Fear of Faith

Exodus 14:10-15:2

There is a story so true that we find it hard to believe, difficult to face, easy to fear.  It is the tale of who we are, wrestling in the dirt with who we long to be.  The story goes something like this:

“Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river.  The current of the river swept silently over them all- young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.  Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current is what each had learned from birth.  But one creature said at last, “I am tired of clinging.  Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going.  I shall let go, and let it take me where it will.  Clinging, I shall die of boredom.” The other creatures laughed and said, “Fool!  Let go and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!”  But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.  Yet in time as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom and he was bruised and hurt no more.  And the creature downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, “See a miracle!  A creature like ourselves, yet he flies!  See the messiah, come to save us all!”  And the one carried in the current said, “I am no more the messiah than you.  The river delights to lift us free, if we only we dare let go.  Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.”  

This tale from the book Illusions is our shared story.  It is the epic drama of the human heart- because clinging is what most of us do best.  We don’t hang on because it is the way our lives are most illumined, we hang on because that is what we know, it is what the memories in our muscles have taught us to do, it is the battle for survival, the dual with fear, the dance with what is familiar.  The trouble is, that if we are to follow God fully, if we yearn to live abundantly, clinging is not an option, and yet we find that the pounding against the familiar rocks to be a safe kind of pain, a pain worth enduring, a pain we have known for years upon years, even generations.  It is the pain of bondage, chained to the rock and the twigs in the rolling river of living.  It is pain shared by the Israelites as they faced the possibility of loosening the tight grip of their fingers on the rocks and daring to see what could be ahead.  The Israelites were used to living in fear, under the hardened hand of Pharaoh and now was their chance to leave bondage in the dust to start fresh, to let go.  They were being chased by the Egyptians as they were attempting to escape slavery and they ran and ran and in great fear they cried out in pain to God and they pleaded with Moses their leader, why would you do this, why would you lead us here to die in the wilderness when we could have died more peacefully in Egypt?  They cried out for the rock they knew and the familiar pain of Egyptian slavery.  They lamented to anyone who would listen, to God and to Moses, why?  Why?  Why would you do this to us?  Their souls were cracked and weeping from years of living in secret with God.  Their bodies were battered and bruised from the pounding of clinging.  And then they said aloud words that we say to God each time the path feels dark and the pain of the pounding of the river feels too safe to leave behind, words that would break Moses’ heart- the Israelites cried out, “For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”  We want to go back, take us back to the rock, to the pain, to the place we know.  It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians, to live in slavery than to face this unknown, this change, this fear, this wilderness ahead. 

It is a story so true that we find it hard to believe, difficult to face, easy to fear.  It is the tale of who we are, wrestling in the dirt with who we long to be.  We want to be free to live and love to ride with ease on the river of God, but clinging is what we do best.  We cling to unhealthy relationships, we endure the pain of holding on and we choose the bondage of being battered about over the fear of faith, the fear of what lies ahead, the fear of the mystery.  We cling to jobs that suffocate us and habits that kill us.  We cling to answers from politicians and religious leaders over the unknown world beyond what has always been.  We cling to our own small view over venturing beyond. Clinging is what we do best.  But friends, this moment, this day, this season in this place, it is time for us to leave behind fearing faith.  This season at the Cotuit Federated Church is about getting unstuck, being freed to let go of our rock in the wild river.  This season is about letting the current take us and believing that what lies ahead is better than the place to which we have been clinging. 

With all of their being the Israelites wanted to turn back.  They wanted pain over the wilderness.  They wanted freedom, they wanted life abundant, but not if it meant time in the traveling the dark path of questions and the battering of the rapids.  But they didn’t turn back.  They stood on the threshold, on the edge of the unknown and put one foot in front of the other.  They didn’t turn back and probably only because they were together, they faced the fear of faith, the fear of letting go together. 

Moses said to his people, “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today…” Their story is our story, it is a story so true that we find it hard to believe, difficult to face, easy to fear.  But faith is not a destination we seek to find, faith comes to us by trying to let go. Rabbi Abraham Heschel believed that we don’t take leaps of faith, but instead leaps of action.  Or steps of action, one finger, one fear filled minute at a time we let go of the rock to which we are clinging. And we let go not because we want to, but because we have to- our true work is this adventure.  And we will surely be tumbled and we will hit rocks, but this is why we are here, we are invited to do this, to let go, to be freed, to find life together. We hear these holy words, “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today…” This is our story, our journey, the tale of who we are, wrestling in the dirt with who we long to be.  The story goes something like this, but your ending is yet to be written.  Amen.

Richard Bach, Illusions:  The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, A Dell/Eleanor Friede Book 1977. Pp. 6-10.