Several weeks ago, I was talking with my flatmate Stephanie, who drew my attention to this verse in Revelation 21:8: “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” (We have lively discussions in our house.) I must have read that verse a hundred times, but never noticed that word “cowards” in that laundry list of sinners excluded from the Kingdom and destined to die permanently. Rereading it struck me powerfully because (1) I consider myself a bit of a coward (or at least painfully timid in many ways), and (2) fear seems to be the dominant emotion of our world in the present era. Both Soren Kierkegaard and Alexander Solzhenitsyn said courage is the rarest virtue in the modern age, what W.H. Auden called, “The Age of Anxiety.”
Though my tendency to give in to fear causes problems and often leads to sin, I do not fear that cowardliness condemns me to eternal outer darkness and a lake of fire, as Jesus’ righteousness covers me. However, that this list headlines cowardliness alongside such serious wicked deeds as sexual immorality, witchcraft, pagan idol worship, and murder is sobering and deserves careful consideration. In my modern worldview, I treated fearfulness as a weakness, an illness that some were more prone to than others because of their background and biology. I did not consider cowardliness as a movement of the will, a choice that resulted in death instead of life, sin instead of virtue.
What makes cowardice so deadly, and why should we treat it seriously?
Perhaps the teaching of Jesus on the Kingdom in the well-known parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30 will give us more insight into the Revelation 21:8 passage.
Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a man who, going on a journey, entrusts his money to the care of three servants. The first two servants trade with the amounts given to them and double the principal invested. The last servant dug a hole in the ground and buried the money allotted to him. We don’t find out the reason for his behaviour until his master returns. The first two servants return their masters investment to him, along with interest accrued, and in turn receive praise, reward, and promotion in their responsibilities. When the third servant merely returns the same sum initially given to him, he offers this explanation: “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.”[1]
A reader will probably be puzzled by this response at first glance. Jesus had mentioned nothing about the Master’s hardness before, and up to this moment in the story, the Master seemed to be a kind and generous employer. And what is so fearful about someone “reaping where they do not sow”? The Master’s response might be considered equally puzzling; “‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”[2]
Is the Master overreacting a bit? Granted, the lazy servant did nothing with what he was given, but he didn’t steal it either. The servant was fearful, passive, did what he judged to be the bare minimum, taking the risk-less route to be able to guarantee the return of the talent. A bit irresponsible, perhaps. A bit negligent. But it hardly seems like it warranted casting him into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. However, the Master does not judge it so, calling him wicked and lazy. The Master asks why the servant did not at least put the money in the bank instead of the ground, where there would be at least passive growth—a small sign of life—if the servant did not intend to do any trading himself. The Master’s expectation was reasonable, where even the slightest effort to steward his charge would have been sufficient.
So often, our fear will lead us to avoidance, bitterness against God, and a disobedient passivity towards obeying a God who doesn’t need our efforts. We think, “God is sovereign; He is all-powerful. He doesn’t need me to serve Him. He doesn’t need me to take a risk and share the Gospel. He doesn’t need me to help the poor and to love the orphan. He doesn’t need me to take a stand for what is right and defend the voiceless. He doesn’t need me to serve my enemies or sacrifice for my friends. He doesn’t need me to persevere in quiet faithfulness amidst suffering. He can reap where He does not sow—it is impossible to add to His wealth with my poor efforts!” And in a sense, we would be right. God doesn’t need us to do any of those things. He is perfectly capable, in His own power, to do whatever He wills, whether it is miraculously saving a lost people, bringing in a harvest where He hadn’t planted anything, or minting talents out of thin air. What have we to offer such a powerful master? Absolutely nothing.
And yet, this fear of not being able to offer a good enough return to a master who, with the snap of his fingers, could multiply the talents right before his eyes, was the root of condemnation for this wicked servant. Firstly, he misjudged his Master’s character, calling him “hard.” He feared the harshness of stern Master, when, in fact, he had a joyful, just, and generous master, giving tasks according to each servant’s capacity and rewarding their efforts with exponentially more than what they contributed. The wicked servant’s false fear led him to his second error: he misjudged his responsibility. Rather than obeying, trying his best, participating in his assigned job, and having faith that his Master correctly assessed his abilities, he threw up his hands and thought, “What if I fail? What if I make a bad investment? What if thieves come and take the talent away from me? What would my harsh Master do to me then? And what does it matter anyway—all my efforts are futile to a master who doesn’t need me to help him.” And so, the servant decided his best course of action to avoid the pitfalls that come with risk and responsibility was to bury his coin. The lack of understanding on who his Master was and what he owed his Master shows the complete breakdown in the relationship, and the Master’s actions echos the sentiment of the bridegroom from the parable of the ten virgins: “Truly I say to you, I do not know you.”[3]
Which brings us back to our first question: if we treat cowardliness with the same gravity it receives in the Scriptures, how do we avoid the slippery slope of fear on a personal level, and how do we combat fear corporately in this age of anxiety?
Now, what are the things that people are chiefly afraid of during these times? People fear that they will get sick, possibly chronically, or that their parents will die a slow death apart from the presence of loved ones, or that they will lose their livelihood, or that the government they thought would competently serve them will ultimately cause irreparable harm, or that the world is barreling toward economic depression, or that seeing friends at the next holiday will be forbidden, or that their religious observances will take place online for the foreseeable future, or that the world is forever changed for the worse, or all that was dependable cannot be relied on anymore. We fear our neighbours will judge our choices, and we fear our neighbours will make the wrong choice. We fear our rights will be taken away. We fear our health is at the mercy of the least responsible people we meet daily, whose sense of individualism and entitlement has entirely eclipsed neighbourly compassion and civic duty. We fear that should we submit to extreme infringements on our way of life now, we are possibly inviting complete erosions of dearly held freedoms.
The usual day-to-day terrors of life compound all this. What if I let my friends down? What if I don’t measure up at work? What if I fail at parenting? Have I been made a fool of by this person I trust? Will I be in pain for the rest of my life? Is my life pleasing to God?
These are deep and (sometimes) justified fears.
It is natural to experience fear amidst suffering, but the direction the fear drives us can be the difference between life and death. Fear can lead us to hide (“I was ashamed and so I hid.”)[4] or accuse God (“Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?”)[5] or act passively fatalistic (“I knew you were a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and I was afraid.”)[6], i.e. faithless cowardice. Or fear can lead us to cling to God (“If I touch even His garments, I will be made well.”)[7] rightly orient our lives (“I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.”)[8] and to pray for boldness (“look upon their threats and grant to Your servants to continue to speak Your word with all boldness, while You stretch out Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.”).[9]
The only thing that will not be shaken in the coming days is our faithful God, and He is the only thing that we can offer a people consumed with fear, harassed and helpless before this temporal turmoil. In being anchored to Him and the hope of our resurrection, we appear strangely stable to those standing on shifting sands. Though we have genuine trials and our own crushing fears, we have this advantage: we do not have to carry them by ourselves, we do not have to let them put a wedge between God and us, but can lay them at the feet of Jesus. Our fears can lead us to faithlessness, a cowardice that neither knows God nor serves Him, or our fears can lead us to cling to God, completely dependent and faithful to the end.
We can be courageous in the face of fears because we know fear doesn’t have the last word. We can put our present suffering in context, so even if we pray as Jesus did, “Take this cup from me,” we can add, “but not my will—but Yours be done.”[10] It is not an easy way to bear witness to our Master who we trust—for Jesus, it meant crucifixion—but it is a powerful opportunity we have right now. We know the character of our Master, and we know what He has asked of us.
For the joy set before us, we can endure the tribulations of this life, knowing that our Good Shepherd has promised us a fearless future: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”[11]
Amen. Maranatha.
Devon Phillips is just a pilgrim longing for the Day of the revealing of the sons of God and the redemption of our bodies. Meanwhile, she is privileged to serve in the Middle East with Frontier Alliance International and contributes regularly to THE WIRE. She can be reached at devon@faimission.org.
[1] Matthew 25:24-25
[2] Matthew 25:26-30
[3] Matthew 25:12, from the Parable of the Ten Virgins which Jesus tells at the same time He tells the Parable of the Talents. Both illustrate the need for knowing God to enter His Kingdom.
[4] Genesis 3:10
[5] Mark 4:38
[6] Matthew 25:24
[7] Mark 5:28
[8] Psalm 16:8
[9] Acts 4:29-30; It is worth noting that the main thrust of the Apostolic prayers recorded in the New Testament does not pray for the relief of persecution or suffering, but for boldness in the face of persecution unto the spread of the gospel. See 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5, Colossians 1:9-11.
[10] Matthew 26:39
[11] Luke 12:32
