Exodus 3:1-15
“Freedom from Fear”
August 26, 2018
Asking folks what they’re most afraid of is bound to open a can of worms. For some of us it is deeply personal – it could be a fear of flying or needles or germs. This past year a nationwide study was done once again as it has been for the last few years here in the U.S. listing 80 possible fears ranging from sharks to nuclear war and everything in-between and those items to which over half of those polled indicated that they were afraid or very afraid of, at number one, “corrupt government officials,” followed next by the American Healthcare Act, then water pollution and then not having enough money for the future. (Chapman University Survey of American Fears, 2017) That number one fear brings to mind the quote of President John Adams who famously said that, “Fear is the foundation of most governments.”
It was another president who said that “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt uttered those words at the dawn of his presidency at the height of the Great Depression during his first Inaugural Address in 1933, exactly 10 years before Norman Rockwell’s painting of “Freedom from Fear” was published as the fourth in the series in the Saturday Evening Post, using a familiar and sentimental home scene that juxtaposes the love and care of parents for children as they tuck them in for the night with the very real news of the destruction of war. The newspaper that the dad is holding, posed for by Arlington resident Jim Martin who was the only person to appear in all of the Four Freedoms paintings, brings the very real devastation of the Blitz in England home with partially visible headlines that read, “Bombings Kill” and “Horror Hits” in what was a dummy copy that Rockwell requested and our very own Bennington Banner provided. That’s their name on the top of the folded newspaper. Rockwell was known to have said that he didn’t really like this particular painting of his because he said that the theme of it “was based on a rather smug idea. Painted during the bombing of London,” he said, “it was supposed to say ‘thank God we can put our children to bed with a feeling of security, knowing they will not be killed in the night.” Regardless of Rockwell’s own doubts about his work, hundreds of thousands of copies of this painting and the other three Freedoms would bring assurance and hope to our nation during wartime, if not eliminating fear, then at least holding it at bay.
For Moses, the greatness of his commissioning by God is clouded over by a series of worries. For every opportunity that God presents, Moses raises objections – ultimately four in total and then he basically pleads with God to please, please, please send someone else. He does not appear as the strong and powerful leader that we remember. Instead he is anxious and afraid, feeling totally unprepared and frightened of the trust that God wants to place in his hands. Instead of mocking Moses or belittling him, God listens to Moses and comes back with reassurances that his fears can be overcome because God will be with him. God is the faithful one that will still always be there. Moses is being asked to face his fears and sometimes the things that Moses feared actually do happen. He was afraid to face down Pharaoh because he was sure he wouldn’t be heard. And for Pete’s sake, sure enough he had to go back and confront Pharaoh for each of the 10 plagues – frogs, locusts, hail, and darkness and will these ever end? Another day, another plague and one more faceoff. Moses ultimately discovered that if he placed his faith in God, he could do the things that had frightened him at first.
To place our fears in God’s hands is an act of tremendous strength. It is what Jesus worked at whenever his followers operated from a place of fear – in the face of overwhelmingly needy crowds, on a boat in the middle of stormy waters, or in the face of death.
Sadly, probably the greatest challenge tearing our country apart right now is the fear of the other. I know there are folks here in the U.S. who subscribe to a version of Christianity that is very different from my own and I have trouble recognizing the place from which they are moving through the world, much less the version of the Bible that is what they are leaning upon and they scare me. When we operate from a place of fear it is hard to listen to those with whom we disagree. Fear has the ability to take over our emotions, consume our days and nights and sometimes makes us suspend reliance on the parts of our lives that give us our strength at other difficult times. To lean into God is to follow Moses down the path that says, I cannot do this alone and I may not be totally successful but the knowledge that God is with us keeps us from a tendency toward isolation. The freedom from fear image that Rockwell was commissioned to paint may not have been his favorite but he was able to acknowledge through it that when darkness comes there are ways that we work at fighting off that darkness – sometimes that involves remembering and holding close those people and values that are most dear to us.
As we now remember and honor the late Senator John McCain who experienced fear under horrendous conditions of torture and solitary confinement and twice attempted to take his own life in Vietnam, he was still able to offer that, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity to act despite our fears.”
God was not telling Moses that he wasn’t allowed to be afraid. God was assuring Moses that he was to continue to act on behalf of all those who yearned for freedom. His fear was not to have the final word. We are to work through our fears with God’s abiding presence as our strength.
Perhaps we might take to heart the words of Marianne Williamson and her poem, “Our Deepest Fear, which has often been mistakenly attributed to Nelson Mandela:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Freedom from fear may mean that fear will be present in our lives but that it will not have the last word. In a world of so much bitter fighting, where we can often feel weighed down by fear, may we find ways – together and individually – to walk in the light of God’s love. We are going to need such strength as God freely offers, to do the work of justice and mercy in the name of peace, to all God’s people. Amen and amen.