12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This week’s Gospel reading picks up
where last week’s left off:
Jesus is sending out the twelve
with the instruction to proclaim
that the kingdom of God is at hand
and to "cure the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse lepers, drive out demons."
And in today’s Gospel reading,
he gives them further instructions:
"Fear no one. . . . do not be afraid."

Years ago, back in the 1980s,
the Baltimore Oriel pitcher Dennis Martinez was seen by a reporter
talking with the Oriel’s manager, Earl Weaver,
just before the start of a game against the Yankees.
The reporter, anxious to know what wisdom
Weaver had imparted to Martinez,
asked him what special instructions Weaver had given him.
Martinez replied: "He said, ‘Throw strikes
and keep ‘em off the bases’. . . and I said, ‘O.K.’"
The reporter, needless to say, was a bit disappointed,
and puzzled by how this advice —
which we might call slightly obvious —
could be of any help to Martinez.

In overhearing Jesus’ advice to the twelve
I can’t help but feel a bit like the reporter.
OK, we should fear no one —
just like a pitcher should throw strikes
and keep runners off base —
but wouldn’t it help to have a little bit of advice
on how we should go about doing this?
Shouldn’t he give them some more practical instructions
on how they might conquer their fear,
some sort of technique — perhaps breathing exercises —
for courage in the face of opposition?
Why does he simply give them
the obvious instruction to fear no one?

But what more can he say at this point?
For that matter, what more could Earl Weaver have said?
Right before the start of a game
is hardly the time to acquire pitching skills.
Rather, Weaver simply reminds Martinez
of the essence of pitching a baseball game:
"Throw strikes and keep ‘em off the bases."

A baseball game is about many things,
many things that might be worried about,
but Weaver reminds Martinez
of what he is to be about as a pitcher:
"Throw strikes and keep ‘em off the bases."
And with this reminder
he summons everything that pitching is about:
long hours of practice on the pitching mound,
studying the technique of great pitchers,
time spent acquiring the skills needed
to throw strikes and keep runners off the bases.
In essence, he reminds Martinez of who he has become
over the course of those long hours,
and what his role is in the game that is about to unfold.

And it is the same with Jesus and the twelve.
As Jesus sends the twelve out
he doesn’t try to give them the skills they need to fear no one;
rather, he reminds them of who they have become
over the course of the time they have spent with him
and what role they are to play
in the drama of salvation that is about to unfold.
He reminds them of the essence of being a disciple:
fear no one. . . .do not be afraid.
And in saying this, he summons everything that the Gospel,
the good news that he has brought them,
is about: "Fear no one. . . do not be afraid."
In saying this, Jesus reminds them
that the death of the body
is not the worst thing that can happen;
that there are things that are to be valued
more than physical life itself,
things that no human opponent can destroy.
Jesus reminds them
that they shall never fall out of God’s sight,
and that as long has they are seen and known by God,
death cannot have the last word.

"Fear no one. . . .do not be afraid."
In saying this, Jesus reminds them
of the days and weeks they have spent with him,
learning to trust him even when others have turned away,
finding in him the source of life and meaning,
a life and meaning that cannot be quenched by death.

"Fear no one. . . .do not be afraid."
In saying this, Jesus reminds them above all
of his own example:
because he is willing to cast everything else aside
in his zeal to do the will of the one he calls "Father,"
because he knows that in him life with triumph over death.

But in telling the disciples to fear no one,
Jesus is not telling them
that there is nothing to be afraid of;
indeed, he goes out of his way to remind them
both of those who can kill the body
and the one who can kill the soul.
The opposition and the trials that they are not to fear
are real trials, real opposition.
He tells them
that God’s eye is on the sparrow that falls to earth;
but he doesn’t tell them that the sparrow does not fall.
Rather, he tells them that
if they acknowledge him before others —
if they accept what Paul in our second reading calls
"the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ" —
then they have the one thing necessary to face without fear
whatever life sends them,
whatever opposition or trial that they face
in the mission that Jesus imparts to them.
He reminds them that he can carry them through,
whatever it is that they fear,
even death itself, because he is life itself.

So what do you fear that keeps you
from playing the role that God wants you to play?
What do I fear that keeps me
from being the disciple that Jesus calls me to be?
Economic fears?
Am I afraid that with rising oil and food prices
and falling housing values
I will not be able to support myself,
to support my family,
if I do not focus my energies solely on making on money?
Social fears?
Am I afraid that if I openly profess my faith in Jesus
I will be seen by others, whose opinions I value,
as unsophisticated or naive or intolerant
or, God forbid, uncool?
Or some deeper fear?
Am I afraid that in the end,
when I am the sparrow that falls to earth,
that God’s eye being upon me won’t be enough
to transform that death into resurrection?

As in baseball, so too in our lives as Christians,
there are many things to worry about.
There are many things that hold us back
from throwing ourselves
into the role to which Jesus calls us.
And this is why in today’s Gospel Jesus reminds the twelve,
and reminds us,
of what is essential:
"Fear no one. . . . Do not be afraid."
As Paul puts it in our second reading,
the reign of death, the reign of fear, has ended
because "the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ" —
the gift of risen life — "has overflowed for the many."

Pentecost 2008

He breathed on them and said, "receive the Holy Spirit."
He breathed on them, of course,
because the Hebrew word for "spirit," ruah,
is also the word for breath.
And he breathed on them, of course,
because in the beginning God breathed into Adam
and made him a living being,
and so now Christ breathes into them
the Spirit of his own resurrected life,
overcoming the guilt and fear that kept them in a locked room.
The Spirit poured out on Jesus in his baptism —
the Spirit that Jesus drew in, like drawing breath into his lungs —
he now breathes out upon his disciples
so that they too might draw it in,
so that they too might share in his Spirit.

Some of you have probably heard about Caesar’s last breath,
an example commonly used in Chemistry classrooms
to explain molecular diffusion:
The average human breath,
including the last breath exhaled by the dying Julius Caesar,
contains 10²² molecules of air
and the world as a whole contains 10⁴⁴ molecules of air.
Presuming a number of things,
such as a relatively even diffusion of air molecules over time,
and by means of a series of calculations
that my brain cannot quite follow,
we find that there is a 98.2% chance
that at least one of the molecules of air in your lungs
came from Caesar’s last breath.
I presume that this also means that there is a 98.2% chance
that at least one of the molecules of air in your lungs
came from that breath
that Christ breathed out upon the disciples
in the upper room —
a 98.2% chance
that you have taken in his breath, his ruah, his Spirit.

How do you like those odds?
They sound pretty good.
There is a 98.2% chance
that at any given moment we have the Spirit of Jesus.

But of course God doesn’t really leave such things to chance;
the Spirit’s work, mysterious as it is,
is not really like the random diffusion of molecules,
and thanks be to God for that.
Thanks be to God that we don’t have to wonder
if we have a molecule of Christ’s breath in our bodies,
because the Spirit of Christ has drawn us into his body.
As Paul reminds us in our second reading,
"in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body."
All of us here today who are baptized
have been drawn into the body of Christ,
and now live in that place where the Holy Spirit dwells,
the Spirit that fills and gives life to Christ’s body.
But there is more to say about this Spirit, this breath of Christ.
Unlike Julius Caesar, Christ never breathed a last breath.
It is not like Christ
breathed the Spirit out on his disciples in the Upper Room
and has been holding his breath for the past 2000 years.
His body continues to breathe the Spirit in and breathe it out,
diffusing that Spirit in the world.

And we, who have been baptized in the one Spirit,
who through baptism have been drawn
into the one body of Christ,
are breathed out with the Spirit;
we are carried by the Spirit out into the world.
The breathing in and breathing out of the Spirit
is the rhythm by which Christ’s body lives.
From the scattered places of the world —
Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Phrygia,
the Philippines, the Netherlands, New Orleans,
Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Anne Arundel County,
21217, 21210, 21212 —
we are drawn into unity
and we are breathed out in mission to the world.
Each Sunday, we are drawn on the currents of the Spirit
into the one body of Christ,
the body that we receive at this altar,
and each Sunday we depart
to live the life of the Spirit that we have received.
We are drawn from the scattered diversity of our lives
into the unity that Christ’s Eucharist creates,
and from that unity we are sent out into a new sort of diversity,
the diversity of the Spirit’s gifts,
the Spirit who, as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said,
"delights in multitude"
and "lives a million lives in every age, . . .
[who] passes like a restless breath from heart to heart
and is the Spirit and life of all the Church."

Because the Spirit delights in multitude,
the holiness that the Spirit creates
is lived out in an uncountable multitude of ways.
There is no one way to be holy.
The prodigal risk of the vowed religious
is not the same as the persistence of the parent;
the courage of the martyr
is not the same as the careful stewardship of the political leader;
the fervor of the recent convert is not the same
as the sometimes exasperated love for the Church
of the cradle Catholic.
There is no one way to be holy,
but there is one Spirit from whom all holiness comes,
and thus our differences build up
rather than tear down Christ’s body.

If in the diversity of our lives
we live out the unity of the one Spirit
from which we drink at this altar,
then perhaps it will be through us
that those whom we meet in our daily lives
will sense, perhaps only faintly,
or perhaps in very dramatic ways,
the presence of Christ’s Spirit,
will feel the breath of Jesus upon their faces,
and will drink in the one Spirit
and join in that multitude in whom the Spirit delights.