Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I was doing some gardening out the back the other day, turning over the soil at the edge of the grass area. As I moved along, I was followed by a very small bird who was clearly fascinated with my work. From the colouring of the breast, it could have been a very young thrush. I began to wonder why he was there, no more than two feet from me at any one time. What was it about what I was doing that fascinated this little bird? Perhaps it was the prospect of my turning up a juicy worm!

I was put in mind of that moment by what Jesus says in today’s gospel reading about sparrows. All of life seems to have spoken to Jesus about God’s relationship with us. Jesus observed that in the market place two sparrows could be sold for one penny. It was the cheapest bird on sale, and often provided food for the poor. Yet, Jesus says that not even one sparrow falls to the ground without God the Father knowing about it. Jesus is reminding us that God cares for the smallest of his creatures. All creatures have a value and worth in God’s eyes. If that is so, all creatures should have a value and worth in our eyes too. We need in some way to express in our own lives God’s care and concern for all his creatures, all creation. The lesson Jesus draws from God’s concern for the humble sparrow has to do with each one of us. ‘You are worth more than hundreds of sparrows’. If God is concerned for the sparrow, how much more is God concerned for each of us? If the sparrow has value in God’s eyes, how much more value do each of us have in God’s eyes. According to the book of Genesis, when God made all creatures, God then made man and woman in God’s own image. Of all God’s creatures, it is only human beings who have been made in God’s image. Jesus was the perfect image of God. The more like Jesus we become, the more we become that image of God we were created to be.

God cared deeply for his Son, Jesus, bringing him through death into a new and glorious life. According to Jesus in our gospel reading, God cares deeply for each of us too. God is concerned with the details of our lives. Using one of the lively images he often uses, Jesus says that God has counted every hair on our head. Some of you might be thinking, ‘Well that’s not too hard to do!’ Jesus stresses God’s loving concern for the details of our lives to encourage us to be courageous in the living out of our faith in him, the living of the gospel. Because we are so precious in God’s sight, Jesus tells us not to be afraid to declare ourselves for him in the presence of others. He calls on us to tell his message in the daylight and to proclaim it from the housetops. We need not be afraid to witness publicly to his values because God will be with us to support us in doing so. This is the conviction of Jeremiah in today’s first reading. God called him to proclaim God’s word to the people and its rulers. It involved calling on people to change their ways for the better. As a result of his mission, this sensitive soul encountered great hostility and opposition. He says that even those who used to be his friends watched for his downfall. Yet, Jeremiah had a deep conviction that God was watching over him as he proclaimed God’s word. He declares, ‘the Lord is at my side, a mighty hero’, and he goes on to declare that the Lord ‘has delivered the souls of the needy from the hands of evil men’.

It is unlikely that in our efforts to live by the values of the Lord’s gospel we will encounter the same hostility as Jeremiah. Yet we can find ourselves under more subtle pressure to keep our faith to ourselves. People can be ridiculed for wearing symbols of their faith on their person. Eyebrows can be raised if we bring the values of the gospel to bear on the day to day situations of life. Yet, this is what Jesus is asking us to do in the gospel reading. He is calling on us to courageously throw in our lot with him, to declare ourselves for him. He is suggesting that we can face down any hostility to our witness to him and his gospel if we realize just how much we are worth in God’s eyes and how precious we are to God. Because God knows us through and through out of God’s great love for us, we can be spiritually courageous. In today’s second reading Saint Paul also gives us a reason why we can be spiritually courageous. He says, ‘the gift considerably outweighed the fall’. In other words, the resources that the Lord gives us to live our faith to the full are always far stronger than anything that stands opposed to our faith. In our efforts to live out our relationship with the Lord publicly, we can confidently make the prayer we find in today’s responsorial psalm, ‘In your great love, answer me, O God, with your help that never fails’.