"And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul" (Matt 10:28). This is the Christian message in a nutshell. Christian faith is faith, which is more than mere belief, that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. One must resist the temptation to use the past tense "rose" in this regard. Christ is risen- active present tense.
Fear of death is perhaps the ultimate enslavement. Yet, it's a safe bet that the vast majority fear death more than we fear anything else. Hope is the flower of faith and love is its fruit. Hence, "perfect love casts out fear." (1 John 4:18). A fear-driven life cannot be a happy life and it cannot be a Christian's life. This is why the Lord often, as in today's Gospel reading, urges his followers not to be afraid (Matt 10:31).
Not fearing death does not entail living recklessly and taking stupid risks. But it does imply taking some risks by acknowledging Jesus Christ before others. Just as not fearing death does not require one to take dumb risks, acknowledging Christ before others does not mean being an obnoxious twit. It does mean being attuned to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and being bold enough not just to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord (this is the fundamental Christian confession) but, when prompted, to boldly proclaim him as such.
What this means above all is striving to live according to Jesus' teachings, particularly those that are most difficult. Because some of his teachings are so contrary to our normal way of living, adhering to them is always countercultural. What Jeremiah says about witnessing "the vengeance" he wants God to take on his enemies for his sake tends to be our human default setting. This reading is chosen at least in part, I think, to stand in contrast to the teaching of Jesus. The Lord doesn't only teach his followers to forgive their enemies, those who hate them, oppress them, and badly mistreat them, he practiced this himself.
As recipients of God's grace through Jesus Christ (by the power of the Holy Spirit), we are to be boldly gracious. Grace builds on nature, which in turn, is built on grace. In Paul's telling, before the Law, there was no sin because to break a law, there has to be a law. Nonetheless, the advent of death brought sin into the world. While there was no Law, death reigned from Adam to Moses.
According to Paul, the Law was given precisely to show us that we cannot keep it. To keep the Law, it bears reminding, is to love God with your whole being by loving your neighbor as you love yourself. It's easy, therefore, to see how a lot of "soul-killing" is suicidal as opposed to being homicidal. It also bears noting, again, that Jesus is not a new Moses.
Most everyone is familiar with these words from the Thirteenth of Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love: "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." According to the anchoress and mystic, these words were spoken to her by Jesus. What is usually left out is the beginning of this part of the revelation: "It was necessary that there should be sin..."
As with a number of her revelations, this was an answer she received to a question she asked (she asked a lot of hard questions, the same hard questions many people still ask today). Her question? Why did God allow sin in the first place? The answer she received, as you can see, had nothing to do with human freedom.
A few chapters on in Paul's Letter to the Romans, the apostle wrote: "for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God" (Rom 8:20-21).
This gets to something fundamental: the gratuitousness of grace. As the apostle wrote in the passage that is our second reading, grace is a gift. Gifts aren't earned. Gifts are given freely and have to be freely received. To give a gift and expect a gift in return, or to feel that by accepting a gift you owe the giver, is to participate in an exchange.
God's economy of grace is not an exchange economy. It is through God's grace that we are set free from death (and fear of death) "and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God." Sin is necessary and (not "but") "all manner of thing shall be well."
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