"Fear & Love" - A Lenten Sermon by Mark Mattes
The occasion for this sermon was an invitation to preach at a midweek Lenten service at Grace Lutheran in Des Moines, Iowa. I felt honored to be asked but was disconcerted about the theme of that year’s Lenten services, “From Fear to Love.” The theme sounded therapeutic, and it seemed out of touch with the explanations of the commandments in the Small Catechism, where we are enjoined to “fear and love” God. How is it, I wondered, that this foundational spirituality, repeated so many times in the Catechism, was eclipsed? Wouldn’t the Catechism’s theme be more appropriate to Lent? And, what kind of God is involved with this proposed therapeutic approach? Was it really the God we encounter in the scriptures or does it not come across like some pushover for our felt needs? With those thoughts I proceeded to run with the theme in the Catechism and depart from the therapeutic theme—knowing that I may offend some.
Since I was given liberty to choose my own text for the message, I chose one over which I have long puzzled—that story of Uzzah’s attempt to steady the ark of the covenant and his being struck down by God. This is a passage which has always both troubled and fascinated me. It would seem that Uzzah is struck down because of ritual impurity—not doing something unethical but something religiously impure. How could that possibly be fair on God’s part? Doesn’t that make God to be some kind of moral monster? And, just with that question I find the text fascinating. What kind of God is it with whom we deal in the Bible—one that spares the life of the adulterer and killer David but takes the life of a well-intentioned priest like Uzzah. Rather than offering a theodicy, I chose to go with this offense and lift it up before the congregation. The God encountered here in this story is not one to which one can appeal therapeutically. This is an untamed God, one that doesn’t seem to play by the rules, one that on first encounter may seem quite offensive. This is a God we must fear because we have no basis from which to manipulate him.
But such a God over whom we have no control and about whom we can only fear proves himself to be a God who promises to take care of his own and makes good on his promise in Jesus Christ. Like Uzzah we are not beyond his redemption. Indeed God refuses to let anger define his life. Instead it is the covenant, the promise, Jesus Christ himself as God’s love, which defines his life. But finally that is a message which can only be delivered through preaching, not one which can be demonstrated through philosophical analysis.
As I remember the congregation, including the pastor, was surprised but grateful at the direction I took. They felt that they had encountered a word more powerful than therapy, one on which they could bank their lives.
Since I was given liberty to choose my own text for the message, I chose one over which I have long puzzled—that story of Uzzah’s attempt to steady the ark of the covenant and his being struck down by God. This is a passage which has always both troubled and fascinated me. It would seem that Uzzah is struck down because of ritual impurity—not doing something unethical but something religiously impure. How could that possibly be fair on God’s part? Doesn’t that make God to be some kind of moral monster? And, just with that question I find the text fascinating. What kind of God is it with whom we deal in the Bible—one that spares the life of the adulterer and killer David but takes the life of a well-intentioned priest like Uzzah. Rather than offering a theodicy, I chose to go with this offense and lift it up before the congregation. The God encountered here in this story is not one to which one can appeal therapeutically. This is an untamed God, one that doesn’t seem to play by the rules, one that on first encounter may seem quite offensive. This is a God we must fear because we have no basis from which to manipulate him.
But such a God over whom we have no control and about whom we can only fear proves himself to be a God who promises to take care of his own and makes good on his promise in Jesus Christ. Like Uzzah we are not beyond his redemption. Indeed God refuses to let anger define his life. Instead it is the covenant, the promise, Jesus Christ himself as God’s love, which defines his life. But finally that is a message which can only be delivered through preaching, not one which can be demonstrated through philosophical analysis.
As I remember the congregation, including the pastor, was surprised but grateful at the direction I took. They felt that they had encountered a word more powerful than therapy, one on which they could bank their lives.
The Sermon
From “From Fear to Love” to “Fear and Love” of God: A Lenten Devotion
Lesson: 2 Samuel 6:3-10
“They carried the ark of God on a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart with the ark of God, and Ahio went in front of the ark. David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the LORD with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. The anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God. David was angry because the LORD had burst forth with an outburst upon Uzzah; so that the place is called Perez-Uzzah to this day. David was afraid of the LORD that day; he said, “How can the ark of the LORD come into my care?” So David was unwilling to take the ark of the LORD into his care in the city of David; instead David took it to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.”
I was struck by the topic of our Lenten Worship services: “from fear to love.” I can understand the importance of this topic. Many people’s lives are empty and meaningless because they are enveloped in various fears and anxieties. Surely in the church we can affirm that the Gospel comes to liberate us from fear because it offers us a God with whom we can entrust our lives. However, as I meditated on our Lenten theme, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Luther’s explanations to the 10 Commandments in the Small Catechism. Luther explains every commandment with the phrase: we should fear and love God. As you remember, he says we should fear and love God so that, for example, we honor God above all things, and not merely use God for our own interests. Or, we shouldn’t hurt our neighbor in any way but instead seek to help him or her. If we are concerned about “moving from fear to love,” why does Luther tell us to both fear and love? Is this really what hurting people need to hear? What could Luther possibly mean? And, how does he speak to us today?
When we hear Luther telling us to fear God, perhaps we remember pastors and teachers who have told us that what Luther really meant by this instruction is that we should respect God rather than be terrified by God. In our contemporary setting, it is tempting for me to reinforce this reading of Luther for you. If Luther really meant that we should actually be afraid of God rather than merely having a healthy respect for God, then perhaps some people might leave church feeling bad about themselves. The vast majority of us wouldn’t want that. We’ve come to believe that a chief mission of the church is to help people feel good about themselves. We associate the “bad old days” with a view of religion as repressive—religion that shames people or makes them feel guilty. Indeed, some Christians thought that they had an inside track into God’s ways; in their opinion they could discern who, how, and why God was punishing someone. They were happy to tell people what they supposedly “knew.” We can be grateful that these traits are lessening among Christians.
However, I was curious as to what Luther really meant, despite what we might want him to mean. In reading his conclusion to the 10 Commandments, he makes his meaning quite clear: “God threatens to punish all who transgress these commandments. We should therefore fear his wrath and not disobey these commandments. On the other hand, he promises grace and every blessing to all who keep them. We should therefore love him, trust in him, and cheerfully do what he has commanded.” It doesn’t sound to me that Luther actually means what we would call “respect” when he talks about fear. It seems he really means fear when he says fear, specifically fear of punishment due to our sins. This must sound awfully strange to us. We have long come to think of God as one who has “unconditional positive regard” for us, a God who never threatens us because God is only capable of affirming us. After all, isn’t it God’s business to forgive, as the French scholar Voltaire taught us? We don’t want anyone to feel bad about himself or herself in church. However, don’t we inhibit the chances or opportunities for people to repent of their sins, if all we ever want to offer them is a God who is affirming and never angry? Isn’t there a good chance that if I truly repent of my sin, I just might feel bad about myself? It seems that the kind of religion that we have invented is the one H. R. Niebuhr described as offering a God without wrath who brings people without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross. Even in our current cultural climate in which we tend to think that no one should feel bad about himself or herself, shouldn’t we at least feel bad about the wrong behaviors we have done? Shouldn’t we fear God’s anger at our sin? Wouldn’t God care enough to stand up for the victims we have hurt or wronged?
In our first lesson, David learned to fear God. And it seems this was a good thing. For David to fear God was for him to understand a truth about God. This truth is: if God is to be honored, he must be honored for his own sake, and not just because of what he can do for us. Uzzah saw the ark slipping. He took this to mean that God needed his help. He assumed that if he didn’t help God, the ark might fall. It might be soiled. It might be broken. It, a holy thing, might touch the earth. The ark is properly God’s—but from Uzzah’s view, it’s a symbol of his—or our—religion. We can’t afford to have it broken or soiled. It represents our values, and not just God’s deity.
In his own view, Uzzah is doing God a favor. What Uzzah doesn’t understand is that God is lord even over his own ark. He doesn’t need our favors. Perhaps Uzzah is inclined to look at God as needing his help because he primarily looks at God as there to service him and provide for his perceived needs. If we look at the ark as a symbol of our own religion, that’s exactly how we’d be troubled by the prospect of the ark falling. Aren’t we a lot like Uzzah? We want our religion to help us feel good about ourselves. We are inclined to react negatively to a faith that accuses us of our wrongs. We want our religion to bring cohesiveness to our values, politics, ideals, and communities. Now, many of our values are good and wholesome. Nevertheless, they must be tested and evaluated in light of God’s will. God provides the standard of justice and truth. We, after all, are apt to create idols that heighten our own sense of power. That’s why we need to look to God. We want our religion to justify our politics, whether of the right or the left. We assume that Jesus would be on our side in the various debates that rock our era. We want our religion to provide for our needs of belonging and community; we want it to serve as a kind of social club for us. However, will we sell out on our discipleship to Christ in order to provide for our own perceived needs?
Perhaps in our society today we have too much fear about fear. Maybe fear isn’t always a bad thing. My Aunt Marie told me very clearly when I was about six years old not to touch the hot burner on the stove. Of course, what did I do? You know the answer. Through this experience I learned a healthy fear for heat and electricity. From one perspective, couldn’t we even say that some kinds of fear are natural motivators that God gave us in order to help us survive various dangers in life? Nevertheless, Jesus tells us that many of the things we usually fear are things that are not worthy of our fear. He focuses us instead to fear alone him “who can destroy both body and soul in hell” (Matthew 10:28). Perhaps, many of the various things we fear in this life are things we spend far too much effort and time fearing and the One whom we should fear—because to him we are totally and wholly accountable to—we don’t fear enough. Instead, we deface God by rendering him harmless. Our temptation, like Uzzah’s is to use God for our own interests as if we are the center of it all. We lie to ourselves by trying to control what’s not in our control and let ourselves off the hook in those things that we are responsible for. The ark is God’s, not Uzzah’s, or our own. If God wants it to fall, then so be it!
To have a healthy fear of God is to honor God for his own sake. When Moses encountered God on Mt. Sinai he was duly afraid. When Isaiah encountered God in the temple, he was duly afraid. When Paul encountered the risen Jesus on the Damascus road, he too was duly afraid. If we never have similar experiences, do we really ever encounter the living God of scripture? To fear God is to acknowledge that he is the Lord, and not we ourselves! To encounter the living God is to recognize that we are creatures. It is to recognize that we have no bargaining chips with the powerful one. In things that really matter, he calls all the shots. However, if God is the Lord, then we are free from the attempt to be our own lords or ladies. Instead, as Psalm 100 tells us, we can be the “sheep of his pasture.” Indeed, what’s the context of the 10 Commandments, if not God’s covenanting with his people? God’s covenant is to claim his people as his own. Hence, Luther says: we should fear and love God. We should fear God, because we are not God, and we shouldn’t even try to be God. We have to accept God’s decision to run the world his way—this Uzzah could not do. And, because God claims us as his own, as the One who promises his very own life to us, eternal life, we can love God. From this perspective, we should not assume that even Uzzah’s sin of disbelief could separate him from this covenanting God. God says “no” to our sin so that he can say “yes” to us as his creatures, and in so doing, make us to be his new creatures. If Luther is right, that God is indeed at times an angry God, angry at our sins, angry at the evil we inflict on others and the earth, angry at the injustices and disrespect that we perpetuate and perpetrate, this is only because God is a caring God.
A parent who never gets angry with his or her children is probably a parent who doesn’t truly love them. Because God is love and offers himself to us in Jesus Christ, God cares enough to say “no” to our evil, indeed our attempts to mold religion or spirituality to fit our comfort zone. To fear God as well as to love God is to be in touch with who God actually is. And to be in touch with God permits us to be in touch with the truth about ourselves. To fear and love God allows us to fear earthly problems far less because God’s power and care is able to put all these problems in perspective. This is truly a message that both hurting and non-hurting people can be supported by.
Lesson: 2 Samuel 6:3-10
“They carried the ark of God on a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart with the ark of God, and Ahio went in front of the ark. David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the LORD with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. The anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God. David was angry because the LORD had burst forth with an outburst upon Uzzah; so that the place is called Perez-Uzzah to this day. David was afraid of the LORD that day; he said, “How can the ark of the LORD come into my care?” So David was unwilling to take the ark of the LORD into his care in the city of David; instead David took it to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.”
I was struck by the topic of our Lenten Worship services: “from fear to love.” I can understand the importance of this topic. Many people’s lives are empty and meaningless because they are enveloped in various fears and anxieties. Surely in the church we can affirm that the Gospel comes to liberate us from fear because it offers us a God with whom we can entrust our lives. However, as I meditated on our Lenten theme, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Luther’s explanations to the 10 Commandments in the Small Catechism. Luther explains every commandment with the phrase: we should fear and love God. As you remember, he says we should fear and love God so that, for example, we honor God above all things, and not merely use God for our own interests. Or, we shouldn’t hurt our neighbor in any way but instead seek to help him or her. If we are concerned about “moving from fear to love,” why does Luther tell us to both fear and love? Is this really what hurting people need to hear? What could Luther possibly mean? And, how does he speak to us today?
When we hear Luther telling us to fear God, perhaps we remember pastors and teachers who have told us that what Luther really meant by this instruction is that we should respect God rather than be terrified by God. In our contemporary setting, it is tempting for me to reinforce this reading of Luther for you. If Luther really meant that we should actually be afraid of God rather than merely having a healthy respect for God, then perhaps some people might leave church feeling bad about themselves. The vast majority of us wouldn’t want that. We’ve come to believe that a chief mission of the church is to help people feel good about themselves. We associate the “bad old days” with a view of religion as repressive—religion that shames people or makes them feel guilty. Indeed, some Christians thought that they had an inside track into God’s ways; in their opinion they could discern who, how, and why God was punishing someone. They were happy to tell people what they supposedly “knew.” We can be grateful that these traits are lessening among Christians.
However, I was curious as to what Luther really meant, despite what we might want him to mean. In reading his conclusion to the 10 Commandments, he makes his meaning quite clear: “God threatens to punish all who transgress these commandments. We should therefore fear his wrath and not disobey these commandments. On the other hand, he promises grace and every blessing to all who keep them. We should therefore love him, trust in him, and cheerfully do what he has commanded.” It doesn’t sound to me that Luther actually means what we would call “respect” when he talks about fear. It seems he really means fear when he says fear, specifically fear of punishment due to our sins. This must sound awfully strange to us. We have long come to think of God as one who has “unconditional positive regard” for us, a God who never threatens us because God is only capable of affirming us. After all, isn’t it God’s business to forgive, as the French scholar Voltaire taught us? We don’t want anyone to feel bad about himself or herself in church. However, don’t we inhibit the chances or opportunities for people to repent of their sins, if all we ever want to offer them is a God who is affirming and never angry? Isn’t there a good chance that if I truly repent of my sin, I just might feel bad about myself? It seems that the kind of religion that we have invented is the one H. R. Niebuhr described as offering a God without wrath who brings people without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross. Even in our current cultural climate in which we tend to think that no one should feel bad about himself or herself, shouldn’t we at least feel bad about the wrong behaviors we have done? Shouldn’t we fear God’s anger at our sin? Wouldn’t God care enough to stand up for the victims we have hurt or wronged?
In our first lesson, David learned to fear God. And it seems this was a good thing. For David to fear God was for him to understand a truth about God. This truth is: if God is to be honored, he must be honored for his own sake, and not just because of what he can do for us. Uzzah saw the ark slipping. He took this to mean that God needed his help. He assumed that if he didn’t help God, the ark might fall. It might be soiled. It might be broken. It, a holy thing, might touch the earth. The ark is properly God’s—but from Uzzah’s view, it’s a symbol of his—or our—religion. We can’t afford to have it broken or soiled. It represents our values, and not just God’s deity.
In his own view, Uzzah is doing God a favor. What Uzzah doesn’t understand is that God is lord even over his own ark. He doesn’t need our favors. Perhaps Uzzah is inclined to look at God as needing his help because he primarily looks at God as there to service him and provide for his perceived needs. If we look at the ark as a symbol of our own religion, that’s exactly how we’d be troubled by the prospect of the ark falling. Aren’t we a lot like Uzzah? We want our religion to help us feel good about ourselves. We are inclined to react negatively to a faith that accuses us of our wrongs. We want our religion to bring cohesiveness to our values, politics, ideals, and communities. Now, many of our values are good and wholesome. Nevertheless, they must be tested and evaluated in light of God’s will. God provides the standard of justice and truth. We, after all, are apt to create idols that heighten our own sense of power. That’s why we need to look to God. We want our religion to justify our politics, whether of the right or the left. We assume that Jesus would be on our side in the various debates that rock our era. We want our religion to provide for our needs of belonging and community; we want it to serve as a kind of social club for us. However, will we sell out on our discipleship to Christ in order to provide for our own perceived needs?
Perhaps in our society today we have too much fear about fear. Maybe fear isn’t always a bad thing. My Aunt Marie told me very clearly when I was about six years old not to touch the hot burner on the stove. Of course, what did I do? You know the answer. Through this experience I learned a healthy fear for heat and electricity. From one perspective, couldn’t we even say that some kinds of fear are natural motivators that God gave us in order to help us survive various dangers in life? Nevertheless, Jesus tells us that many of the things we usually fear are things that are not worthy of our fear. He focuses us instead to fear alone him “who can destroy both body and soul in hell” (Matthew 10:28). Perhaps, many of the various things we fear in this life are things we spend far too much effort and time fearing and the One whom we should fear—because to him we are totally and wholly accountable to—we don’t fear enough. Instead, we deface God by rendering him harmless. Our temptation, like Uzzah’s is to use God for our own interests as if we are the center of it all. We lie to ourselves by trying to control what’s not in our control and let ourselves off the hook in those things that we are responsible for. The ark is God’s, not Uzzah’s, or our own. If God wants it to fall, then so be it!
To have a healthy fear of God is to honor God for his own sake. When Moses encountered God on Mt. Sinai he was duly afraid. When Isaiah encountered God in the temple, he was duly afraid. When Paul encountered the risen Jesus on the Damascus road, he too was duly afraid. If we never have similar experiences, do we really ever encounter the living God of scripture? To fear God is to acknowledge that he is the Lord, and not we ourselves! To encounter the living God is to recognize that we are creatures. It is to recognize that we have no bargaining chips with the powerful one. In things that really matter, he calls all the shots. However, if God is the Lord, then we are free from the attempt to be our own lords or ladies. Instead, as Psalm 100 tells us, we can be the “sheep of his pasture.” Indeed, what’s the context of the 10 Commandments, if not God’s covenanting with his people? God’s covenant is to claim his people as his own. Hence, Luther says: we should fear and love God. We should fear God, because we are not God, and we shouldn’t even try to be God. We have to accept God’s decision to run the world his way—this Uzzah could not do. And, because God claims us as his own, as the One who promises his very own life to us, eternal life, we can love God. From this perspective, we should not assume that even Uzzah’s sin of disbelief could separate him from this covenanting God. God says “no” to our sin so that he can say “yes” to us as his creatures, and in so doing, make us to be his new creatures. If Luther is right, that God is indeed at times an angry God, angry at our sins, angry at the evil we inflict on others and the earth, angry at the injustices and disrespect that we perpetuate and perpetrate, this is only because God is a caring God.
A parent who never gets angry with his or her children is probably a parent who doesn’t truly love them. Because God is love and offers himself to us in Jesus Christ, God cares enough to say “no” to our evil, indeed our attempts to mold religion or spirituality to fit our comfort zone. To fear God as well as to love God is to be in touch with who God actually is. And to be in touch with God permits us to be in touch with the truth about ourselves. To fear and love God allows us to fear earthly problems far less because God’s power and care is able to put all these problems in perspective. This is truly a message that both hurting and non-hurting people can be supported by.
