A few years ago I gave a homily on the fact that God doesn’t
want us to be afraid, no matter what is going on. After the mass the deacon
told me he overheard an elderly lady say to another, ‘I ain’t afraid; kill ‘em
all!’ That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind!
There is a story told of an old man who lived between two
villages. He used to sit out on his porch watching the world go by. One day a
young man was walking up the road and asked him, ‘What are the people in the
next village like?’ He said, ‘How did you find the people in the last village?’
The young man replied, ‘They were horrible people, so rude and unhelpful.’ The old
man said, ‘You will probably find the people in the next village the same.’
Some time later another man came walking up the road,
stopped and asked the old man, ‘What are the people like in the next village.’
The old man asked, ‘How did you find the people in the previous village?’ He said,
‘They were great. Very kind and very helpful.’ The old man said, ‘You will
probably find the people in the next village the same.’ What we fill our minds
with, colors how we see the world.
The first line in today’s Gospel has only three words: ‘Fear
no one’. God never wants us to be afraid. Three hundred and sixty-six times in
the Bible are the words ‘Do not be afraid.’ God is constantly reassuring us
that He is there to help us and his only desire for us is our happiness. Jesus
says, ‘Every hair on your head has been counted.’ God is intimately interested
in us, even down to the smallest things, not just in a general way.
At this time there are so many people living in fear for all
kinds of reasons: fear because of the unrest in our country, because of plagues,
because of wars in different parts of the world. What is happening? For one
thing, I think God is telling us to wake up. If we feel our life is in danger—through
sickness, or from someone else—we begin to think in a different way. I always
find it interesting in hospitals how open people are to me as a priest. Many
people will talk to me there, who wouldn’t normally and the reason is because
their focus has changed. Their priorities have changed. They are suddenly
seeing what is really important. If we or someone we love is in danger of death,
our priorities change. Times like that make us think of the eternal things and
that is a good thing. In a country where we have so much materially, it is easy
to get distracted and absorbed in what is not important and forget about what
is truly important.
Think of all the time and effort we put into training for a
career, often tens of thousands of dollars and years of study and yet that
career will probably end in forty years or so. Sooner or later, we will cross
over into the next world, which is for all eternity. How much time do we spend
preparing for that one, which is eternal?
In this Gospel passage, Jesus says: ‘Do not be afraid of
those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One
who can destroy body and soul in Gehenna.’ Don’t be afraid of what can happen
to you while on earth. Be aware of what can happen to you after you die. ‘Fear’
God, in that sense. It is interesting how people who love God are often
described as God-fearing people, as opposed to God loving people. When we have
a relationship with him, we know that we have nothing to be afraid of, but the closer
we come to God, the more we also develop what you might call a loving fear of
God.
If God is part of my world view, then even when events
around us are disturbing, or even frightening, we can have a quiet confidence.
Whenever our own death comes, we will go to be with the God, whom we have
hopefully made part of our lives on earth. People who have ignored God for
years, are the ones who will panic, because they don’t know what to turn to.
It makes me sad when I hear young parents say that they are
not going to teach their children about God, because they want them to be free
to choose for themselves when they get older. So they won’t have their
children’s minds formed in the ways of God, but they will have them formed by
the violence in video games and the immorality on tv. One way or another, our
children’s minds will be formed.
I read an
interesting article by an Irish priest called Fr. Peter McVerry. He is a Jesuit
priest, who worked with the homeless in Dublin for over 30 years. He talks
about the fact that we have lost our sense of outrage at things like
homelessness. He says that the homeless he works with have a very good sense of
God as compassionate, merciful and loving of them as they are, in spite of the
fact they feel completely rejected by society. They are in tune with what is
really important. They are not lost in material things, because they don’t have
any. It is the same in poorer countries, where people have nothing. They are
much more in tune with the eternal things.
If we are only
focused on worldly things, our mind will have a worldly outlook. But if we
remember the bigger picture, how short our time on earth is, then our whole
focus will be different and we will not carry the fear that so many people
have.
Jesus says, ‘The
eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be
filled with light.’ In other words, we will reflect what we fill our minds
with. If I fill my mind only with worldly things and worldly worries, that is
what will affect my whole outlook. If I am totally focused on the news and
especially on the dialogues about the news, which are often so toxic, then that
is how I will see the world. If I fill myself with fear and anxiety, then I
will just become another anxious angry person in the world. We don’t need more
angry people in the world. We need people who are filled with the things of God,
who bring hope and light to people. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t keep up
with what is going on. I watch the news all the time, but I refuse to get
caught up in the toxic side of it. Be aware of what is going on, but keep your
focus on Godly things. If God is not in our view, we will only reflect worldly
anxieties and fears to other people.
The Lord is
assuring us that all God wants for us is our happiness and that happens more
and more as we keep God at the center. That means developing our relationship
with him. Jesus is telling us not to be afraid of anyone, even someone who can
kill us physically. The only one to fear is God who determines our ultimate destiny.
‘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.’
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