Baptist minister first, and that made all the difference. In these troubled times where hate speech and hate-filled actions dominate race consciousness, we are called to remember that first of all, Martin Luther King was a minister, a preacher, whose commitment to God, to that which is greater than himself, came first. And it was out of that anchored space in spiritual faith that his nonviolent campaign for civil rights, for human rights grew.
We forget that and we want to skip to the “Dream Speech” because it feels better to join with King in that dream and somehow see it as coming true. We want to forget the religious aspects of the civil rights movement and just see the successes. I know I do! What we miss when we do that is the struggle, the courage, the self-mastery and the deep, spiritual power of faith that it took to get to that place. What informed that struggle, that journey was King’s deeply held rootedness in his identity as “minister.” Around the time of his writing “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, in one of his sermons, he stated it this way:
Before I was a civil rights leader, I was a preacher of the Gospel. This was my first calling and it still remains my greatest commitment. You know, actually all that I do in civil rights I do because I consider it a part of my ministry. I have no other ambitions in life but to achieve excellence in the Christian ministry. I don't plan to run for any political office. I don't plan to do anything but remain a preacher. And what I'm doing in this struggle, along with many others, grows out of my feeling that the preacher must be concerned about the whole man.~ Rev. Dr. King.
So what does that mean to be concerned about the whole human being? Well, for King, it meant that he had to delve deep into learning about nonviolence, because he initially did not embrace it. He owned guns to protect his family and himself. As he grew in consciousness, he became aware of Gandhi and the path of nonviolent resistance as a way of impactful protest. He became aware of and informed by the Quakers and pacifist preachers and leaders of the social gospel in American Christianity such as Rheinhold Neihbur. King had to study, learn and face his own fears. When he was called by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to lead the civil rights protests, he initially resisted it. He had to pray about it to really know if that was his calling as a minister.
King was a gifted orator and gained much recognition and attention because of his inspirational speaking skills. What we don’t hear is the back-story that he struggled with depression all his life and that he often wondered if what he was doing or saying was really changing the hearts and minds of Americans. He wondered that up until the time of his death in 1968, because as he talked about empowering the Negro to claim a rightful share of the wealth and prosperity of this country, he began to experience pushback. And as he spoke against the Vietnam War, he experienced pushback. All these years later, we can wonder with him if things really changed at depth in our collective consciousness. And we sit with the question of what does it take for collective transformation, for our collective consciousness to really shift?
As I researched King’s life and looked more carefully into his journey, I learned that one of the passages in the Christian Scripture that was his anchor was from the following passage in 1 John 4: 16-20
1 John 4: 13-20
God is Love
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15 God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God.
16 So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.
What a powerful Scripture that is! The antidote to fear is perfect love. How do we do that, how do we recognize that and make it a reality? That question is as real for us today as it was in first Century Palestine, as it was during the Civil Rights movement of King, as it is in the #Me too movement today. We can get so sidetracked by our version of “what is right” and “how things should be” that our ego blindly drives our choices. I can certainly go there. And it would have been easy for King, with his powerful oratory to go there, to stop questioning his motivations, to stop exploring, to stop learning and expanding his spiritual consciousness. But King did not do that, and neither should we.
It would be easy, these days to become cynical and embittered, but that is not the path of love. It would be easy to just drop out and hide in a consciousness of fear, but that is not the path of love. We are called by King to face our fears, to be courageous, and to master fear through perfect love. In his sermon, “The Mastery of Fear or Antidotes for Fear” that is the basis for our Interfaith service this afternoon, King writes:
Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear, only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life, love releases it. Hatred confuses life, love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life, love lightens it. Hatred has chronic eye trouble—it cannot see very far; love has sound eyes—it can see beneath the surface and beyond the outer masks. (p.541)
If we are going to embrace love and the sound eyes and clear vision that King offers as an antidote to fear, we are going to need to embrace one more antidote that he recommends and that is faith.
The faith of which King speaks is a spiritual power, an energy of faith that comes from deep within us and also from the Source of all Life that is greater than we are. It calls us to be strong hearted when we feel faint-hearted. It is a robust faith that supports us in holding space for the possibilities that the sound eyes of love can see. It is the “assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things not yet seen” Hebrews 11:1. We can only hold a conviction of love when we walk in the power of faith, a faith that is greater than ourselves.
When I was in Seminary, lo those many years ago, we had to write a paper that was to be our Credo; what we believe, our faith. And for the life of me, I could not do it. Seminary has a way of shaking you up and dumping out everything you think you know and believe right there on the ground, in front of you. And I was left with the question, “What the hell did I really believe?” For which I had no longer had an answer. Faith was not a list of statements to which I could just give my assent. It had to be much deeper that that, more challenging than that.
When I found the writings of the theologian Marcus Borg, I began to find a path to how to be with this question. In his writings I learned that in the Middle Ages, the words “I believe” were actually translated as “I belove.” Ah, that was it, what is it that I belove, what is it that I could give my heart to? And that is the question of faith that all of us are challenged by today. What is it that we give our hearts to in this current age of anxiety and discord?
It is not an easy question and each answer is our unique response. It is a question of love, the love that has clear vision in this year of 2020. It is a love that is like gravity; it attracts and holds us all together despite our resistance. It is a love that harmonizes, and like gravity, it leaves no one out; no one. And that makes love, the perfect love that does not punish, does not exact revenge or retribution, but the perfect love does cast out fear. How will we answer the call of love that is the antidote to fear? It is more learning to live with the question of how do we show up in love, and it is not an easy path.
I want to leave you with words from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, another one of my favorites.
Patient Trust
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb