+Z’ev

Today’s assigned readings:

1 Samuel 31:1-13, Acts 15:12-21, Mark 5:21-43

But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.”… When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.”
Mark 5:36,39

I had a very serious case of pneumonia when I was 6. I ended up in the hospital for quite a while - spending a long time in an oxygen tent. The tent was so big that I could get up and jump inside of it! I have a couple of memories from that time: shots. It seems to my memories that I got shots every five or ten minutes. I remember a couple of doctors and I remember spending a lot of time with my mother, who was often visiting me… And I remember her reading to me: Peter Pan. The plot’s vague… but I remember once scene.

You remember when Tinker Bell is very sick? (I think this might be a “book of the movie” from Disney?) The readers are all asked to say “I believe…” and Tinkerbell will get better. I remember this moment. I think in the theatre, were not all moviegoers asked to applaud? Eh. Whichever. I remember saying that “I believe” and, of course, she got better.

And I confess I’m tempted to see Gospel image the same way. “Do not fear, only believe.” You want to see the Father close his eyes and start saying, “I believe, I believe, I beleeeeeeeeeeeeeev!”

The Greek, of course, doesn’t say that. The Greek word, πιστευω - “pisteuo”, means “trust”. It’s offered in direct opposition to φοβεω - “phobeo”, meaning fear (from whence “phobia”). “Fear not: only trust,” says the Greek.

Fear Not. Only Trust.

The image of a fire walker comes to mind. It’s not as if they walk across chanting “Oh, this won’t hurt!” or with their eyes shut very tight saying “I’m walking on rose petals and cotton balls!” From my time in the modern Neo-pagan movement, I know that fire walkers don’t “do magic” to walk on fire. They just do it. They see themselves as finding a way to be one with fire, to walk and not be burnt not because of the strength of their “wooji-wooji” but because, there’s no reason for the fire to burn. They are acting with respect for the fire, as one wood with bees or electricity or anything else dangerous. When the time comes they trust the fire to act to them as they have towards it.

So must it have been for the man in the story whose daughter was so sick. How do you trust a man who says “She’s asleep” when all the evidence that meets your eyes says otherwise. It’s possible to read the verses literally and find more evidence of a miracle than we might know: “She’s not dead”, says Jesus. But Jesus in his supernatural wisdom knows something more than humans of that time: this coma only looks like death. Or to take the traditional reading - even now “all death is but sleep”. So Christians say things like “he fell asleep in the Lord” not out of fear of death but rather in trust. Now, even death itself is transformed into something not to be feared.

And so I remember a funeral at the parish in San Francisco, when, slowly dancing, we bore the ashes of Gus to the columbarium by the font. The huge door (bearing an icon of the Risen Christ) was opened and Donald said, “In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection…” And we placed the ashes there in trust for that Final Day.

No fear: trust.

That’s where God takes us in Jesus. He tells us to let go of the fear and walk in trust: quest forward for God in the way that Jesus has already walked. The fire will not burn. Do not fear - trust. I wish I could get there. I’m often afraid of a God who will send me to hell for the slightest infraction. Oddly enough, this doesn’t make me want to “do better” it makes me want to bargain, to hide, to tell lies all in order to cover up those things that I’m sure God won’t like. Trust tells us to come to God and honestly admit our sinfulness. Trust tells us to walk in love with those whom God places in our lives - even when they are right scummy to us. Trust tells us not to worry about or judge or fear others but rather to love them - even when that love is not returned.

I wish I could get there. It’s far more realistic to expect from me a gut-level reaction based on fear: judgement, condemnation, hate, anger. I’m more likely to laugh at than to laugh with. More than “I wish…” I pray: and by God’s grace only, I’ll come to that place of trust. My experience so far has not been so, but I shall keep striving forward on the race set before me in sure and certain hope.

Shabbat Shalom!