12th Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
June 21, 2020
Matthew 10:26-33
Jesus never promises that the disciple will have easy and prosperous lives. Jesus demands the opposite. After being chosen, the twelve disciples are sent to preach that the Kingdom is at hand, and yet they will not go like any royal emissaries with their military escort. No! They will travel as simple men going on foot and carrying minimal provision. They will rely on the generosity of their hosts, and the worst part is that they are going to face rejection.
Naturally, humans as they are, they are growing fear. Yet, Jesus tells them that this mission is just “on the job training,” because they are going to undergo something even deadlier in the future. True enough, after the Pentecost, they will preach that Jesus is Lord, and they are facing severe rejection, terrible persecution, and even gruesome death. As Jesus teaches them, “the disciples are no greater than their master.” If Jesus, their master, is rejected, insulted, and condemned to death, the disciples will share the same path. Peter is crucified upside down, James, brother of John, is beheaded, and James son of Alpheus, is stoned to death.
Jesus understands their human and natural fear, but Jesus tells them that they shall not fear. Why? The answer of Jesus is simple. Why should we fear dying if we will perish anyway? The choices are whether we die as a witness to Christ or die running from Christ?
Furthermore, Jesus reveals the real reason why we should not be afraid: we have God, who is a loving and caring Father. Jesus gives a lucid yet simple explanation: how God treats a little sparrow. Sparrow is a kind of vertebrates that is practically worthless in the eyes of merchants, but for God, this little bird is His creatures, and when He created something, He has a good plan for it, and He sees to it that this plan will unfold providentially. In the word of Christian Philosopher Peter Kreeft, even God loves mosquitos. If God cares and loves the sparrow, would He not care and love for us? Again, Jesus points out a lovely truth: God knows better than we know ourselves, even He counts our hairs!
When a sparrow falls and dies, it is part of God’s perfect plan, and so when the disciples are experiencing rejections, trials, and even death, it is also part of God’s providence. Yes, often, our sufferings can be absurd. Why do we have to lose someone we love? Why do we suffer from incurable sickness? We do not understand, but even these terrible things in life are also parts of God’s providence.
We may not see it now, but perhaps we may see it at a later time, or perhaps, we never discover the reasons because of our too narrow minds. Yet, in God’s eyes, it is totally making sense. The gruesome death of martyrs, for example, is unthinkable. Still, Tertullian, a Christian apologist in 3rd century, saw it in a deeper perspective and wrote, “We spring up in greater numbers the more we are mown down by you: the blood of the Christians is the seed of Christianity.”
Jesus does not call us to enjoy a prosperous life but to be His witnesses. Though things may turn against us, Jesus tells us not to fear and worry because, in the end, all will work according to His beautiful plan because He loves us.
Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP
In Medio Ecclesiae 