Finding the measure of all things

An audio recording of today's gospel and blog can be accessed here.

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Today’s gospel (Matthew 10: 28-33) sees Jesus setting a series of teachings before his Apostles. He speaks to their fears, telling them not to be concerned for the destruction of their earthly goods – material possessions or social status – but rather to be ready to pursue God and eternity over and above everything else. On this will our judgement finally depend.

What is the fundamental issue at stake underpinning this gospel extract? Quite simply, it is a matter of what we derive our values from, the values which guide our actions and our relations with God and with others. Depending on what we value, our decisions and our conduct will be as distinct as east and west. The values that have ruled our conduct in this life will be the stuff of our judgement before the Father in eternity, Jesus tells us.

We see here instantly the sense of Jesus’ first warning: Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. By the body, Jesus does not only mean our physical selves but rather everything that we have and are in this material world. We are indeed material creatures, and we are heavily conditioned by the things that form our culture and our environment. We are gentrified or rendered savage by the civilizations into which we are born. And because of our sinful wounds, we internalise lessons that surround us - the doctrines of consumerism or the indulgences of sexual licence -instead of doing what our baptism calls us to: sitting at the feet of Christ every new dawn in order to learn His gospel afresh. Perhaps we pat ourselves on the back for not being so overtly greedy as some Wall Street banker, but there are many material realities that we probably cling to unconsciously, separation from which would put us to a trial that only grace could save us from. And so again the Lord warns us: do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. It is not that Jesus expects us to make a bonfire of the material things or advantages that we have, but rather that the follower of Christ should bring these things also into the obedience of His Kingdom where the soul is safe and where, please God, the body will join it after resurrection.

And since these things must come into the obedience of His Kingdom, it stands to reason that Jesus requires us to bring our social relations and standing into the same obedience. We cannot love God and Mammon, but by the same token, as St Teresa of Avila warns us, perhaps we cannot really begin to serve the Lord until we have lost our reputation. The sin of our first parents had both a material and a social dimension. They were meant not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, but when they sinned, it was not firstly because of a physical or material need. Eve, we know, listened to the serpent, and chose thereby to make herself a child of the Father of Lies rather than a child of our Heavenly Father. She entered into relation with the agent of deceit, separating herself from the author of truth. Man is the social animal, said the pagan philosopher Aristotle, but in Eve’s case we see that these social relations also exist with the world of the spirit. In this sense, perhaps Adam’s case is closer to our own for when he sinned, he said it was because of another human being: The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’ We now call that kind of thing “throwing somebody under the bus.” Adam is undone in this moment through taking the law of his heart no longer from his Creator but from this creature of flesh and blood before him. Just at the moment he was called to acknowledge the law of his Father in heaven, his actions bespoke a denial of that law in the society of his spouse You shall have no other gods before me, says the first commandment, yet when we commit any sin, there is always some element of our action that places something or someone – the strangest of gods – before the Lord.  

How then are we not to be dragged to destruction either by the things we possess and enjoy or by the social whirl in which we move? The answer to this dilemma lies in the middle of this gospel extract:

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father knowing. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; You are of more value than many sparrows.

The law of God that should rule our relations with the material world and indeed with all our fellow human creatures finds a foundation in us through the virtue of faith and the gift of understanding. On the one hand, the virtue of faith assures us of everything that God has revealed about Himself, His promises, and our path back to our home, because He has said it and His word is true, as the act of Faith tells us. This faith, as Saint Paul tells the Hebrews, is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And then there is the gift of knowledge which only the Holy Spirit can move in us. This is the gift which enables us to penetrate the surface reality of things in order to perceive reality in the light of God. This is the gift which enables us to see behind the ephemeral and passing life of the birds of the air – or indeed the ephemeral and passing life of the mighty human forces that surround us – to catch a glimpse instead of the loving, guiding hand of divine Providence. How those of us who who must live in the world at large – the world of material possessions and ambitions with all its paper-thin guarantees of bliss and social status - should beg the Holy Spirit every day to illumine us in this way; to let us see the mighty parade of human folly for what it is: the result of wayward zeal and misguided love.

‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.’ So speaks our Saviour to calm our fears that we will not survive the losses that discipleship calls us to.