Perfect love drives out fear

Continuing the Lenten meditations

This week my Lenten meditations have focused on the teaching "Perfect love drives out fear." I have mainly considered it from this angle: if someone loves us then their love for us will overcome our fear of them.

Love overcomes fear by its benefits toward the one who is loved. Love treats the beloved with patience and kindness, with compassion and care. Love creates a sanctuary for the beloved, a solid foundation, a refuge. If someone is loved, under healthy circumstances there is a tangible increase in the well-being of the beloved.

First for my tendency toward fear, I recognize the role that I grew up in a home that was not safe, where the children lived in chronic fear. The fear was precisely because of the lack of genuine love. Real love would have meant safety and welcome. Real love would have meant there was typically no cause to fear. The people whom I have feared, the common thread is a lack of love -- sometimes disguised with a pretense of it but without its necessary attendants of compassion and respect.

So as an adult, what do I make of "Perfect love drives out fear"? In smaller things, it means that I can set aside anxiety and fear when dealing specifically with people who are loving toward me. And yet outside that scope, large parts of the culture are hostile and hateful toward me or toward groups which include me; I often feel unsafe and unwelcome in the culture in which I live. Within that context I have some safe havens, generally associated with either my religion of choice or support groups with an official policy of taking no stand on outside issues.

The challenge for me is to carry the love of God with me, to drive out fear even among people who are hostile toward me. That challenge is still a work in progress. In Lent, we observe the 40 days in which Jesus set out toward Jerusalem -- during which time some of the religious leaders began to announce their intent to have him executed in Jerusalem: "hostile territory" in the extreme. He shows his sense of mission, a determination to love and to treat other people from love, even recognizing that it did not guarantee his safety. One of my own hesitations is that I want to enjoy my fearless moments when I am safe. And yet that leaves me, in some ways, restricted by other peoples' hatred and hostility.

I am glad that Lent is a journey, leaving more time for growth. I am not yet where I want to be.