Kyle Dresback

Friends,

Today’s Psalm readings center around a well-known biblical command: “Fear the Lord.” 

I have often thought about what it means to fear in this command—to show an appropriate awe and respect—but I wonder whether the command is more about whom to fear than how. 

That is, what does it mean to fear the Lord?

The lived experience in the ancient world (and the medieval world and, indeed, every world before the Enlightenment in the West) was shot through with a pervasive fear of cosmic elements playing on and around them. They were susceptible to the whims of the gods.

As Charles Taylor has argued, our modern lives feel insulated—“buffered”—from cosmic consequences. But the inner lives of the ancients felt “porous:” they sensed themselves watched, vulnerable to divine retaliations, exposed to a mysterious, undomesticated, and enchanted world.  

Those in the ancient world did not need to be reminded to fear. But they might have needed to be reminded whom to fear. And while modern readers don’t need to be warned against fearing Dagon, Ba’al, or other local deities, our fears can be misguided in just the same way. 

It’s an interesting personal exercise to consider the fears that drive our day-to-day lives. For me, these fears often touch on my professional life, my reputation, and simple comforts that I cherish. 

This twisted fear nudges me to nurse bitterness from that perceived slight, to hoard my own resources, and to speak of “them” and why “they” are the problem. 

It’s been another rough week in this country. Fear—and its companion, anger—is rampant and easily exploited and manipulated. 

What is the Christian response to the misguided fears that spiritually deform us? According to the psalmist:

Keep your lips from telling lies.
Be generous and lend freely.
Seek peace and pursue it.

Lord, help us, your Church, to be honest and generous and to seek peace as we learn to fear you. 

In Christ,

—Kyle