12th Sunday Ordinary

12th Sunday Ordinary A –9 AM Mt 10: 26-33 2008

A little boy woke up during a thunder clapping storm. He cried out for his daddy. He dad came into his room. “Daddy, I’m afraid,” the little boy cried. “Honey, God will always watch over you and protect you. “I know, Daddy, but right now I need someone with skin on him.
Jesus who reads the human heart like an open book, knows full well how fearful we human beings can be.
He felt the sinking fear of his disciples when they were caught in a boat as fragile as a cobweb during a bulldozing storm.
He felt their fear when, with a vision blinded by the cataracts of apprehension, they tried to dissuade him from going up to Jerusalem where the nails of certain death awaited him.
He felt their fear when they abandoned him in his crucifixion like flickering flames extinguished by brutal gusts of wind.
He felt their fear when they hid behind a locked door after the crucifixion, where they tried to exclude persecution but only succeeded in confining themselves to anguished insecurity.
Jesus himself experienced fear that ran through him like an electrical current when, in the garden of olives, he asked his Father to allow the chalice of suffering to pass.
Yet in our gospel story, Jesus stands in the skin of his incarnation and urges you not to fear.
Because of the myriad of stresses of life – from the vagaries of the economy to the nightmares of violence, you may tend to seek a safe, comfortable place to avoid the unpleasant and protect ourselves from the horrible.
Yet Jesus continues to tell you not to fear.
Joyce Rupp in her book, Fresh Bread and Other Gifts of Spiritual Nourishment, reminds us that “Fear keeps us from knowing the beautiful, tender and good within us and others.”
“Fear,” she says, “boxes us in and keeps others out.”
Steve Martini in his novel, Prime Witness, has one of his characters say, “The first sign of fear is hostility.” This hostility, seething like a cauldron of burning oil, is directed not only at others but at ourselves, tearing away shred by shred our human potential, our self-respect.
Because of hostile fear, we don’t trust ourselves, we don’t trust others, we don’t trust God. It’s a desperate, maddening way to live. It most certainly not living as followers of Jesus who tells us not to fear.
On the other hand, fear is not always directed at others; rather fear is boxing yourself in so that you cannot reach out to others.
Fear is the illigimate child of trust; when you truly trust you give birth to courage.
Those whose holiness makes God in their own image and likeness commit the most unholy act; those whose holiness consists in worshipping a vengeful God blasphemes the infinitely merciful and forgiving God revealed by Jesus.
Brother David Standel Rost in his book, Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer, states, “Faith is fearless trust.”
How often during his long pontificate did PJP urge all of us in the human familty to fear not?
HUMOR While sports fishing off the Florida coast, a tourist capsized his boat.
He could swim, but his fear of alligators kept him clinging to the overturned craft. Spotting an old beachcomber standing on the shore, the tourist shouted,
“Are there any gators around here?”
“Naw,” the man hollered back, “they ain’t been around for years!”
Feeling safe, the tourist started swimming leisurely toward the shore.
About halfway there he asked the guy, “How’d you get rid of the gators?”
“We didn’t do nothing,’” the beachcomber said.
“Wow,” said the tourist.
The beachcomber added, “The sharks got ‘em.”
THOUGHT Always live your faith with fearless trust.