Deliver me, O Giver of Breath and Life,

From the fears the beset me;

Help me confront the inner shadows

That hold me in bondage, like a prisoner

Who knows not freedom.

They distract me from all that I yearn

To be,

And hinder the awakening of

Hidden gifts

That I long to share with others.

(From Nan Merrill’s version of Psalm 140)

Letting go of these fears means being willing to risk loss. It means being willing to confront the inner shadows and the hold they have on us. It means being willing to realize the ways we may be attached to these shadows and to the false even perverse sense of comfort they may offer.

In the Biblical testimonies about the nature of God’s relationship with humanity, there is nothing to suggest that we should use religion as a way to avoid what we fear and keep ourselves comfortable at all costs. There is tremendous assurance in our faith, but at the same time tremendous challenge.

The Way of Jesus rightly understood is not in fact a very good opiate. The Way of Jesus leads through the cross, after all, before guiding us to resurrected life. That’s the opposite of avoiding what causes us distress, especially moral distress, the distress that comes when we let ourselves feel the tension and pain between the ways humans are behaving badly and the ways we could or should be behaving better, between the world as it is and a world where we and everyone else is able to share the gifts of their fullness of self for the sake of the crowded table of God’s abundant life.

Every week we pray “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven … And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Jesus and the Hebrew Prophets and many other writings in the Bible make it clear that God compels and empowers us to face our shadows – as individuals and as a society – with faith and courageous love. Compelled and empowered, with faith and courageous love, we can face our shadows, with God’s help. This is how healing can happen – and restoration, reconciliation, renewed life and purpose.

I’m sure there are more than one of us here who, if we’re honest to God, we will admit we are avoiding something that causes us distress. And our avoidance is in fact holding ourselves back or others back from giving fully of our God-given purpose.

Anxiety is often a signal for this. If we find ourselves feeling anxious, there is probably something we fear that we are avoiding thinking about or dealing with in a direct way. It may feel like being anxious about it is somehow doing something, especially if we are obsessively anxious, but anxiety in fact is avoiding the core fear.

It is therapeutic to be supported in naming and facing the core fears behind our anxieties. Fear is always tied with loss. What am I afraid of losing? Safety? Comfort? Life itself? Relationship? Status? Esteem? Value? Meaning? And so on.

The Gospels are full of stories of people coming to Jesus out of their anxiety. The Psalms are full of earnest prayers to God that give voice to profound distress. In every case, people’s relationship with God helps them to name the root of their fears, and to receive the love and courage they needed to let go of the imprisonment of their fears and become whole and free to do what is good and true.

We too can come to God or to Jesus with our anxieties. A prayerful care for our spiritual lives is important, along with the other ways we care for our physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being.

At the heart of this healing and liberating power of Jesus is a two-fold knowledge: we will lose everything, everything, everything, for we are finite creatures infinitely far from godlike; and yet, no matter what we lose – health, wealth, status, relationships, life itself – God alone is the source for us of unending love, value, wholeness, and life. So, while our losses are real and can be painful and sad and at times tragic, we have the assurance that, ultimately, we will receive what we most deeply and truly need.

“You can hold my hand when you need to let go…”

This can powerfully transformative in many ways, in particular when it comes to how we respond to our moral distress. When it comes to our moral distress, how can our faith help us move from anxious avoidance to mature and faithful action?

We see in the examples of the early Jesus followers and of the saints through the ages that their faith led them to face their fears and pass through them into the freedom to share freely God love and truth. We see how this can lead folks to be very courageous indeed, in freely embodying God’s love even between the teeth of cruelty and evil and inhumanity and injustice. The exemplars of our faith are willing to risk the mockery of crowds and the retribution from violent authorities, they are willing to be boldly at odds with the insanity of their times. They are willing to be, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr, “creatively maladjusted” to the inhumanity and injustice of one’s wider society.   

Our Gospel story for today is one of the most striking illustrations of how Jesus can help folks move through anxiety into the boldness of freedom. (Mark 5:10-14)

Jesus encounters a man who is in the throes of his shadows, in a condition of terrible fear and pain. This man is violently self-destructive and shows signs of what we may call today post-traumatic stress disorder.

Jesus’ healing power turns on his ability to compel these distressing forces to name themselves. There is great power in being able to name the source of our distress, the source of our wounds, of our shadows, of our fears – to name our demons – with the help of the higher holy power and peace that Jesus embodies.

In the case of this man, when Jesus compels his demons to name themselves, the name they give is “Legion.” A Legion was a unit of 2,000 Roman soldiers. They were the shock troops for Rome’s brutal occupation of the region. Not all that long before this episode there had been an uprising among the occupied people’s in the area that Roman Legions had put down. It’s quite likely that this man had suffered some kind of horrible and tragic experience related to this, which had set in motion oppressive forces within him that came to dominate his very sense of self.  

Once Jesus has the name for these forces, he is able to send them out of the man, freeing the man to be who he truly is in the eye of his Creator. The man is free to take Jesus’ hand and let go of the fears that had been holding him in bondage.

But notice how in this story, the man’s wider community is not at all happy about this. Pretty much every other time Jesus heals someone, everyone who witnesses it are amazed and delighted and want Jesus to help more people. In this case, though, other people in this man’s community are frightened that he has been healed, and they demand that Jesus leave.

There are times when our own psychological distress is so tied up with the disfunction of our wider society, that our becoming sane and well and in our right mind in fact seems dangerous. Who benefits from our fears and our anxieties?  

So, if you prayerfully ask Jesus to help name the root of your anxieties, and you realize that the answer implicates wider disfunction in our society, do not be afraid. If you are taking on distress because of dehumanizing forces in our society, denying the dignity and humanity of every child of God, do not be afraid. If Jesus is calling on your best self to respond with love and courage, do not be afraid.

We can hold Jesus’ hand, when we need to let go of everything that keeps us from God’s vision for this world.

For I desire to be a channel of peace;

To reflect the beauty of

Creation!

O, that I might manifest your love

To all whom I meet,

And mirror your mercy

And justice!

Guide me, O Beloved, that I may

Become spiritually mature.

Love me into new life!

(From Nan C. Merrill’s version of Psalm 140)

For this I give thanks to God.  Thanks be to God.

Delivered Sunday, November 9th, 2025, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge.