The Surrender Beyond Fear

On learning to swim in the deep | Proper 8, Year C

Galatians 5:1,13-25
Luke 9:51-62

Photo by Silas Baisch on Unsplash

Eugene Peterson’s colloquial translation of the bible, The Message, began in anger. The object was his congregation. Peterson had been the pastor of this small Presbyterian church for many years, preaching and teaching, leading them in worship and gathering them for communion. He had reason to think that the people under his care were beginning to live into the freedom that Christ offers. But then, in the early 1980s, race riots broke out in nearby Baltimore. At the same time a deep economic recession was taking hold. Peterson watched as his church turned from freely loving their neighbors to installing security systems and buying guns. As he later wrote, “These free people in Christ were becoming enslaved right before my eyes to their fears and anxieties, their world reduced to their possessions and their neighborhoods.”

Frustrated, his anger turned to action. He decided he’d call his congregation back to the way of Christ through another pastor’s plea for freedom: Paul’s fiery letter to the Galatians. The problem he ran into, however, was that the standard translations just didn’t convey the passionate tone Peterson had caught in Paul’s Greek. So, he decided to translate Galatians for his church, rendering the letter in a language his people would sit up and hear.

I thought of this story as I read our scriptures for this Sunday. In both Galatians and our Gospel reading, we encounter profound and challenging calls to freedom. And these calls for bold liberation come in stark contrast to the anxieties and fears all around us. Like Peterson’s church in the early 80s, our time is marked by economic decline and rising violence, fear of our neighbors and aggression toward our enemies. We are obsessed with security, making it an idol to which we will sacrifice any life but those closest to us rather than living into the spirit of God’s freedom.

But I must admit that though I appreciated Peterson’s bold pastoral response, it wasn’t immediately clear to me what Galatians had to do with the anxieties of our time. The Galatian church, after all, was not tempted to stockpile swords or install off duty Centurions outside their doors. The issue for them was Gentile Christians who were becoming circumcised, even though, as Paul saw it this was completely unnecessary for their life with God, a distraction from what really mattered.

As I reflected, however, it occurred to me that what is at the heart of Galatians is very much like something my daughters have been doing an awful lot of this summer, something that might give us a way to understand the freedom for which we were set free; the freedom Peterson longed for his people to experience.

Nearly every afternoon in the summer, my daughters go to the pool. It’s a small neighborhood pool in Southwest Little Rock where we’ve been members for several years. Each of those years, my daughters have been moving more and more into the fullness of what the pool has to offer.

When they were younger, they were both cautious, and we were glad for that. Water, like God, is dangerous and it is especially so for those who have no respect for its power. I’ve seen children jump right into the deep end and have to be pulled out by a life guard. I couldn’t complain that mine were hanging on to the side.

But caution and respect for water must give way, eventually, to the risk and freedom of swimming. With time, the side of the pool and wadding in the shallows isn’t enough. My daughters wanted to dive and go to the bottom, they wanted to be able to play all the games the other kids were playing. Luckily for them, my wife Emily is an excellent swimmer and coach. She knows how to break the freestyle stroke into its various parts and then put it all together into a graceful glide through the water. But to begin to learn that stroke, my daughters had to risk something. They had to let go of the safety of the side and the shallows, stop holding their noses, and trust the water as they moved into the deep. It was when they finally let go, surrendering, that they were able to move without struggle. Through that risk of faith, they were actually becoming as safe as they could possibly be—strong swimmers.

For Paul, the way of God is like a pool with sides and shallows and deep water. To be in the water anywhere is good and beautiful and refreshing, but to experience the fullness of the pool one has to move into the deep. There is danger, but there is also fullness, and an invitation to relax into the flow of the Spirit.

The problem Paul saw with the Galatians, the problem Eugene Peterson saw with his own congregation, is that though they had learned from Jesus how to move into the deep they had returned to cling to sides. They were letting their fears and their worries limit their capacity for life in its fullness.

Thinking that circumcision is the only way we can get right with God isn’t a problem most of us face. Still, we have plenty of ways that we seek to secure ourselves rather than risking our lives in the deep waters of God. There are all kinds of contraptions and aids to help people swim. They promise that if we just buy this one thing then we will finally be able to move through the water. But all those devices are unnecessary, because to swim well all you need is your body, and someone to show you how to move with grace through the water.

Paul is reminding us that we don’t need anything more than what we have already been given. Instead, we must take those gifts and surrender to the water, not on our own, but by following the loving example of Jesus who has shown us the way to freedom. It is in Jesus that we can learn to actually do all of those wonderful things Paul mentions—being patient and kind, loving and generous. If we want to be secure in the water, we must learn to swim. If we want to find relief from the fears and anxieties of this world, we must learn to live into the patterns of Jesus.

A way to begin learning that pattern that I’ve found helpful is reading the bible regularly, especially fresh translations that make the word strange again. Eugene Peterson’s wonderful rendering of Galatians is a good place to start. David Bentley Hart’s The New Testament: A Translation and Sarah Ruden’s The Gospels: A New Translation are also regularly in circulation for my reading the scriptures anew. Whatever version we read, the aim is to find the pattern of our good teacher that is as relevant today as it was so long ago. The way of Jesus is a path into the depths of freedom. But if we follow him, he won’t let us stay on the sides too long, for he knows that the only way to swim is to let go. Jesus knows that the only way we can have a world where enemies are truly loved is to have a people who have been formed in a surrender beyond fear. There will always be urgencies keeping us back, but the reward for our risk is the cool, refreshing, joyful life of the depths. So lay back, let your arms stretch out, and feel the security of your surrender to the waters of God’s life. It is the refreshment we all need in these heated days.