"THERE DO NOT BE AFRAID: YOU ARE WORTH MORE THAN MANY SPARROWS»

 

… there is fear that blocks, which makes one lose the courage of proclaiming and bearing witness, the fear you feel of losing face, a privilege or not to be on page. And we become lazy and little by little we lose strength and we end up no longer recognizing Jesus, the teacher.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Every morning, just woke up, I proceed to pour a generous glass of puffed rice grains into a container placed on a tree in the garden. As soon as I get home I enjoy the show. Dozens and dozens of sparrows first fluttering around, in trees or hedges, they begin to glide, fighting or chasing each other, on the bowl of rice and eat some of it, they throw more around, or they take it away, probably to feed the newborns that hatch from the eggs at this time of year.

In the Gospel of this XII Sunday of ordinary time, right in the center of Jesus' short speech he talks about sparrows. He reassures the disciples: “You are worth more than many sparrows”. Here is the Gospel passage:

"During that time, Jesus said to his apostles: “Do not be afraid of men, for there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I tell you in the darkness you say in the light, and what you hear in your ears you announce from the terraces. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but they have no power to kill the soul; rather be afraid of him who has the power to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Two sparrows are perhaps not sold for a penny? Yet not even one of them will fall to the ground without the will of your Father. Even the hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not be afraid: you are worth more than many sparrows! Therefore anyone will recognize me before men, I will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; who will deny me before men, I too will deny him before my Father who is in heaven." [Mt 10, 26-33].

We are inside the tenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, where it tells of the sending of the twelve apostles on a mission. But it is also a discourse that is addressed to disciples of every time and place, therefore also to us who hear a page proclaimed today which comes to us from afar and which was probably already affected by those difficulties which not only encountered the very first disciples of the Lord sent to the territories of Israel and only to those, but also the roughness of the path that subsequent generations of disciples found who were inspired by the tradition of Matthew's writing.

Jesus, right in last Sunday's Gospel, he had warned his disciples that the same fate as their master would befall them:

«A disciple is not greater than the master, nor is a servant greater than his lord; it is enough for the disciple to become like his master and for the servant like his lord. If they called the master of the house Beelzebul, much more those of his family!» (Mt 10,24-25).

That is to say, what Jesus experienced, it will also be experienced by his envoys, who will be called devils, in the service of the leader of the demons, Beelzebub, and they will be persecuted to the point of being killed by those who believe they are giving glory to God in this way (GV 16,2). For this reason in today's Gospel Jesus feels the need, not to sugarcoat the pill, but to cheer up the disciples and three times (vv. 26. 28.31) he invites them not to fear: "Do not be afraid!».

I would like to say the same thing to my sparrows that, if I make a sudden or involuntary movement, they run away scared. Fear is an early instinct thatimprinting has fixed in different species, in ours too. There is a good fear that allows us not to fall into danger and to be cautious. In the same speech Jesus had in fact said:

"There: I send you out like sheep among wolves; so be wise as serpents and harmless as doves ". (10, 16).

And then there is the fear that blocks, which makes one lose the courage of proclaiming and bearing witness, the fear you feel of losing face, a privilege or not to be on page. And we become lazy and little by little we lose strength and we end up no longer recognizing Jesus, the teacher.

Like Peter on the night of his passion: «Who will deny me before men, I too will deny him before my Father who is in heaven." (v. 33). But «Two sparrows are perhaps not sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father."¹.

I feel sorry for the translators of the Italian Episcopal Conference, but there is no "want" in Greek. And instead we need to give back, verbatim: «… without your Father». That is to say, not even a sparrow, falling to the ground, he is abandoned by the Father! Even more so the disciples and even Peter who is their head. In the same way, even the hair on our head (v. 30), that we lose every day without realizing it: they are all counted, all under the gaze of the Father. From such contemplation comes the confidence that dispels fear: God sees as a father sees us, who always looks at us with love and never abandons us, not even when we fall.

When we think we are alone as disciples, left at the mercy of the trials that life presents us or of adversaries who give no respite, Let's think back to the prophet Jeremiah from this Sunday's first reading: «I felt the slander of many. Terror all around... We will take our revenge" (Gives 20,10). Jeremiah lets go of a moment of anger for the situation that has arisen: "may I see your vengeance upon them" (v. 12). Who wouldn't understand it? But then the man of faith called from the mother's womb prevails: "Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord, because he freed the life of the poor" (v. 13). The psalmist of today's responsory echoes this:

«Let the poor see and rejoice; you who seek God, take courage, because the Lord listens to the miserable, he does not despise his own who are prisoners. May heaven and earth sing praise to him, the seas and everything that teems in them" (Shall 68).

Now tell me if there is a protagonist of Scripture to whom the Lord God has not given the encouragement that Jesus says in triple form to the disciples: do not be afraid and do not fear. Not even one, from Abraham to Joseph of Nazareth. Do you think the Virgin Mary didn't hear that?? She too: "Do not fear, Maria, because you have found favor with God" (LC 1,30). Then we can discuss until tomorrow morning about the difference between Mary's fear and that of her relative Zechariah, between that of Jeremiah or Saint Peter while Jesus was being questioned in the Sanhedrin. The important thing that today's Gospel reveals to us is this invitation to let go of fear, not to allow this primary emotion to take over, because of God's special protection, the Father that Jesus reveals to us, who does not abandon us like garbage², which is what the adversary par excellence does instead.

Because Jesus after sending his, including us today, invites you not to be afraid of anything or anyone? Because this is the time of revelation (v. 26) or as someone said "the time of the end"³ inaugurated by Jesus. The time of mission is a time of apocalypse, not in the catastrophic sense usually attributed to this term, but in the etymological sense of re-velation, of lifting the veil. The announcement of the Gospel, indeed, requires that what Jesus said in private be proclaimed in broad daylight, let what has been said in the ear be shouted from the housetops.

«Nothing is hidden from you (verb cover, calypto) which will not be re-veiled (verb disclose, apocalypto) nor secret (cryptic, crypto) which will not be known (verb know, Ginosko)» (v. 26).

The things hidden since the foundation of the world (Mt 13,35; Shall 78,2) they are revealed by Jesus and then by the disciples in history. E, hidden in the heart of this inexhaustible message, lies the announcement of God as Father, which is that "much more" as the Apostle Paul calls it in the second reading this Sunday (RM 5, 12), that is, the abundance of his saving grace, redeem and love.

Happy Sunday everyone!

from the Hermitage, 25 June 2023

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NOTE

1 Mt 10, 29b “and one of them will not fall on the earth without your father”. CEI translation: «Yet not one of them will fall to the ground without the will of your Father».

2 Gehenna (Mt 10,28) it was the valley that collected the garbage of Jerusalem

3 G. Gaeta, The time of the end, proximity and distance of the figure of Jesus, Any 2020

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