Faith Beyond Our Fear (Theology of House, Part 1)
This entry, modified as you read below, was included in my 2013 Sophie Kerr Prize Portfolio, which earned finalist honors.
As long-time readers will know, I hate Lent. Someone told me that Lent was a time when God draws back, separates Himself from us, if you will, for us to prepare for Christ’s resurrection. And so I always felt that distance, which I hated because I rely so much on God’s grace and love to get me through the day.
I don’t even remember who it was that said that, actually, and I very well may have misunderstood. So in retrospect, I probably should have realized that the whole “separation” thing was bogus. Even if we look at just my own life, we can see that: my last hospitalization was in Lent, and God didn’t distance himself then. Quite the contrary. Extenuating circumstances, you might say. Well, every day God is reaching out to the non-believers, to the world, to try to get them to accept His love. So why on earth would he just decide to back off for this 40 day period, which we are supposed to use to contemplate Him and draw closer to Him? Exactly. He wouldn’t.
So why did I feel the distance, the separation? Because I thought I would. I thought that was what would happen, and so that’s what I did experience. It was me all along. Not God. Me. Pushing Him away, consciously or not.
Which brings me to the first installment of “Theology of House,” my series examining the theological issues brought to light-- often quite explicitly-- in the hit Fox TV show starring Hugh Laurie.
Season One gives us the episode Damned If You Do, where the patient is a young nun who comes to clinic with a skin reaction and ends up going into anaphylactic shock. As per usual, the team tries various treatments but nothing works, even the one for lupus; she gets worse. Predictably, House saves the day in the end and the nun is fine.
Given that the patient is a nun, it is logical that many of the conversations in DIYD are about religion in some way, shape, or form. And there is a wide variety of dynamics to explore: you have House the atheist, Cameron who’s “not even a little agnostic” and wonders why some grand Creator would care about anything she does or does not do, and Foreman who... is Christian, I think, not entirely sure- and Chase. Chase, who was in seminary before he went into medicine.
It’s unsurprising that the most relevant scene in DIYD is between Chase and the Sister. She has just been put into a clean room to stop any allergens from getting to her, and her fellow nuns aren’t allowed to come in and pray with her. She is isolated, separated:
Augustine: I want to die. Why has He left me?
Chase: I was in seminary school. They asked us once what our favorite passage was. I chose 1 Peter 1:7. “These trials only test your faith to see whether or not it is strong and pure. Your faith is being tested as fire tests gold and purifies it.”
Augustine: “And your faith is far more precious to the Lord than pure gold; so if your faith remains strong after being tested, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day of His return.”
Chase: He hasn’t left you. The only thing in the way of your knowing if he’s left you is your fear. You have a choice: faith or fear. That’s the test.
This is rare for the show in that it directly quotes Scripture, so I don’t have to go scrounging around in the Bible to find a passage that backs up what I want to say. I will anyway, though, just because the Bible is amazing. Matthew 14:29-32: Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
In both of these instances, the person is their own greatest barrier to faith. We are our biggest stumbling blocks to truly welcoming Christ. Augustine’s fear of dying, especially of dying alone, was her barrier. Peter’s fear of drowning prevented him from trusting God.
Peter’s is an interesting case, to me. Because, it’s logical to fear drowning when one is attempting to walk on the water, especially in a storm. Humans can’t do that. But God can. He can do that, and more, and through him, we can do more than we’d ever thought possible. God’s power defies logic. Like how a cystic fibrosis patient can go literally years without doing any treatments at all and yet be in college, thriving and growing.
And we are our own biggest obstacle to this. Recently, I’ve been feeling pretty lost and alone- sporadically, not all the time, but enough. I kept telling myself that I had no reason to be, because I had God, but I was. I couldn’t feel Him, because of my fear. Fear of dying before I got a chance to accomplish my goals (which led me to make decisions on my own without consulting Him, which in turn led to guilt and more self-imposed separation because I feared His disappointment).
We had a guest speaker at Campus Christian Fellowship tonight, a youth pastor from one of our members’ churches. She talked about making lemonade as a metaphor for Christian living, based off of the adage “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” But some people don’t know how to convert their lemons into lemonade, and if you have just lemons it’s horribly bitter. So you need water and sugar, the Word and the Spirit. I don’t know how to make lemonade out of my lemons, but God does.
So I had my epiphany. I don’t know how to do things, but God does. And He will show me my way, if I trust in him. It’s a leap at first, but the fear will go away once I start sipping that juice. Once I stopped trying to do everything by myself, once I stopped trying to be strong and sure and just let myself admit, “hey, I can’t accomplish my goals without You, Lord,” I felt so much better.
Just like Sister Augustine in DIYD. Once she recognized that God was there, that she was her own biggest enemy, she found the strength she didn’t have before. Because God can carry us through everything- illness, transitions, pain, any trouble. Each trial you go through with Him strengths your faith, makes you more sure of His power- less afraid, since He is there through all your tribulations.
And the good times, too. He can make those even better.
As long-time readers will know, I hate Lent. Someone told me that Lent was a time when God draws back, separates Himself from us, if you will, for us to prepare for Christ’s resurrection. And so I always felt that distance, which I hated because I rely so much on God’s grace and love to get me through the day.
I don’t even remember who it was that said that, actually, and I very well may have misunderstood. So in retrospect, I probably should have realized that the whole “separation” thing was bogus. Even if we look at just my own life, we can see that: my last hospitalization was in Lent, and God didn’t distance himself then. Quite the contrary. Extenuating circumstances, you might say. Well, every day God is reaching out to the non-believers, to the world, to try to get them to accept His love. So why on earth would he just decide to back off for this 40 day period, which we are supposed to use to contemplate Him and draw closer to Him? Exactly. He wouldn’t.
So why did I feel the distance, the separation? Because I thought I would. I thought that was what would happen, and so that’s what I did experience. It was me all along. Not God. Me. Pushing Him away, consciously or not.
Which brings me to the first installment of “Theology of House,” my series examining the theological issues brought to light-- often quite explicitly-- in the hit Fox TV show starring Hugh Laurie.
Season One gives us the episode Damned If You Do, where the patient is a young nun who comes to clinic with a skin reaction and ends up going into anaphylactic shock. As per usual, the team tries various treatments but nothing works, even the one for lupus; she gets worse. Predictably, House saves the day in the end and the nun is fine.
Given that the patient is a nun, it is logical that many of the conversations in DIYD are about religion in some way, shape, or form. And there is a wide variety of dynamics to explore: you have House the atheist, Cameron who’s “not even a little agnostic” and wonders why some grand Creator would care about anything she does or does not do, and Foreman who... is Christian, I think, not entirely sure- and Chase. Chase, who was in seminary before he went into medicine.
It’s unsurprising that the most relevant scene in DIYD is between Chase and the Sister. She has just been put into a clean room to stop any allergens from getting to her, and her fellow nuns aren’t allowed to come in and pray with her. She is isolated, separated:
Augustine: I want to die. Why has He left me?
Chase: I was in seminary school. They asked us once what our favorite passage was. I chose 1 Peter 1:7. “These trials only test your faith to see whether or not it is strong and pure. Your faith is being tested as fire tests gold and purifies it.”
Augustine: “And your faith is far more precious to the Lord than pure gold; so if your faith remains strong after being tested, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day of His return.”
Chase: He hasn’t left you. The only thing in the way of your knowing if he’s left you is your fear. You have a choice: faith or fear. That’s the test.
This is rare for the show in that it directly quotes Scripture, so I don’t have to go scrounging around in the Bible to find a passage that backs up what I want to say. I will anyway, though, just because the Bible is amazing. Matthew 14:29-32: Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
In both of these instances, the person is their own greatest barrier to faith. We are our biggest stumbling blocks to truly welcoming Christ. Augustine’s fear of dying, especially of dying alone, was her barrier. Peter’s fear of drowning prevented him from trusting God.
Peter’s is an interesting case, to me. Because, it’s logical to fear drowning when one is attempting to walk on the water, especially in a storm. Humans can’t do that. But God can. He can do that, and more, and through him, we can do more than we’d ever thought possible. God’s power defies logic. Like how a cystic fibrosis patient can go literally years without doing any treatments at all and yet be in college, thriving and growing.
And we are our own biggest obstacle to this. Recently, I’ve been feeling pretty lost and alone- sporadically, not all the time, but enough. I kept telling myself that I had no reason to be, because I had God, but I was. I couldn’t feel Him, because of my fear. Fear of dying before I got a chance to accomplish my goals (which led me to make decisions on my own without consulting Him, which in turn led to guilt and more self-imposed separation because I feared His disappointment).
We had a guest speaker at Campus Christian Fellowship tonight, a youth pastor from one of our members’ churches. She talked about making lemonade as a metaphor for Christian living, based off of the adage “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” But some people don’t know how to convert their lemons into lemonade, and if you have just lemons it’s horribly bitter. So you need water and sugar, the Word and the Spirit. I don’t know how to make lemonade out of my lemons, but God does.
So I had my epiphany. I don’t know how to do things, but God does. And He will show me my way, if I trust in him. It’s a leap at first, but the fear will go away once I start sipping that juice. Once I stopped trying to do everything by myself, once I stopped trying to be strong and sure and just let myself admit, “hey, I can’t accomplish my goals without You, Lord,” I felt so much better.
Just like Sister Augustine in DIYD. Once she recognized that God was there, that she was her own biggest enemy, she found the strength she didn’t have before. Because God can carry us through everything- illness, transitions, pain, any trouble. Each trial you go through with Him strengths your faith, makes you more sure of His power- less afraid, since He is there through all your tribulations.
And the good times, too. He can make those even better.