Fr Mark Schultz

Dear Friend,

In our Office Gospel today, what Jesus tells us about fear may seem a bit confusing.

“My friends,” he says, “do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more.” So far so good. But he continues: “ I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!” Gulp. And then he concludes, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

It sounds like we’re being put into a bit of a double bind here: don’t be afraid…be terrified…but don’t be afraid! Now, truth be told, there’s some wisdom in not imagining that finite human violence has any sort of ultimate sovereign authority over anything: all human violence will one day end, as will all corrupt human authority. From the perspective of the present moment, the waves of violence that humanity inflicts on itself and on the world around it may seem insurmountably and awesomely terrifying, but they will be stilled and trodden under by the nail-pierced feet of the One who walked on the waves of the Galilean Sea; the one who defeated death and harrowed hell to plant the cross of love, redemption, reconciliation and renewal at the heart of every trembling darkness, banishing it away. So fearing another human being on account of their death-dealing ability (and it’s likely Jesus is referring here to human sword-wielding and power-drunk authorities) is probably not a very useful endeavor.

But then he seems to suggest that a proper understanding of God’s ultimate sovereign authority ought to be framed in terms of fear and death-dealing: don’t fear man’s death-dealing, fear God’s! Now, truth be told (again): God is, in fact, sovereign, and God’s power and authority and freedom are all absolute…which fact alone should rightly inspire in us a sense of tremendous (even terrible) awe. But I don’t think that what Jesus is up to here is defining God’s authority in terms of human death-dealing on a dizzyingly infinite scale. I think he’s telling us that our understandings of power and authority are faulty, and how Jesus ends this passage is key here.

Because what Jesus seems to be saying is this: you treat with such deference and fear those who can kill you, but the word of the sovereign Lord of All you ignore…what if you were to actually treat God with the same deference and fear with which you treat the tyrants you appear to admire and before whom you abjectly tremble? But then…what if you came to understand that the power and the authority of the sovereign Lord of All was not actually based on any grand death-dealing abilities at all…but on a love so all-encompassing that it has a concern for those creatures you’re willing to sacrifice without a thought [sparrows were sold in the temple as a sacrifice for those who could not afford other sacrifices]? And what if you realized that that love that cares for the littlest and the least actually cares a great deal for every detail of you and your life in a way that is frankly awesomely incomprehensible? What would become of your fear then? Would it not turn to wonder? Would it not turn to joy? And would that joy not transform you from one afraid of worldly powers to one who understands the power of love, who understands the might of a loving concern for the least and the littlest, who understands how this gentle might can undo a whole world of death-dealing, and who lives in the light of this love despite the present darkness of this wicked age?

Beloved Friend! Let us today seek the grace to be unafraid of any earthly power, and to live in awestruck and slack-jawed wonder of God’s gracious, powerful, death-defeating love!

Under the Mercy,
Fr Mark+