12th Sunday – Cycle A
Do not be Afraid! (Mt 10:26-33)
This is the 2nd Sunday after the celebrations of the Easter festivals and the follow on. This being Year A in liturgy, we continue with the Gospel of Matthew. One of the explicit characteristics of Matthew is that it was written in and for a Jewish community. Hence to understand that Gospel we need to be conscious of the Jewish background. Flowing from this setting, an interesting detail in the Gospel is that Matthew collects various sayings of Jesus delivered at different contexts into a compendium, breaks them into five parts, and places them at five locations, demarking the Gospel into “five-books” symbolically representing the five books of the Torah! Have a look at this:
Part 1 – Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:1-7:29), at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus;
Part 2 – Missionary Instructions are collected in chapter 10;
Part 3 – Parables of the Kingdom in chapter 13;
Part 4 – Instructions about the Community of God in chapter 18; and
Part 5 – Sermon on End of Times is placed towards the end of the gospel (Mt 23:1-25:46).
Interestingly, the transition between these discourses is clearly marked with the phrase: “When Jesus had finished saying these things…” (Mt 7:28, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, 26:1).
The gospel text of today comes from the missionary instructions of Jesus to his apostles, whose names are mentioned at the beginning of chapter 10 (the gospel text of last Sunday). A repeated message in this text is “Do not be Afraid…;” repeated three times in this short extract. There are two contexts where the apostles and we are invited not to be afraid, and finally, there is a reason why we should not be afraid.
In the context of the present times of human history and at the face of anxiety that it has created, the message of the gospel text of today provides an assurance that we are still worth more than anything else. The gospel also invites us to go beyond!
Do not be Afraid of the Unknown: Adopt a Spirituality of Discernment
With the accelerating change in our society, we live through many unknowns. The unknowns of this world also raise our mind to the god-question. And the realm of the divine is clouded in even more mystery. We find it difficult to make sense of the paradoxes of the mysteries of life that our religiosity and spirituality attempt to help us handle. We want clear cut answers and solutions in black and white. And we want it here and now.
If you read most of the American/Western religious blogs today, they portray this reactionary content. On the one hand, there warn of the end-times with a lot of apocalyptic language. On the other hand, there are others that invite us to take shelter in an exaggerated orthodoxy.
Jesus says in the gospel text of today, “For everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear” (Mt 10:26). This can only happen when we can stay in silence in a spirit of contemplation before the mystery, with a sense of awe. The clarity of the hidden will emerge not in rational terms but in ways that provide meaning to our life. Meaning brings energy and serenity to our lives. Attempting to seek rational clarity in terms of black and white could only make us fundamentalists and fanatics.
As Pope Francis says in his apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia (no.305):
“Discernment must help to find possible ways of responding to God and growing in the midst of limits. By thinking that everything is black and white, we sometimes close off the way of grace and of growth, and discourage paths of sanctification which give glory to God.”
When we live our lives in constant spirit of discernment, listening to God, contemplating the mysteries of the greater aspects of life, beyond the mundane limitations caused by the unknowns, “everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear!”
Do not be Afraid of Physical Threat
The second part of the gospel text moves from the level of knowledge to the existential level. Jesus does speak about physical threat. But it would not be fair to the Word of God to reduce it to threats caused by physical sickness or by other people for peripheral reasons. These lines have to be understood in the context of the preceding lines within the missionary instruction of Jesus to his apostles in Matthew 10:
“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves. But beware of people, for they will hand you over to courts and scourge you in their synagogues…” (Mt 10:16-17).
In other words, if there is a physical threat because of our striving to live and witness to the core of the message of Jesus, then it is worth it. Jesus tells us today, do not be afraid… because safeguarding the loss of your spiritual self is more important than any physical threat. And above all, you are worth more than anything else in the eyes of God. You are in the image of God, don’t forget.
And in fact, if we enjoy eternal life by growing that image of God, by being in union with God in Jesus, then the fragility of human life is no threat. Even death is no threat. It is merely a transition. Eternal life is living in a continuous now, allowing the life of God to flow in us and through us.
Therefore, the solution to deal with our fears is to focus on our deep relationship with God – that is, we declare ourselves for God/Jesus in front of the world!