God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 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. 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. We love because he first loved us. 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. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
I only say the part in bold, but what can I say? I'm a stickler for context who has a hard time dealing with proof texted sermons. (One would do well not to commit sins that are one's pet peeves in others. I John, chapter 4, for those of you who like to check up on people to make sure they're not making stuff up and calling it scripture.) Perfect love casts out fear. I spent time in my teens with people obsessed with spiritual warfare. Pentecostal types who call themselves non denominational. They liked to talk about spirits and demons a lot. Spirit of fear, demon of fear, spirit of profanity (OOPS, I'm in trouble), spirit of homosexuality, spirit of compulsive shopping, spirit of sugar addictions, spirits of depression and, as Christy Lyn would say, a partridge and a pear tree. There was a lot of magical thinking involved, what can I say? In my teens, I thought of fear as a very nasty, very tiny demon that did a lot of big damage.
I haven't really stopped thinking that way about fear. Fear is a very powerful thing. It is very useful at times, but at others, it makes us do stupid things. Stupid, cowardly, short sighted things. I don't even remember when the phrase became important to me, but it is. Perfect love casts out fear. Perfect love. God's perfect love casts out fear. That thing that keeps you from doing the things you know you ought to do. That makes you think you shouldn't speak up about things that you know are wrong. Perfect love casts out fear.
Last Sunday, as I arrived for services worried sick and frightened for my family because a relative was near death, I found myself being asked to read those words from the lectern. . Perfect love casts out fear. I needed to hear that, and I was about to have to deliver it to the whole congregation. The assembly of the upright who manage to deal with the busyness of May and still make it to church. (The faithful remnant, if you will) I stumbled. I didn't get the phrasing right. I fell victim to the dreadful commas. But there it was, amplified by the sound system and the way I read in large space. Perfect love casts out fear.
I was still afraid for my family. I knew God was there in the midst of all this, and I know that there are some wounds that just can't heal on earth, but this man was an absolutely enormous presence in their lives. He was in mine too, in a different way. No matter how long it had been since I'd seen him, when I did, I knew that he loved me. He made me feel important. I felt the impact of this today at his funeral. A whole room full of people who had benefited from being loved by this brilliant man. I don't think we need to be afraid anymore. The things we'd feared have come to pass and the things we hope for are to come in a way that will be perfect.
We love God because he first loved us. We still have fear because we have not reached perfection in love but we will. Perfect love, God's perfect love, casts out fear. He doesn't take our pain away, but he shares it with us, and in doing so sanctifies it and us. We don't have to be afraid because we are not alone. I pray that some day we will reach perfection in love, but until then we need to keep trying. Keep remembering. Keep whispering under our breath.
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