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"Fear no one!"
Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 21, 2026
Jeremiah said:
"I hear the whisperings of many:
'Terror on every side!
Denounce! let us denounce him!'
All those who were my friends
are on the watch for any misstep of mine.
'Perhaps he will be trapped; then we can prevail,
and take our vengeance on him.'
But the Lord is with me, like a mighty champion:
my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph.
In their failure they will be put to utter shame,
to lasting, unforgettable confusion.
O Lord of hosts, you who test the just,
who probe mind and heart,
let me witness the vengeance you take on them,
for to you I have entrusted my cause.
Sing to the Lord,
praise the Lord,
for he has rescued the life of the poor
from the power of the wicked!"
Responsorial Psalm
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
For your sake I bear insult,
and shame covers my face.
I have become an outcast to my brothers,
a stranger to my mother's children,
Because zeal for your house consumes me,
and the insults of those who blaspheme you fall upon me.
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
I pray to you, O Lord,
for the time of your favor, O God!
In your great kindness answer me
with your constant help.
Answer me, O Lord, for bounteous is your kindness;
in your great mercy turn toward me.
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
"See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the Lord hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.
Let the heavens and the earth praise him,
the seas and whatever moves in them!''
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Brothers and sisters:
Through one man sin entered the world,
and through sin, death,
and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned—
for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world,
though sin is not accounted when there is no law.
But death reigned from Adam to Moses,
even over those who did not sin
after the pattern of the trespass of Adam,
who is the type of the one who was to come.
But the gift is not like the transgression.
For if by the transgression of the one the many died,
how much more did the grace of God
and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ
overflow for the many.
Jesus said to the Twelve:
"Fear no one.
Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.
What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;
what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna.
Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?
Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge.
Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Everyone who acknowledges me before others
I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.
But whoever denies me before others,
I will deny before my heavenly Father."
"Fear no one!"
A bit of creative editing by the editors of the American Lectionary is very welcome. As one commentator remarks, "The ministry of preaching is intrinsically frightening,. Only faith in a revealing and judging God can overcome that fear." So in place of the usual "Do not be afraid of them...", today we have a bold: "Fear no one!"
It is our faith in God that is to overcome our fear. The readings today speak of trust, starting in the first reading with the rugged thoughts of a prophet under attack: "Let me witness the vengeance you take on them, for to you I have entrusted my cause";
...through the pious insights of the poet:
"In your great kindness answer me
with your constant help.
Answer me, O Lord, for bounteous is your kindness;
in your great mercy turn toward me";
...coming finally to Jesus' own assuring words, "Do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."
Trust is everything. I suppose that goes without saying, but as always it goes a whole lot better if it's said. I often wonder why we take things in our own hands, taking steps to sort it out which too often end up making it worse? Is it that we don't really trust that God will fix it in his way in his own good time? To put that the other way round: If I'm going to follow the example of Jesus and do only what the Father wants, it will require a lot more trust than I have shown so far. But especially I will have to stop rationalising my urge to intervene, st op justifying my attempt to set things right when I know I should have trusted the Father more.
Trust is vital. Everything hinges on trust, as we know so well in our marriage relationships. To the extent we don't quite trust the other we instinctively hold back, even just a little. We're watchful, hesitant, on guard. There's no joy quite equal to the joy of complete surrender in total trust. That is what Jesus is gently drawing us towards in these saying recorded by Matthew.
We need to be careful that we don't read these pagers about the dangers of ministry as if Jesus is threatening us with hard times, great challenges and awful consequences if we fail the tests. That line of thinking will get us nowhere. Think of Jesus as speaking softly, warmly, with a smile that says, "I know you can do it!"
The people who put the original Lectionary together may have made a small mistake when they included the final verses in this section on trust. I would stop reading today at the sentence: "You are worth more than many sparrows", and I would stay with that crazy idea, just to get the taste of it as long as I could. Maybe going back to that other crazy idea, that all the hairs of your head are counted. I imagine a quiet chuckle went through the group when Jesus said things like that.