Fear no one.
Biblical scholars maintain the phrase, “do not be afraid” or “fear not”
is mentioned 365 times in the Bible,
one for every day of the year.
Jesus says it the majority of the time to his disciples,
constantly reminding them, “Do not be afraid” and “Fear no one.”
And so, what is the root of fear?
Where does fear come from?
And what causes it?
Physiologically, it comes from the amygdala inside your brain.
The amygdala is right beside the hippocampus.
It is in the frontal part of our temporal lobe;
in one of the more ancient parts of our brain.
It is the center of where emotion comes from.
If we have damaged that part of brain, we will not feel emotion.
We will not feel any sort of response or how to connect with people.
Fear is one of the more primitive emotional responses.
Fear comes about when we experience a danger of some sort.
And so, it is primal in a sense.
It is an ancient emotional response,
considered essential for safety or life,
that produces the fight or flight response.
Think for a moment like our ancient forebearers:
they are in the savanna hunting for animals,
and another wild animal comes upon them.
There is an immediate fear response
and it sets off a whole flurry of hormones,
that gives us a fight or flight response.
This immediate gives us a raised capability.
We have enormous capacity in the muscle to fight,
and enormous capacity to flight.
The challenge today is that we are not on the savanna,
and we are not hunting any animals,
but we are still operating from that ancient response.
All the images we get now are on the news media
or in paper media
or television media or social media.
And we still have the same response.
Only 2000 years ago, not that far ago,
Jesus comes along, and he says, “Do not be afraid.”
Don't respond in that primal way.
Pause for a moment.
Look differently.
He is warning us to not operate from what is just our body,
we need to look also out for our soul.
Be careful what is dangerous for your soul as well.
And then pause.
We will hear now in the next several weeks
what Jesus asked us to do,
and move beyond this fight or flight response to fear.
As developed human beings, we are called to, to have a third response,
pause and focus and examine the real dangers here
and see what is necessary.
What are the greatest fears we have?
One of them we talk about is darkness, right?
We use that darkness language to evoke fear.
And the church has done it.
We associate fear, darkness, with sin, right?
We want to evoke a response and to not be part of sin,
not be part of that darkness.
That is common in our world too.
That is all great theology and it is great exegesis.
But what does that mean for us today?
What does it actually, practically mean for us here in our era?
One of the things we have to be careful of is
that when we come into a difficult situation
where there is danger or fear,
the response inside of us is to operate from that fight or flight mode. Something as simple as an unkind comment from our friend as a putdown,
we have this fight or flight response.
Either we get back right at them with another comment right away
or we just run away saying “I hate that person.”
Then there are those more powerful and painful realities
when we are dealing with sickness and illness
or our deeper psychological wounds.
The temptation is the exact same.
We go back to our temporal lobe conditioning,
and we want to run away or fight anything in there.
For example if we are fighting with an illness,
our response can be, “No, no, it is not happening.”
That is the denial, and it is a real response.
And most often it is the first response.
Run away from it or then fight it with all its costs.
But sometimes the answer is not either of those: fight or flight.
In the spiritual realm, the Lord has asked us to look again,
and ask what affects the soul?
Darkness can actually be our friend.
Some of the greatest growth happens in darkness,
in those weaker moments when we have been wounded
or when we have sinned,
and when we pause and do not run away,
or fight it, but look again and examine what has happened here?
What is the truth?
I am going to suggest that we focus on three responses,
and then finally a closing fourth one.
It is fairly simple but difficult.
Focus on the good, the beautiful and the truth. Then focus on love.
When we pause
then we turn the temptation to fight or flight into focus,
and ask, what is good here?
What is good in this moment?
What is really happening now,
not just at a surface level,
but deeper down inside my soul.
What is going on?
Then we ask is there something true here?
Is what this person said something that is hurtful but true,
that yes, I did that.
I don't like that I did that, but that is a truth.
It hurts to hear the truth, especially when it is said in a public setting.
And then to ask, what is the beautiful here?
Sometimes in the midst of pain and suffering,
there are actually beautiful moments of grace.
And that is what St. Paul talks about,
that where there is sin, there is a more abundant grace.
Where there is darkness, there is even more light to be seen.
And it is important to look at,
to pause and to focus on the good, the beautiful and the truth.
Then comes a new way, which Jesus ushered in.
The way is always the way of love,
because in darkness or in light, love always wins.
Love always wins that battle.
If nothing else, you can ask yourself,
“What is the most loving thing that I can do in this given situation?”
Not to run and not to fight, but to say,
“What is the most loving thing I can do right now
at this moment when somebody
has said something that is very painful to hear,
or that something is happening to us that is very painful to experience?”
And sometimes it is to just pause and to sit.
Because in the darkness there can be a treasure,
a treasure of new grace that God will give us.
But we need to be open to it.
If we just keep reacting like our ancestors
on the Savannah of millions of years ago,
then we have not grown very much.
No, we are not called to fight our flight.
We are to pause and focus on the good, the beautiful, and the true,
and focus on all things with love.
What is the most loving response that I can have?
Do not be afraid. Fear. No one.
