There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. (1 John 4: 18)
Fear
involves torment. The NIV and RSV use the word punishment. Fear makes you think, “They scare me. How do
I hurt them?” Love has the opposite of
effect. Love makes you think, “They’re
my neighbor. How do I help?” The two mindsets are mutually exclusive.
Jesus
commands us to love our neighbors (Matthew
22: 39; Leviticus
19: 18). You can’t do that if you’re
scared of your neighbors.
Jesus
also commands us to love our enemies (Matthew
5: 43, 44). So even if you see a
certain person or a certain group as a threat, as an enemy, you still have to
love them. And if your first impulse in
interactions is to reach for your gun, you’re not loving; you’re scared.
There is no fear in love.
Last
summer in Dallas, Jason Harris’s mother called police to help her take her
schizophrenic, bipolar son to the mental hospital. When the police arrived, she immediately told
the two officers on the scene that her son was bipolar and schizophrenic. Jason stood in the doorway behind her with a
screwdriver in his hand.
As
he stepped off the stoop one of the officers shot him repeatedly. The officer
stated that he feared for his life.
I
believe him.
I
believe that the officer who killed the mentally ill man he’d been called to
help genuinely feared for his own life.
But
the officer wasn’t supposed to fear Jason.
The officer was supposed to LOVE Jason.
Had
the officer loved the man he’d been called to help he would have talked without
drawing his gun. Had the officer loved
the sick man whose mother had asked them to help her get to the hospital, he
might have reached for the taser on his left side rather than the gloc on his
right. Had the officer felt love he
might have reluctantly used his professional training or the two-officers-to-one
advantage to wrestle Jason to the ground and take away the screwdriver.
Had
the officer loved instead of feared he would have looked at Jason Harris and seen
a man who needed help coming out of his own house with a screwdriver, not a
crazed attacker confronting him with a shank.
Perfect love casts out fear,
because fear involves punishment.
A
few years ago, when George Zimmerman fired his gun into the chest of Trayvon
Martin, the teenager he’d profiled, pursued, and assaulted, Mr. Zimmerman said
that he’d feared for his life.
I
believe him.
I believe that when the teen he outweighed by 50% got the better of him and started raining punches down on his head pressed against the sidewalk that Mr. Zimmerman got really scared.
I believe that when the teen he outweighed by 50% got the better of him and started raining punches down on his head pressed against the sidewalk that Mr. Zimmerman got really scared.
But
George Zimmerman was never supposed to fear Trayvon Martin. He was supposed to LOVE him.
Had
he loved the young man walking along the public sidewalk not trespassing on
anyone’s property, he wouldn’t have pursued him against police directions. Had Mr. Zimmerman loved the young man he didn’t
know, he might have offered a friendly greeting from his stoop and tried to
have a conversation instead jumping out of his car, armed and screaming
accusations.
Had
George Zimmerman loved Trayvon Martin, he would have seen a child on the
sidewalk, not a criminal f****r who gets away with everything and needed to be
punished.
Perfect love casts out fear,
because fear involves punishment.
“I
feared for my life.”
Think
about that justification.
They
weren’t hurting me. They weren’t trying
to hurt me. They weren’t even threatening
to hurt me. But they scared me so I
killed them.
And
we say that’s O.K.
We
say it’s O.K. to take the life of your neighbor because he/ she scared you.
They
don’t even have to be objectively scary.
You just have to FEEL afraid at that moment.
Think
about that.
We
have given the power of life and death to fearful people.
We
have made fear the ultimate standard for how we relate to our neighbors. Fear, not love.
That’s
legal, but is it right? Is it
godly? Can we Christians continue to
support a legal standard based on fearing our neighbors?
Scripture
commands us to fear nobody, except God.
Jesus
said, “And I say to you, My friends, do
not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they
can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has
killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him! (Luke 12:
4-5)
We’re
supposed to love our neighbors without fear. We’re supposed to fear God with
love.
We
do that exactly backwards.
This
is a note to the church, to the followers of Jesus Christ, to the people who
for all our social and political differences hold common reverence for the Word
of God in Scripture:
I’m
not saying beat your pistols into plowshares.
I support the right to self-defense up to and including the use of
lethal force, but when we measure the exercise of that right we have to stop
using the legal standard. The current
legal standard is FEAR. We are called
to a higher standard.
You shall LOVE
your neighbor as yourself.
There is no
fear in love.
---Anderson T. Graves
II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry,
and rural leadership development.
Rev.
Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield,
Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking
Organization (SAYNO); and director of
rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
You
can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button
on the right-hand sidebar.
Support
by check or money order may be mailed to
Miles
Chapel CME Church
P O
Box 132
Fairfield,
Al 35064
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