“Fear not, provided you fear” (St. Luke’s: Friday, October 20th, 2017; Rm. 4.1-8; Ps. 32; Lk. 12.1-7)
Fear (not). Fear – fear
is a powerful driving force in all of our lives – fear of running out of money,
fear of dying, fear of sickness, fear of loneliness, fear of failure, fear of
being perceived to be a failure, fear of accidents, fear of bills, fear of
speaking in public …fear of being afraid.
Blaise Pascal was a 17th-century mathematician, scientist,
philosopher and theologian. He is
probably best known for his Pensées,
his collection of meditations on how to continue believing in Christianity in
the midst of a European culture that was becoming more and more
rationalistic. At one point in the Pensées, Pascal says: “Fear not, provided you fear; but if you fear not, then fear”. What’s going on here? Something similar is going on in today’s
gospel – Jesus says:
“do not fear those who kill the body”;
“but I will warn you whom to
fear: fear him who has authority to
cast into hell. Yes, fear him!” …
“do not be afraid; God has counted every hair on your head. God’s eye is on the sparrow, and you are
worth more than many sparrows”.
As often
happens in the lectionary, the gospel reading has ended a few verses too soon –
it’s the next 5 verses that explain what Jesus is actually talking about
(= tomorrow’s
reading!); verse 11 is the key:
“When they bring you before
the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, do not worry about how you are to defend yourselves or what you are
to say”.
So, what Jesus
is doing is warning his disciples of coming persecution, and how they
should face it. They are not to fear those who want to kill
them. Their heavenly Father is watching
over them and will fill them with his Spirit when they are put on trial for
their faith and will speak through them as they make their defense. However, Jesus warns his disciples, there is someone whom you should fear – “the one who has the right to
throw people into gehenna” (=
“hell”). Scholars actually argue amongst
themselves as to whether this refers to God
or to Satan. I follow those biblical specialists who
interpret this “one” as referring to the Devil – the ultimate enemy of the
human race and the one who opposes all of God’s purposes. In fact, Satan keeps turning up in this
portion of Luke’s Gospel.
October’s
Gospel. For most of
the month of October, the weekday Gospel readings all come from chapters 10-12
of the Gospel of St. Luke. These chapters
are part of what is called Luke’s “travel narrative” which extends from chapters
9-19. In chapter 9, Jesus “sets his
face” towards Jerusalem and in chapter 19, his “triumphal entry” into the city
is acclaimed by large crowds of pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate
the Passover. Luke’s travel narrative is
full of suspense; we feel like a
showdown is coming as Jesus gets closer and closer to his goal. With each step, we understand more and more
that we are heading towards a confrontation, not only with Israel’s religious
leaders and Rome’s political ones, but also with
Satan himself. As Jesus approaches
this ultimate battle, he explains what discipleship is all about; he teaches
his disciples about the cost involved in
following him. He sends out his
followers to announce words of hope as well as words of warning. God is returning; make sure you respond
correctly! Don’t get caught napping! Watch!
Be ready! Understand that you are living at the most crucial time in
the history of the world! But
through it all, those who follow Jesus into the heart of the storm can rest
assured that their heavenly Father is watching over them and will carry them
through whatever lies ahead.
A fallen foe. But why
does Jesus tell his disciples to be afraid of Satan? In the previous chapter, we had the Beelzebul
episode. Jesus had been accused of
casting out demons with the power of
Satan. Jesus replied by saying: “when
one [even] stronger than [the strong man] attacks him and overpowers him, he
takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his plunder” (11.22). That is to say, Jesus has overpowered Satan
already and is already dividing the plunder that the “strong man” had jealously
guarded – those people who had been tormented by demonic forces. In chapter 10, once the 70 disciples had
returned from their mission and were telling Jesus stories about how they had
succeeded in casting out demons, Jesus said: “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning” (10.18).
Whatever it means for us to “fear”
Satan, we must remember that Jesus has
already defeated him – through his exorcisms, through his resistance to the
Devil’s temptations, through his obedience to the Father’s will to the point of dying on the cross.
Welcome to the
war. So, we should not “fear” Satan in the sense
of dreading the possibility that he is somehow God’s rival and could somehow
thwart God’s purposes. Satan is a deceiver – he presents
himself as being stronger than he is. But
Jesus knows – and he wants his disciples to know – that they are up against more than just human opponents – there is an invisible battle going on between God
and the forces of evil. Humans are
caught up in this battle and must choose which side they will fight for. Jesus wants us to be aware of what’s going
on, to be alert to the dangers that surround us. It’s surprising how often the New Testament
makes reference to this spiritual war.
The saints often spoke of this struggle – often from firsthand
experience! We can think of St. Ignatius
of Loyola, who had been a soldier before his conversion and who, in his Spiritual Exercises, describes the
entire Christian life in militaristic terms.
Dangerous
Devil. Now, C.S. Lewis said that when
it comes to the Devil, there are 2 equal
and opposite mistakes that we can make – the first mistake is to believe
that Satan isn’t real; the second one is to give him too much attention. In all
fairness, it must be said, Lewis himself
did devote quite a bit of time to thinking about the Devil – he wrote a
book called The Screwtape Letters,
all about temptation in the life of the Christian. It’s a unique book, written from the point of
view of a demon who has been assigned the task of corrupting a Christian
man. The book consists of the
correspondence between Wormwood, a “junior devil”, and his satanic supervisor,
whose name is Screwtape. The two demons
discuss how best to destroy the soul of Wormwood’s “patient” (it’s an interesting read). Somehow, we must rest in the confidence that Christ is victorious over all the forces of
darkness, all the while avoiding an attitude of nonchalance that would
cause us to let our guard down. “Fear
not, provided you fear; but if you fear not, then fear”.
The
arms of the Christian. Before going
to the frontline, a good soldier makes sure s/he has all the necessary
equipment. St. Paul says that “we do not
wage war according to human standards;
rather, our weapons have divine power
to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10.3-4).
In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul describes the “armour of God”
(Eph. 6.10-20), which includes prayer,
and as we saw in today’s Psalm, confession.
Now you know. If we weren’t aware that we were facing a
spiritual battle, now we know. Indeed,
if and when we take concrete steps to stand up for Jesus in this world, to
share our faith, even to take up a new spiritual discipline – whether it be
prayer, fasting, generosity, whatever it is – we should expect that mysterious
dark forces will conspire to frustrate our efforts. Now we know.
What are we going to do? Pray and keep on going, trusting in our
heavenly Father who knows the number of hairs we have on our heads (for some of
us, that means he knows how many we have left).
If we are alert, we can “fear” in the
right way. “Fear not, provided you fear; but if you fear not, then fear”. Amen.
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