Theme: Fear God, Not Man
Jer 20:10-13; Ps 68(69):8-10,14,17,33-35; Rom 5:12-15; Matt 10:26-33
The gospel reading of today forms part of the “Mission of the Disciples” which runs from Matt 9:35 to 10:42. At the beginning of his earthly mission, Jesus chose some people who were to stay with him and who became his apostles (Matt 4:18 -22). From that moment, these disciples kept following Jesus as he went about proclaiming the Goodnews. Jesus’s message is shown from the onset to be amessage that would attract many enemies. Before even Jesus set forth, as he went into the wilderness to prepare for the mission, the evil one came to draw him into abandoning the Goodnews of God and the work of freeing the world from darkness (Matt 4). The evil one succeeded not. Then going forward, with his “You have heard how it is said to you…, but now I say to you….” (Matt 5:21-48), Jesus started to show how his message is different from the status-quo. Jesus went on to tell his disciples not to mind the spirituality being practiced at their time by both the ‘holy pharisees’ and the ‘pagan gentiles’ (Matt 6-7). Hence, through his gospel teachings, Jesus established a life-model which irritates both the devil and human authorities. That is to say, right from the beginning, Jesus knew that there were men who would oppose his messages because they are contradictory to what they believed in and how they lived. It is in the midst of these polemics by all forces that Jesus called his disciples to himself and made them co-sharers of this message of Christ. The message to which Christ has commissioned the disciples is not all about glories, it does not constitute just on casting out demons and healing the sick. It unavoidably attracts difficulties, oppositions, unacceptance of some men, and persecution of the disciples. And Jesus did not waste time to draw the attention of his disciples to this expected opposition(Matt 10:13,17-39). Hence, from the very first day, Jesus warned the disciples that this life of the Goodnews necessarily anticipates opposition so much so that one can say that any such life for Christ and his message of God’s freedom and truth, which does not open itself to oppositions and persecutions is therefore anything but Christian life. But this opposition is not something seen only at the time of Christ. It was so in the time of the prophets also. In the first reading, Jeremiah lamented against those who were after his life because he delivered the message of God to the people (Jer 19). This persecution was initiated, not even from an outsider, but from the priest of the House of God called Pashhur (Jer 20:1-3). Jeremiah’s message of God was against the lifestyle of the people. Definitely, it got both the political rulers and the religious leaders angry, because it aimed at releasing the people from the bondage of their wicked leaders and opening them up to new life that embraces obedient to God’s Law. The natural and most common reaction to the threats, persecutions and oppositions against living Christian life and bearing witness to the truth of the Gospel, is for one to withdraw and keep silent over evil of the society. The evil forces can go to any extent to silence the disciples of the Truth and Light from bearing witness against them. Let us use the example of the testimony shared by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala during the graduation ceremony of SIPA class of 2016. She reported the cleaning up of the fuel subsidy regime in 2012 when she was serving as Finance Minister. Because she was determined on correcting the wrongs and the frauds of evil men who were using the public resources for their private enrichment, her elderly mother, 83 years of old, was kidnapped, and she was threatened that if she does not resign publicly and depart from the country, her elderly mother would be killed. When we talk about persecution because of righteousness, it is not just unknown gun-men entering into Churches and killing people and burning the churches, it is also the little and big persecutions Christians must face in their day-to-day activities because they decide to stand for the truth. Jesus knew that the first instinct when one is faced with persecutions because of the truth of the gospel, is to abandon both the message and the life in order to save oneself. Because of this, Jesus invites the disciples on two important truths about their existence. The first one is on who to fear. The disciples are to fear, not any force whose power is only temporal, finite and limited, but he who controls both temporality and eternity. Both the evil one and human forces are limited to temporality and corporality. Hence, when they threaten against those who bear witness to the truth, the disciples of Christ must not give in to their threats because it is better to lose that which is passing, than to deny Christ in whom we live, move and breath. It is better to suffer the worldly pains that have no access to our souls than to sell our souls which has an enduring effect into eternity. The second truth is that even what happens on the body is not without God’s permission. For this, Christ uses sparrows to give example. It is easy for one to take hold of sparrows which are already fallen, but for these sparrows to fall in the first instance, it must have been permitted by God. That is to say, someone can buy a bird caught may be by a hunter, but before this bird can even be caught by the hunter, it must have been under God’s will. Hence, it is true that our body is accessible to evil forces, but Christ is telling us that before even this access is possible, God, who owns both man’s soul and body, must have permitted that. And in that case, it will no longer be the evil one manipulating us in our bodies but God allowing us to be tested, and through that test purifies us. Hence, Christ assures us that there will be persecutions once we decide to live fully according to the gospel truth. But such persecutions are limited and not substantial for they have no access to our souls. And also, even for those bodily persecutions to be possible, God must have permitted that, as he did in the case of Job (Job 1:8-12). Our world is becoming something else because we, modern Christians keep a separate line between the teachings of Christ and what we do in the world. We have adopted the method of running parallel lives, one which listens to God in the Church, and the other which follows the world outside.
Our belief is not translated into our actions. We rather give up anything concerning God than lose a second of comfort or earthly benefit. Dearest brothers and sisters, Christ has called each and everyone of us to himself, and he has sent us out to go into the world and show the light of Christ just as he did to the disciples in our gospel reading of last Sunday. The message which he has charged us to carry and spread is one that anticipates oppositions and persecutions but it is through our steadfastness in the truth of Christ that we will truly show that we are the disciples of Christ, that we are Christ-like. May God give us the grace to stand tall is being Children of Light and in overcoming any pressure that aims at pushing us away from that to which Christ has commissioned us. Amen
Fr. Chukwuezugo Nnamah.