Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 25 June 2017

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

A number of phrases readily come to mind, when, lost for my words in prayer, I try to think what Jesus is saying to me in the Scriptures. They are phrases you and I hear frequently: ‘do not be afraid, peace be with you, I am with you always’ and so on. However something less obvious occasionally leaps out at me, and not usually the easiest scriptural saying. I suppose that comes from my monastic training in lectio divina, letting the Spirit lead me to contemplate on a word or phrase that speaks to the heart of the matter I then have to really enter into.

In the passage from Matthew 10 : 26-33, I might have hit upon the first few lines about fearing no one, Jesus reminding us all the what is kept secret will one day be revealed, urging us to speak in the light. Good stuff for a world that is not in a very truthful place and encouragement to stand firm. However my mind was drawn to something gentler, almost poignantly tender, in his words:

‘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’. (Mt 10:29)

This image of small wild birds caged up, birds regarded as of little worth in human and monetary terms, makes me feel uneasy. What were they being sold for? Sacrifice? To be locked up in a cage? The picture of these little avian creatures trapped and caged, prisoner of human desire, reminded me of William Blake’s poem, Auguries of Innocence:

“A Robin Red Breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage”.

Does Jesus mean that they are of less value than human beings or is there something more? We might contrast the sparrow with ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we are superior! If we remember that we have been told to live in the light, and that the teaching of Jesus is full of mercy and compassion, then perhaps this picture opens us to a deeper more wonderful understanding of God who loves and knows ALL living things. God does not view the world as we do, little sparrows are loved by God, even if we regard them as of little value, but it shows us that we should trust God to care for us too!

A thought from Irenaeus of Lyons: Nothing is a vacuum in the face of God, everything is a sign of God’.

Fr Robin is an Eastern Rite Catholic Chaplain for Melkites in the UK. He is also an Ecumenical Canon of Christ Church, Oxford