1 John 4.18
I’m in Des Moines for the Iowa Preachers Project. On Tuesday morning, I preached the chapel service at Grand View University. If you’re a preacher, bookmark the page and consider applying to next year’s cohort.
For the homily this morning, Dr. Ken Sundet Jones issued only two directives to me.
“First,” he commanded me, “be authentic. This is a college campus— a Piety Free Zone— so keep it real. Second, your scripture verse is 1 John 4.18, “There is no fear in love, but Perfect Love casts out fear.”
Keep it real.
There is no fear.
And my immediate response to his instructions?
“Crap.”
Whining soon followed, “How can I possibly preach on this passage with authenticity? How can I bear witness to the Truth given my truth?”
Just to be real, people in my congregation are going to listen to this and hear it for the first time. And, seriously, that’s not fair to them, but fidelity to the scripture I’ve been given for today demands honesty.
This month—
A guy with a bunch of letters behind his name diagnosed me with letters of my own.
Four letters.
PTSD.
Those in Gen-Z don’t even need me to unpack the acronym. And apparently the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder diagnosis isn’t bullshit because my insurance provider is actually paying for it. They didn’t even bother to do their coverage-denial dance with me.
A little context:
For nearly a decade I have suffered a rare, incurable cancer in my marrow. After a harrowing initial year of surgeries and treatments, my doctors have kept it bay. But a few weeks back, I noticed a lump on my neck. A couple of days later, I found more on my throat and the back of my head. The next day, I traced the ones that had swelled on my groin. Two weeks ago, my oncologist had me sit down on the examining table. She snapped on rubber gloves and began to move her fingers over my body like she was reading Braille.
As she did so— for lack of a more precise medical term— I cracked up.
I broke down.
I fell apart.
Into pieces.
Like Humpty, I’d be lying to you if I said I was mended.
Apparently, incurable cancer featuring recurring brushes with death along with a vocation that frequently puts me front row to other people’s trauma and mortality— as absurd as it sounds, apparently this is no bueno for my mental health. Evidently, I have been trying to keep a lid on more fears and a degree of fright I could neither see nor voice.
And a few weeks ago, the lid popped.
It all spilled out.
And it’s not going back in again.
Just so—
If you expect me to promise you that if you just love Jesus you will have no fear, then I am not your guy.
Perhaps it’s possible to invite Jesus into your heart such that he evicts all anxieties, but I’ve been a preacher for almost a quarter of a century and I have yet to meet any fearless Christians.
I know I have not buried any fearless Christians. I’ve encountered some self-deluded Christians, sure— most of them are clergy. I’ve known many other Christians who wear courageous masks and play brave roles. But I’ve never met any bare-faced Christians without fear.
Despite how the verse for this morning sounds, I believe a Christian without fear is an oxymoron.
I believe a fearless Christian is a paradox precisely because I know Jesus— I know Jesus— whom John refers to as Perfect Love, is not dead.
First things first.
In service to Ken Jones’s stipulation for authenticity, I believe Jesus is alive not because the Bible tells me so. Why should you believe a book? That’s stupid. I believe Jesus is alive because I’ve met him. I’ve met him. He’s as real to me as you.
I believe Jesus is alive because I’ve met him.
Therefore, I trust the Bible.
When I was an unbelieving, college-applying, resume-stuffing, gold-star-grabbing high school junior (who had not grown up in the church) Jesus hijacked my life.
One Sunday, after a few Sundays of conscripted church attendance, at an ordinary church in the suburbs of Richmond, Va, I came forward down the sanctuary aisle where a bland but kindly-looking middle-aged man named Steve, who was about thirty pounds beyond a Dad-bod and who wore a royal blue polo shirt, stood next to a small African-American woman holding a cup and offering me a torn piece from a loaf of Hawaiian bread, and in that slight moment of receiving— suddenly— the hands holding out the bread to me were not Steve’s hands at all for Steve’s hands did not have holes in them.
The face— for an instant— was the face of another. Neither did the voice for seven short syllables belong to Steve. Steve was no longer Steve. Yet Steve was also somehow more Steve than the Steve I knew.
The preacher had been speaking the truth that Sunday.
The Risen Christ really was the host of the table.
The encounter so frightened me that I skipped past the chalice and sat down in an unsettled, astonished daze.
“What if it’s true?” I muttered under my breath, terrified, “What if it’s all true?!”
I realize, of course, I could’ve just been crazy. I mean, I have PTSD now. Nevertheless, I’m not the only one who knows that Perfect Love is not dead.
There was a young woman in a congregation I served.
Her name was Ann. She was a straight-A student in college. She was nearing graduation, and her parents couldn’t have been more excited about what lay in her future. Maybe a graduate degree at another prestigious school. Maybe a career and no less than a six-figure salary.
In contrast to their expectations— or, because of them— Ann was beset by fear and anxiety. And then, one day, out of the blue, Ann threw them all for a loop, when Ann announced to her parents that rather than doing anything they wanted, she was going to work in a clinic in some poor village in Venezuela. I only found out about this when Annʼs mother burst into my office one day, clearly assuming I was the one who put the idea in her daughter’s head.
Red-faced and furious, she said: “Preacher, you’ve got to talk to her. You’ve got to convince her to change her mind. I’m so afraid sheʼs throwing her life away.”
Ever the obedient minister, I met with Ann and communicated all her motherʼs fears:
She was being naive
She was being irresponsible
She was being idealistic
Her education should come first
She should not jeopardize her career.
“The gospel’s about grace not works,” I said in my attempt to dissuade Ann.
Ann looked back at me liked Iʼd disappointed her in some way.
“Didn’t Jesus tell the young man to give up all his stuff and follow him?” she asked.
“Uh, well, yeah, but...I mean...Jewish hyperbole and all...he couldn’t have been serious...that would’ve been irresponsible. At least tell me why youʼre doing this.”
“Why do you think?” she asked like there could be only one possible answer and it should be obvious.
“I didn’t really know if it was true, that he’s risen. But then Jesus sorta invaded my personal space and told me— he spoke to me— and he told me to go and do it.”
“He did, did he?”
And her eyes narrowed, like she was about lay a straight flush down on the table.
“Are you telling me, pastor, that I should listen to you instead of him.”
“Um, uh...okay, I think we’re done here. Just leave me out of it when you talk to your parents.”
As she was leaving my office, she said, “You know, pastor— this whole time in school I’ve had so many worries, anxieties and fears…over…stuff…and then Jesus got ahold of me…I mean, Venezuela? Suddenly, I have a whole new set of fears I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for Jesus.”
Perfect Love casts out fear.
It sounds nice as a sentiment to smack on a sticker.
But John’s Perfect Love is a person, who not only died for you but lives with death behind him.
On the one hand—
Because he lived, as Mary’s boy and Pilate’s victim, he knows fear.
He knows your fears.
On the other hand—
Because he lives, he is free to give you all new fears, fears you would never have if he had stayed in the grave.
Just a few weeks ago, my therapist asked me, “How in the hell did you make it this long without cracking up.”
I was about to answer, “Jesus. Jesus got me through it.”
But I don’t know if that can be true.
Because the Jesus who died for me, didn’t stay in the grave. And he is able to call me and change me and give me all new fears. Fears I would not have were Perfect Love not risen indeed.
"Perfect Love" is a Person