Fear … our new opiate
Mr Marx used to say that ‘Religion was the opiate of the people.’ That is, religion is a facile drug used to calm and placate us when the going got a bit boisterous. He would argue that Religion gave us illusory happiness, a bit like smoking something you shouldn’t or a couple of glasses of red cordial. His point was that religion didn’t actually confront the cause of the angst, but rather it was like some happy gas that just soothed our symptoms and helped us forget that we had a problem.
I never actually subscribed to this theory. After all, what was calming about the Garden of Gethsemane? What is soothing about being nailed to a cross? What is illusory about being a single, teenage, peasant, unwed mother? Surely one of the benefits of worshipping the Master is that he is right here in the midst of the yuckiest times in our lives and doesn’t slink away from us pretending that there is nothing to see here. What’s more, Our Lord takes to himself our ghastly experiences and makes them his own. He makes them Holy. So the experience of dying and death is God’s experience as well.
But can I put it to you that there is a new opiate that we in our privileged 21st century, just can’t seem to get enough of and that opiate is fear. The briefest glance at any screen, or any device, will feed us with lashings of fear.
Everything from the fear that our footy team might lose to the fear of higher taxes, the fear of being homeless to the fear of how the homeless might impinge on our lives. The fear of sudden, macabre and grizzly death, the fear of death itself or the process of dying. The fear of the rich and powerful and the fear of having our identity stolen. The fear of being assaulted or the fear of being embezzled. The fear of change, the fear of the unknown.
Fear is a bully and it seems that we can’t get enough of him.
Counter to all of this are Jesus’ words from this morning's gospel. Do not fear
And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.
And this is not an isolated text. From as far back as Abraham in the book of Genesis to Revelation when John falls at the feet of an angel, we get the mantra ‘Do not be afraid’.
In all, there are a minimum of 76 times when God says to someone “Do not be afraid”. It seems that we need to be continuously reminded that the Good guy is actually on our side and that fear is one of the bad guys’ most subtle and powerful tricks.
Fear leads to a muddled head and a bewildered heart. Without us realising it, our faith can find itself a little shaken and stirred.
Now we do need to be honest and say that it is normal to be afraid sometimes. It’s part of our whole survival technique. The whole fight for flight thing. And for your reflection, you might want to spend a bit of quiet time thinking about who you are afraid of, what you are afraid of and why you are we afraid. If we can work out why we are afraid of this, that, or the other person… then we might learn to our blessed relief that our fears are not woolly mammoth size at all and there might be some strategies we can put in place so that at the very least our fear is manageable.
Something else that might help is a little mantra that I shamelessly pinched from that internet thing they have nowadays.
God first. Others second. Me last.
So when we are confronted by something that unsettles us we should have no hesitation in kicking it upstairs. God first, others second, and me last.
God first. What does the Master ask of me in this situation?
Others second. How can I best serve them?
Me last. I find my fulfilment, my deepest and most lasting sense of satisfaction and joy when I get my priorities right. When all is placed safely in the pierced hands of the Master who loves me, fear is diminished and we see everything in its rightful perspective. Fear is something transitory with the really big battle already won.
And this makes sense for the rest of our very tricky and confronting gospel reading.
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me”.
He’s not saying you should loathe your pesky parents and your siblings, but rather start with God’s love and let everything else flow out from there. It’s all about getting the priorities right. Then everything else tumbles down into its rightful place.
“God first. Others second. Me last.” The antidote to fear. (Jesus - Others - Yourself = JOY)