Lenten blog | March 18, 2025

It's Love Not Fear

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 18th:  Psalm 105:1-15 [16-41] 42; Ezra 1:1-11; and 1 Corinthians 10:1-13.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Too much of religion rushes to judgment.  It almost seems like judgment is a prerogative of faith.  It could even be an elixir that soothes a subconscious resentment of faith’s restrictions:  “They’ll get theirs later.”  I even remember a clergyperson telling me once that people would not be faithful without the threat of judgment.  Not far from here in Colonial America, Rev. Jonathan Edwards preached so ferociously about judgment that faith-filled people fainted in fear.  To me, this is a terrible misrepresentation of faith, especially at this time of year when we focus on our faith in a crucified Saviour. 

The philosopher Immanuel Kant spoke about the categorical imperative.  By this he meant a good action that had no ulterior motive.  It was an action that was done purely for the good, not its reward.  If a wealthy person donates to a charitable cause and receives a tax break, then that good action does not qualify for Kant’s categorical imperative.  When someone drops a $20 bill in a Salvation Army kettle around Christmas so that the only benefit is helping the destitute, then that would satisfy the demands of the categorical imperative. 

Judgment is a cheapened proclamation of the Good News.  It denies the intrinsic value of love one another, and in that love is demonstrated our love of God.  It replaces the categorical imperative of the Good News with the inferior alternative of fear, of what happens to you if you do not follow.  In 1 John, it says, “Perfect loves casts out fear.”  Kant would understand those few words and then expand them into tens of thousands of words.  Or, the Christian can simply say it in a couple of words – Jesus’ cross. 

Jesus’ cross is a perfect statement of selfless love of the other, and it honours Jesus because it stands for His uncompromising  dedication to His own faith.  The cross is an act of love, perfect love.  Tying judgment to it lessens its purity and its power.  Human life is already hard enough.  The world is already mean enough.  We do not need to add religious judgment into that injurious mix so that it expands into eternity.  During my nearly four decades of ministry, I have noticed too often that good, decent folk are burdened unnecessarily with a guilty conscience, while I have to wonder if those who really should have the pangs of a guilty conscience never suffer its bite.  If it is religion that is the source of this unfounded guilt, then religion needs to look at what it teaches.  If Christians cannot affirm the worth of their faith or share it with others without relying on fear, then we need to look at what we preach.  It may not be the Good News.

Today Paul explains the Old Testament stories of so many deaths at the hands of a vengeful God as examples meant to teach us New Testament folk to remain faithful.  These are the consequences of not following Christ, in Paul’s logic.  He writes, “Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness,” and again, “… and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.”  He starts off these two quotes with a reference to “the rock was Christ” and finishes with “[w]e must not put Christ to the test.”  Somehow it makes sense to link Jesus with the extermination of tens of thousands of people because they offended God, the death of tens of thousands of people are mentioned without a single note of compassion, and it begins and ends with reference to Jesus.  I realize this is the biblical text, but it makes me squirm.

Rebecca Gummere wrote recently in the Boston Globe (https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/03/04/opinion/lost-faith-what-to-say/) about once being a Lutheran Minister and then losing her faith.  She referenced the generally acknowledged fact that an increasing number of people identify as “spiritual but not religious.”  In her case, she offers, “As for me, I’m reading the stories of Jesus’ boundless compassion and wide-open welcome with new eyes.  Outside the church walls and unfettered by dogma, I have a whole new perspective, with the practice of love at the center of it all.”  Judgment is not scaring a lot of people into the faith and to Jesus; it is driving them away!

To link Jesus, especially Jesus crucified, the perfect example of pure, selfless love for others and the testimony of the authenticity of Jesus’ own self and His Good News, with the uncaring slaughter of tens of thousands of human beings, saddens me.  Embracing Jesus should be a matter of returning love for love, and this is not the same as turning to Jesus out of fear of what anything else entails.  During Lent, let us take the time to consider faith as a categorical imperative, as belief accepted only because we want to be with Christ.

  If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.