12th Sunday (OT)
Fr.
Philip Neri Powell, OP
Diocese of Alexandria
Fear
protects us. Fear makes us sensible animals when we are in danger.
Our bodies are threatened by injury, disease, and death with every
breath we draw, with every step we take. Being afraid—being
cautious, careful—is one way God gives us to defend ourselves
against recklessness, attack, disease, and accident. When faced with
the probability of bodily harm, we run or we fight. Either way, we
hope to survive. And if we survive, we count ourselves
extraordinarily skilled, or maybe just plain lucky. Regardless, we’re
alive to confront the next possibility of injury or death. Fear
protects us. Fear makes us sensible animals. But we’re not here to
be sensible animals. At least, we’re not here only to be
sensible animals. We have to consider as well that gift from God
which makes us most like Him: our being as it was created and is
recreated in His likeness and image. Given the divine end
programmed into us at our creation, we are much, much more than sacks
of flesh and blood and bone. We are enfleshed souls with a purpose,
rational animals with a single goal. Fear blocks our best efforts at
achieving that goal. Fear makes us weak in light of our mission.
Ultimately, fear is spiritual death. It kills our best chance—our
only chance!—of coming to God. Therefore, Jesus says to the Twelve:
“Fear no one. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor
secret that will not be known…Everyone who acknowledges me before
others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.” He adds
rather ominously: “…whoever denies me before others, I will deny
before my heavenly Father.” Fear tempts us to deny Christ; fear
pushes us to reject God’s providence.
Paul,
in his letter to the Romans, preaches on the origins of death,
arguing that sin and death entered into creation with the
disobedience of our first father and mother, Adam and Eve. Believing
that they could achieve heaven on their own, our first parents took
on an awareness of good and evil that our heavenly Father wished to
deny them. In other words, by disobeying God they chose death as
their immediate goal, throwing away the original justice they enjoyed
from God in Eden. Paul writes, “Through one man sin entered the
world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men…death
reigned from Adam to Moses…after the pattern of the trespass of
Adam.”
What
is this pattern of trespass? Patterns repeat. Like houses built from
the same blueprint, our trespasses against God look the same. Over
and over—like our first father—we run after that which we think,
we feel is best for us. And over and over again—like all of our
ancestors in faith—we fall on our faces, suffering the consequences
and wondering what went wrong. Most of the time, we act because we
fear inaction; we makes decisions because we fear indecision. In
deciding and acting outside the will of the Father for us, we deny
His rule and both the natural and supernatural results are always
disastrous. This is why Jesus tells the Twelve: “…do not be
afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather,
be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”
Because
we are loved by Love Himself, we have been given a gift to use
against death. Adam lost our original justice in disobedience, but
our Father has restored that justice in Christ. Paul writes: “For
if by the transgression of [Adam] the many died, how much more did
the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ
overflow for the many.” Knowing this truth and his mission to save
us from sin and death, Jesus says, “Fear no one.” What is there
to fear? In every instance that we might find ourselves confronted by
injury, disease, or death, God is with us; His Christ reigns. Jesus,
using an absurd example, teaches the Twelve: “Are not two sparrows
sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground
without our Father’s knowledge…So do not be afraid; you are worth
more than many sparrows.” And yet, we fear. We worry. We wring our
hands and nurse our ulcers with dread. For the spiritual animal, fear
is death.
But
surely we must worry! We have responsibilities. We’ve made
promises. Signed contracts. Sworn allegiances. Besides, Australia is
burning. Food is becoming more expensive. Marriage and the family are
under attack. Christians are being arrested for teaching the faith.
Children are suing parents. Disease is rampant. Whole continents are
starving. There are civil wars, invasions, terrorist attacks, looting
and rioting. All sorts of creatures – including humans – are
being born deformed because of global environment pollution. We
continue to believe that killing our children is the answer is
overpopulation and the best way to remove inconvenient human
obstacles to middle-class prosperity. We have to worry! We do?
Really, we have to be worried? Has worry increased food production?
Cleaned up our water supply? Stopped the killing of millions of
babies? No. No amount of anxiety or fear will bring to light that
which is concealed in darkness. We can wring our hands and cry until
the Second Coming and nothing will change for the better. Does this
sound defeatist? Quietist? Maybe. But that’s hardly the point.
Paul
writes, “…the gift is not like the transgression,” meaning the
gift of Christ’s life for our eternal salvation is not like the
deadly transgression of Adam. Adam sinned and we all die. Christ died
and we all live. Does this mean that we will be spared hunger,
thirst, disease, war, natural disaster? No, it doesn’t. Does this
mean that we can live comfortably in our gated communities out of
harm’s reach, quietly consuming, blissfully ignorant? No, it
doesn’t. But it does mean that we are focused on a goal beyond the
contingencies of this life, a goal that from the other end of history
provides us with the meaning of our creation and charges us with
acting boldly now to do what we can to right the wrongs of our sins.
We will not end hunger. But we must feed the hungry. We will not end
war. But we must make peace. We will not cure every disease. But we
must care for those who suffer. Our job now is to face the tasks of
righteous living without fear, to do everything we can in charity to
speak the truth, shed His light, proclaim the healing Word, and to
die knowing that we every word we have spoken, every decision we have
made, everything we have done has been an acknowledgment of Jesus as
Lord. Our gift to a tragically sinful world is Christ’s gift to his
tragically sinful Church: words and deed that speak to the love of a
Father well-beyond our worries and fear, the mercy of a God who will
bring all things into His kingdom, and make right every wrong. So, do
not be afraid, each one of us is worth more to our Father than the
whole of creation itself.
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