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326 ˜ A Work of Hospitality, 1982–2002
fear that Jesus met in his disciples as he walked across the water toward their
boat: “It’s a ghost!” they said, and they screamed with fear. And it was fear of a
strong wind that caused Peter, who at first was able to walk on the water, to sink.
We know, too, that the Israelites were scared to death when the Egyptians
began coming after them at the Red Sea. In Zora Neale Hurston’s retelling of
the story of Moses, called Moses, Man of the Mountain, she captures that fear in
a human way:
Women screamed in open-mouthed terror and whimpered
in fear. Men cursed, cried out and milled about in great
whorls. Some tried to run away to the woods to hide, others
just stood or squatted on the ground in dumb fear. When they
saw Moses come among them they crowded about him. Some
clung to him while others screamed at him. He shook them
off roughly and kept marching towards the rear.
As the chariots drew near the panic grew in Israel. They
committed every kind of folly and showed their inside weakness.
Then Moses showed his power again. He turned his back
on the Egyptian horde and spoke to his people. Spoke to them
in their own dialect as one of them.
Stand still, every last one of you and stop that screaming
and yelling. You haven’t got a thing to be scared of. That ain’t
nobody but Pharaoh and his army and we done beat them too
many times before. Don’t get so excited about nothing! God is
going to fight for you just as God’s been doing all along. Stand
still and see the salvation which God is going to show you
today. See those Egyptians there Take a good look at ’em, because
those Egyptians that you are looking at today, you’re
never going to see them no more as long as you live. And nobody
else won’t be seeing them either.
I believe we can say that fear gets in God’s way: it causes Peter to sink; it
makes the Israelites forget that they are God’s chosen people; it makes the city
government forget that the poor are blessed by God.
Clarence Jordan says in The Substance of Faith that we cannot have faith
until we understand fear:
Why, then, is it so difficult to have faith Why is faith so
scarce I think the clue to this is simply fear. Faith and fear, like
the light and darkness, are incompatible. Fear is the polio of the
soul which prevents our walking by faith. ...