In this Gospel passage, we rejoin Jesus during the first year of His public ministry. Jesus directs the disciples to keep their focus on God. He reminds them that those who can harm the body do not have ultimate power; God does. Persecution and suffering may not be avoidable or prevented but Jesus’ reassures us that God is always and forever at our call to care for us and protect us. He is using here a rabbinic argument technique which compares a light matter to a heavy one. His idea here is to overcome fear and encourage the disciples, and us, to trust God.
We see in the gospels, how on the one hand, Jesus grants the disciples remarkable powers to heal the sick, exorcise demons, cleanse people with leprosy, even raise from the dead. But at the same time, Jesus he warns the disciples they are to undertake their mission in complete vulnerability and dependence on God with an awareness that they go as “sheep in the midst of wolves.”
From the moment we are born, we know fear – we squall at the change in our environment. The startle reflex is tested in a baby’s first well-baby check-up. Separation anxiety develops by 6 months and may raise its ugly head later in life feelings of abandonment. Over time we may grow to fear even those who are closest to us.
Jesus recognizes that fear may cause failure on our part. Jesus’ disciples, and we, courageously leave the security of home and family to follow a dream. Jesus is starkly realistic about the threats we will face and at the same time he builds the case for why we should not let fear win out or hinder our ministry.
Jesus offers us a life-time coverage insurance policy and he share with us how it will work. “Everyone who acknowledges me before others, I will put in a good word for you with my heavenly Father. But woe to you who deny me before others; I will shake my had and tell my Father: I do not know this one.” (paraphrased)
The parting words of the Gospel selection leave us hanging with the feeling of the very fear Jesus seeks to dispel. But with confidence we can pray the sentiments of the Responsorial Psalm (Ps 69): “I pray to you, O Lord, for the time of your favor. In your great kindness answer me with your constant help. In your great mercy turn toward me. See, and be glad; you who seek God, may your hearts be ever merry!”
~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB
May you be safe from violent weather and blistering heat… stay hydrated… on fluid as well as the Word of God.
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