Message from the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (PaCET) for Sunday Meeting 17th November 2024

Dear Friends,

This passage from the book of Proverbs will be difficult for many of us.  Some of us will struggle with the idea of God and even more will struggle, as I do, with the suggestion that God is someone to be feared.  I believe passionately in the Gospel message, that we are all created and held by a loving God and are profoundly loved and forgiven for all our brokenness.   Yet this passage has lodged itself in my mind for the last two Meetings for Worship and I feel compelled to grapple with what it is saying to me.  How can I reconcile my faith in a loving God with an Old Testament God who expects to be feared?  And how can fear lead to wisdom?  Because, and this is what is motivating my prayers, God knows, we are living in a world that is in desperate need of wisdom.  A climate crisis out of control, two wars almost on our doorstep, leaders more interested in themselves that those they lead and so many people who feel frightened and powerless.

One way through this dilemma may be to put the word ‘fear’ in context.  Some translations of the Hebrew go for ‘respect’ instead of ‘fear’.   But my inner self is saying that we do have a lot to be fearful of.  And perhaps if we see God, the Lord, standing for what is good and true that might help too.

Here’s what I think that this proverb is saying.   In just a few thousand years humankind has taken control of nearly every inch of our planet.  We have seen a world full of plenty and taken what we wanted without any thought that there might be limits.  We have gained control of every aspect of our lives to the detriment of all other living creatures and without a thought for the consequences. We expect complete dominion and when we vaguely perceive that if we carry on in the same way this planet might fail us, then some of us might need to make alternative plans and travel through space to another home (thank you Elon Musk).

It is because we have no fear – we think we have complete autonomy – that everything is possible – this is why we are in the mess that we are in.  We need to be fearful.  We need to learn to take less. We need to learn about the consequences of our insatiable want for things and for autonomy.  We need to live within our means. Having respect for goodness and truth, for God, will mean that we must start thinking again about how we live and how we treat our planet and our neighbours. Hopefully this will lead us to wisdom.

John Pares

on behalf of the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (David Hitchin, Chris Lawson, Tim Pitt-Payne, Caroline Pybus, Theresa Samms and Nancy Wall)