Faith and Fear

Two strangers sit at a tiny table in a crammed and bustling coffeehouse on Nehru Street, in southeastern India, on the Bay of Bengal. It’s hot. It’s humid. It’s crowded with humanity.

At the table are an old man, a native of that region, and a young Canadian, a harried traveler and writer, with nothing to write and a train to catch.

“I have a story that will make you believe in God,” the old man promises. A story. Not an analysis. Not a report. Not a study. Not an essay. But a story.

We don’t reach faith through reason or research. We reach faith through stories and experiences. A well-told tale has the power to guide us to God, or into a deeper, more consequential connection with God.

Peter, the apostle, who found himself in trouble in today’s Lesson from Acts, told a story that he hoped might help his listeners believe in Jesus Christ. His listeners were skeptical. They didn’t open the ears of their hearts.

“I have a story that will make you believe in God,” both Peter and the old man promise.

The Canadian is suspicious. He wonders to himself, “Am I about to be evangelized by a Christian, or by a Muslim?’ Either way he motions for his check, in order to make his escape.

While he awaits his waiter, he asks the old man: Does your story take place 2,000 years ago in a remote corner of the Roman Empire?

No, replies the old man.

Does it take place in seventh-century Arabia? No. No. It starts right here in India, and ends in your cold country.

The author is intrigued. He stays, orders two new coffees, then listens to the tale of a lifeboat, a tiger, and a teenager named Pi.

Thus begins Yann Martel’s fantastic and metaphorical book about faith, Life of Pi: A Novel. It’s a story that explores faith by putting it to the test in the heart of catastrophe. It was turned into a wonderful and powerful movie six years ago.

Martel began his project as an agnostic, but along the way he started to believe. He thought: What would it be like to have faith? What would it be like if a dreadful event happened, and to say that Jesus loves me nonetheless?

He decided he would approach religion not from a cynical, agnostic viewpoint, but from more of a neutral standpoint. He willingly suspended judgment, and began his four years of travel, research, reading, and writing.

Then bit by bit, he fell for his subject. Bit by bit, he fell for God.

Martel grew to question the dullness of reason and its insistence on order. He decided to deconstruct reason, because reason had stopped mystery, and reason has stopped the questions that should be asked even if there are no answers. Martel asks such questions in the Life of Pi.

Pi is the sole human survivor of a cargo ship that sinks in the Pacific Ocean while transporting his family and animals from his family’s zoo in India to Canada, where they hoped to start a new life.

For 227 days, Pi drifts in a lifeboat with a 450-pound Bengal tiger that Pi rescues as the ship sinks. It’s not a cute and cuddly story about a boy and his kitten. It’s an engaging, dangerous and fascinating story about faith and survival.

As Pi adjusts to his grief and his terrifying situation – terror outside the boat, terror inside the boat – he plots to rid himself of the tiger. But in time, Pi discovers that it’s the presence of the tiger that gives him the courage and determination he needs to survive his ordeal.

It’s quite a metaphor – that we may need to live with what we fear, what we do not understand, what challenges us – in order to survive a greater trial. Faith and fear are partners in the boat together.

No one knew this better than Peter. He is a man who – in a former life – would not let faith and fear co-exist. He had faith – “This shall never happen to you!” he says to Jesus, who had said he was about to die (Matthew 16:22 NIV). Faith.

He had fear – “Woman, I do not know him,” he said in his denial of Christ (Luke 22:57 NIV). Fear.

Yet the two – faith and fear – could not hang together. He stood strong in faith in the absence of fear; he collapsed in fear in the absence of faith.

Faith doesn’t, and shouldn’t, take away fear; instead it offers evidence that God is the Unseen Third Presence in the boat – however small your boat may be upon your ocean.

It’s not uncommon to find ourselves asking God similar questions about the terrifying and imprisoning experiences in our lives from which we cannot escape – oceans of cancer, storms of grief, starvations of long unemployment, thirsting for love or the suffering of loneliness. Do we, can we, will we, still love God in the midst of dreadful calamity? Is there hope?

The post-Resurrection, post-Ascension and post-Pentecost Peter was a different Peter from the one who cowered before the accusing finger of a maid near the cross. He had learned to let faith keep fear at bay.

Peter had been hauled before the authorities because he was involved in the healing of a lame man. Despite his predicament, he locates himself as someone whose faith is in Jesus. “It is by the name of Jesus Christ … that this man stands before you” (4:10 NIV). He was in a good place spiritually. This held his fear in check.

Peter knew that his ultimate destiny was decided – whatever happened. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (4:12 NIV).

With such confidence, Peter could not help but have hope. And hope is the story of our faith journey.

What’s intriguing about Martel’s story is that Pi – the teenager – moved from plotting to rid himself of the tiger, to understanding that the tiger was the key to his survival.

We may feel sometimes like a kid in a lifeboat with a tiger in the prow, hungry and thinking about his last meal. But the adversities that come into our lives may in fact be critical to our survival as Christians. Learning to weather adversity makes us strong. Peter understood this. Later, after the authorities had released him, he met with others to pray about what to do next. Notice what he prays: “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness” (4:29 NIV).

He didn’t pray for God to ditch the tiger. He understood that the tiger of fear and adversity would always be in the boat with him. He prayed instead to have boldness in his walk as a child of God.

What tiger is in your lifeboat?

Don’t ask God to shoot it, tranquilize it, train it to do tricks and jump through hoops. Don’t pray for the tiger. Pray for yourself.

And when you do, you’ll realize that God is in the boat with you.