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Jesus utters some pretty challenging words to his disciples in
today’s gospel: “…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….”
Even though Jesus begins with the statement “Do not be afraid…,” the
simple fact is that there is very much we fear today, and nowhere
more so than when it
comes to proclaiming our faith and its values.
Take some simple things that are rather obvious. There’s the fear
many of us have of asking someone not to use foul language or not to
tell off-color jokes in our presence, or to stop sending emails using
either foul language or relating off-color jokes. Many of us fear
telling family members and friends that their behavior or foolishness will get them
into trouble or is messing up their marriages or families. Most
of us fear having to take the car keys from a spouse or friend who
drinks too much or to stand up to miscreant teenage children and
make them behave correctly. Our homes, workplaces, and culture
would be a whole lot less cravenly crass if we proclaimed our faith and its
values by doing these and so many other obvious yet simple things
that we so much fear doing.
Now, let’s
take
some things that are far more complex but are not so obvious to very many
people today.
I can’t tell you the number of parents
who have complained to me about the fact that their children are
living together without being married. Thinking about the
immediate moment, these parents live in fear of how their young adult children will respond if their
parents were to demand that their young adult children stop living
together because they aren’t married.
There are also those parents
I know personally who feared what the immediate moment would bring to their
pregnant teenaged or young adult daughters. An unwed mother
who has not finished with school and with no real chance to start a
career. So, these parents drove
their daughters to abortion clinics and paid cash for medical
“procedures” whereby their grandchildren were killed because that’s
what their daughters wanted.
The numbers
of Catholics is legion who fear what others will say and the
humiliation they will experience if they were to announce the lie
that birth control is.
“Use natural family planning?
What planet are you from?”
There’s also those
countless young Catholics who fear proclaiming to their peers that
chastity before marriage is not only virtuous but is the only way to
build a rock solid marriage.
How many people fear to name gay
“marriage” what it really is—legalized sodomy—because they will be
accused of being insensitive bigots or homophobes?
Today’s scripture reminds all of us that proclaiming our faith and
its values—the truth of God’s
word—requires
making a decision, of having to endure awkward moments in our
relationships, and of being willing to confront family members,
friends, and our culture as well...come what may. And yet, is
it not true that many of us fear having to endure those awkward
moments, having to confront others, or having to face the hardships
that are likely to ensue? The words of Jeremiah the prophet might
as well be our own: “I hear the whisperings of many: ‘Terror on every
side! Denounce! Let us denounce him!’ All those who were my
friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine. ‘Perhaps he will
be trapped; then we can prevail, and take our vengeance on him.’”
Like us, Jeremiah didn’t want to take on the task of speaking the
truth and having to suffer for it, so much so that in today’s first
reading, Jeremiah is lamenting that he decided to put God ahead of his
own fears. Because of Jeremiah’s
“strategic error,”
people were talking about Jeremiah behind his back, swearing to his
face that they would get even with him, and making plans to hurt
him. Even Jeremiah’s friends turned on him and provided no support
as the tide of public opinion as well as civil and religious
authority turned against Jeremiah for opening his big mouth.
That is why we fear proclaiming our faith and its values when it
comes to simple things that seem so obvious as well as those more
difficult things that aren’t so obvious. People will turn on us.
They will hurt us. Perhaps they might even try to kill us.
But, lest we forget, to that first statement in today’s
gospel,
“Do not be afraid,” Jesus added, “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….”
When we allow ourselves to cave in to our fears because of those who
can kill the body but not the soul, we veer off
“the road less traveled” and
forsake the promise of salvation God has so generously offered us. Rather than
believing deeply with all our hearts that if we do right by God in proclaiming our faith and its values, then all will be well―as
Jeremiah and Jesus did because they believed deeply with all their
hearts that God was with them―we
fear that God is not with us and all will end in misery.
How is it that we get into the position of fearing that God will not
be with us when we must proclaim our faith and its values by
disciplining our children, telling family members of friends about
our honest concerns, or asking others to respect our faith and its
values?
Perhaps much of this fear has to do with the lack of courage
resulting from the fact that we live not for the future but in the
immediate moment. And because this is our attitude, when we must
proclaim our faith and its values, we base our decisions not upon
what they will mean for our souls in the future but what they will
mean for our bodies in the immediate moment.
That is the point today’s scripture reading places squarely before
us. The road from here to eternity―the
“road less traveled”―is
difficult. But, we should not fear traversing this road—difficult
as it is—because it is the only road that leads to the salvation of
our souls. By reminding us about Jeremiah’s laments and how Jesus
taught his disciples not to fear those who can kill the body,
today’s scripture teaches us that making decisions and living in the
immediate moment is the
“well-traveled
road.”
Sure, this road will lead us to experience less anguish, pain, and
suffering. But, those decisions and our life in the immediate
moment neglects our future with God, the one who has the power to
destroy both the body and the soul in Gehenna.
It sure would be easier, wouldn’t
it,
if faith and its values were meant to be kept private? Just ask
Jeremiah and Jesus! But, faith and its values are not meant to be
kept private. No, they are meant to be proclaimed from the
rooftops so that our lives will make all the difference in the world...for our children, family members, friends, and
our culture as well.
That is, if we don’t allow fear to get between us and God.
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HOMILY
