Mt 10:26-33.
Dear Friends, Today’s gospel selection has the disciples about to begin their first missionary venture. Jesus is counseling them to cast off any fear. He is telling them about the Father’s constant providence. Jesus is addressing a universal human experience of fear in its many manifestations.
In addressing the perplexing issue of fear, the Bible has over seven hundred statements on this topic. Each time some form of fear is mentioned, the biblical text has a response expressing a deep sense of God’s providential loving care.
Today’s passage, like so much of the Word of God, shows that faith liberates, empowers, encourages, and offers hope. In contrast, fear imprisons, weakens, paralyzes and invites hopelessness.
Jesus’ message offers us a three-fold approach against fear. His first statement against fear is that his teachings will have liberating power. This point had been hidden but is now revealed. Secondly, Jesus had earlier told them they would be like sheep among the wolves. (Mt 10:16) Nevertheless, they need to move ahead without fear. Finally, the third declaration against fear is based on God’s loving and compassionate care. Jesus uses the everyday examples of the sparrows and the hairs on our heads.
In the time of Jesus, the sparrows were sold two for a penny and five for two cents. Yet, God knows their every movement. The hairs on the average person’s head offer a real test to maintain an accurate count. If God can keep track of these two obscure and almost frivolous items, infinitely more forceful is God’s loving care for each of us. This loving providence of the Father is the central truth of today’s teaching. All other elements need to be understood in this testimony.
There are two kinds of fear. The first is helpful and reasonable. Jesus is talking about the second fear that is rooted in ignorance and illusion. This fear is a crippling force that grips the frightened person. This fear distorts reality to the detriment of one’s responsibilities and relationships. This is a fear that stunts growth and deceives reason. This pathological fear destroys hope and freedom. Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke of this fear in his famous Inaugural address: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
We all find ourselves these days in senseless wars and growing divisions at almost all levels of society. We all must come face-to-face with fear at many levels of our daily life. The wrong kind of fear often is damaging to our effort to live the gospel. We are drawn to an ordinary and mediocre effort devoid of the gospel’s challenge and new horizons. Do we fear the honest power of the gospel that will show us the deception of our cultural customs so removed from Jesus’ teachings? We all have to ask ourselves what kind of fear is motivating us? Is it calling us forward into the new world of the teaching of Jesus or is it crippling us in the captivity of our comfortable but often rigid world that blinds us to our own mortality and concern for our neighbor? Is it building fences or bridges? Is it drawing us deeper into the inclusion of all others as the gospel teaches or into the isolation of our prejudices?
Much of Christian service and true charity involves drawing our brothers and sisters away from the entanglements of destructive fear. Likewise, a true Christian love will identify and support true salutary fear. This is what Jesus is doing in today’s gospel passage. A true awareness of God’s loving presence will help us to see and embrace our true and final fear, a fear of missing out on eternal life.
The vision of Jesus in today’s gospel is clear and forthright. What we truly need to fear is the final separation from the source of all life, our gracious and loving God. All else, even the destruction of the body in death, rests in the hands of our loving Father who is always calling us to life.
