A Life Deeper Than Fear
Everyone lives with some fear. We fear that a relationship may break. We fear disappointing our family. We fear losing what we have. We fear that the life we have built may be shaken. People of faith are no different. Baptism does not make fear disappear. Believing in Jesus does not mean our hearts are always at peace. In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks to his disciples about that fear. And today’s reading from Romans first tells us who we are when we stand before that fear. What kind of people are the baptized? They are those who have died with Christ and risen with him. And if that is true, what no longer has the right to rule their lives? Paul writes: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”
Baptism is not simply a rite that places our name on a church register. Baptism is participation in the death and resurrection of Christ. In it, we have died with Christ, and with Christ we have been called into new life. The death Paul speaks of is not physical death. It means that the old life lived under the power of sin has come to an end. A life centered only on ourselves, driven by fear, and bound to the world’s judgment no longer has the authority to rule us. Paul tells us not to see ourselves only through the lens of the old life. You are not a person bound to sin and death. You have died with Christ, and now you are a person who lives for God. Baptism is not, first of all, our resolution: “From now on I will live well.” It is, first of all, God’s declaration: “You now belong to Christ.” Only from that place can we hear today’s Gospel rightly.
“A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master.” This is not only a call to humility. Jesus does not hide from his disciples the road they will walk. If Jesus was misunderstood, his disciples may be misunderstood. If Jesus was rejected, they may be rejected too. The road Jesus walked was not always welcomed. Jesus broke down the boundary between the clean and the unclean. He unsettled an order built around the powerful. When religion became a tool for crushing people rather than a path into life, he did not look away. So Jesus loved the poor, the sick, sinners, and the excluded, and he was hated for that love. He proclaimed the kingdom of God, and because of that proclamation, he came into conflict with the powers of his world. Suffering itself is not proof of discipleship. Some conflict comes simply from our own immaturity. Some discomfort comes from thinking we alone are right. But when hardship comes because of the love and truth of Jesus, because our hearts are turned toward the vulnerable, because we refuse to follow familiar standards without question, then it may be a sign that we are standing close to the way of Jesus.
Jesus speaks into the fear of his disciples. Jesus does not say there will be nothing to fear. He says, rather, that there may be. People may misunderstand you. They may reject you. Conflict may arise even among those closest to you. But do not let that fear become the master of your life. Faith is not the path to becoming a person with no fear at all. It is learning to live within a life deeper than fear. Failure and wounds, sorrow and fear — these things really do shake our lives. But they are not the whole of our lives. However deep our fear may seem, the life of God is deeper still. Faith does not explain away the pain of life. Often we do not fully know why something happened, or why a wound remains. But the Gospel tells us that even there, God does not abandon us. Even when the pain does not disappear right away, God meets us with life and raises us up again.
Jesus speaks of sparrows. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” In the marketplace, sparrows were of little value. But before God, not one is forgotten. Jesus also says: “Even the hairs of your head are all counted.” Today is also Father’s Day. In the love of a father who seeks to protect and care for his family, we may glimpse something of this promise — a love that does not always need many words, yet holds the child close. That love helps us draw near to the love of God, who holds us to the very end. Within such love, a child does not need to keep proving himself. He is not accepted only when he succeeds, and he is not abandoned because he is weak. This is why the love of God gives us true peace. We live within a love deeper than other people’s judgments. When Jesus says that even the hairs of our head are counted, he does not mean that God is watching over us with suspicion. It shows, rather, how deeply God knows us and loves us. The world may judge us by achievement and usefulness. It may measure us by success and failure. But God is the one who does not forget even a single sparrow. Even when we are caught in fear, God does not turn away from us, but holds us to the end. So the comfort Jesus gives is not a promise that nothing will happen. It is the promise that whatever happens, God will not forget us.
Now we come to the hardest word in today’s Gospel. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword.” This is not a sword Jesus places in our hands. It names the division the Gospel can bring. A peace on the surface can hide a fear underneath it, just as something that looks like family love can in fact be ruled by appearance, anxiety, and the desire to possess. The Gospel of Jesus unsettles that false peace. It asks whether what we call love is truly shaped by God. Family is a precious relationship entrusted to us by God. But even family cannot become the highest measure of what is true. A family’s expectations, or its concern for appearances, are not always the same as the will of God. It is often within our closest relationships of love that the deepest fears arise. Because we love, we fear losing. We fear disappointing. We fear the relationship breaking. Jesus tells us to look even at that fear in the light of the Gospel. This is not a command to clash with our families. It is a command to hold our families in love, while not losing the direction of that love: that it should come to resemble the love of God. Not love governed by fear. Not love governed by appearances. But love held within the love of God.
So Jesus says, at the end: “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Here, “life” means the life we try to protect by keeping ourselves at the center. It is the life that will not let go of its own safety, its appearances, and its control. That is how people try to protect themselves. But the more we live that way, the less free we become. Jesus says the opposite: whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. This is not a call to despise ourselves or to destroy ourselves. It is a call to lay down a self-centered life in order to follow the love of God. It means refusing to let other people’s judgments decide our lives. It means refusing to let fear determine our choices. In that moment, it may look as though we are losing something. But we are gaining true life. This word connects to the teaching of Romans. In baptism, we have died with Christ, and with Christ we have received new life. We are no longer people under the rule of sin and death. We are people living within the new life that belongs to God. We are not flawless people with no fear at all. But within a life deeper than fear, we belong to Christ.
Today, too, we live surrounded by many fears. Fear in our relationships. Fear of the future. Fear of failure. But today, Scripture tells us: You do not belong to fear. In baptism, you have died with Christ, and with Christ you have been called into new life. There are times we lean on other people’s judgment, or on a false peace, just to get through life. Fear sometimes decides the direction of our lives. But in our families, and in our daily lives, we are called to let God’s love become our deeper standard. On this Father’s Day, we also pray for all fathers. May the love that protects and cares for our families not be bound by fear or by judgment, but grow within the love of God into a deeper and freer love. May we all live today, and every day, within a life deeper than fear. Amen.