Be not afraid. That’s what Jesus tells us in tonight’s Gospel. Be not afraid.
Indeed, he says it three times, as if he thinks we might not believe him. And he may be right, as we live in a world that sometimes seems thick with fear.
We are afraid of growing old or getting sick or losing what makes us happy. We fear for the safety of our children, the direction of our country, and the well-being of the earth itself. We fear strangers and those who think differently from us; we fear being misunderstood, judged, or canceled. And beneath all these fears lies a deeper one: the fear that we are alone, that no one truly sees us, that our lives might pass without meaning.
And because he became a man like us in all things but sin, the Lord Jesus knows our fears; he has felt out fears and still he says, “Be not afraid.”
Which is why we observe Lent each year, a time to learn not to be afraid of the Cross. A time to learn to open our arms upon whatever crosses the Lord might send us and to know that they are but a sign of his love for us.
Which is what Jesus is talking about when he asks us to think about the sparrows, the cheapest little birds in the bird store…and yet “not one of them falls to the ground without God noticing it.”
Wasn’t it nice to hear the old story about Saint Francis preaching to the birds again? I love how he calls them his brothers and sisters and thanks God for their wings, their feathers and their freedom. And the birds, the story goes, just patiently perched there and never flew off until Francis had finished. (Please remember their patience if you’re tempted to leave before the end of this homily!)
For this story of the little birds is not just a cute Hallmark moment, it is a profound insight into the heart of God, a heart which loves every creature, even the little ones with feathers.
And he calls us to do the same. Just as God cherishes the birds and the turtles and the trees and even every man and woman on the earth, so should we. If God attends to the fall of a sparrow, we should not be indifferent to the ways in which life—human or non-human—is wounded, neglected, or destroyed.
That’s a pretty good lesson for Lent, the season in which we examine not only our private sins, but our habits of relationship—with God, with one another, and with the created world entrusted to our care.
Is that what we do?
Or do we sometimes forget the small, the poor and the overlooked—as if their falling realer doesn’t matter? Do we live upon the earth as stewards, or as consumers? Do our choices reflect reverence, or convenience?
Pope Francis once wrote that “Our relationship with the environment can never be isolated from our relationship with others and with God.” In other words, care for this world and everything in it is a concrete expression of discipleship. It is how paschal love takes flesh.
Jesus concludes the Gospel with words of astonishing intimacy: “Even all the hairs of your head are counted.” If God attends to such detail, then nothing, and no one, is beneath our care.
Not the sparrow.
Not the stranger.
Not the earth itself.
Lent prepares us to see thus way. It teaches us to fast from indifference, to give alms in the form of mercy and restraint, and to pray ourselves into the mind and heart of Christ.
So today, Jesus says again: “Be not afraid.” Be not be afraid to live gently. Be not be afraid to care deeply. Be not be afraid to love in ways that mirror the Father’s own attention to the smallest of things.
Not a single sparrow falls to the ground outside God’s care, and yours.
