We are being fed fear-filled images of life. In the media we witness the devastation being wrought in the Midwest – floods washing away whole communities and livelihoods. In Africa again we see the planned out work of genocide in Darfur and the massive movement of refugee families searching for some basic security. Most fearful of all, we see people killing people – in Baghdad, in Afghanistan, in Gaza. We might be tempted to imagine life in our world as some kind of frightful ecosystem interconnected by violence, death, disaster and fear.

Images affect us powerfully. If we imagine ourselves useless, helpless heaps, we will act accordingly. If we imagine ourselves idle, trifling consumers, we will act accordingly. And if we imagine life itself as almost mechanically violent, then we will live that life accordingly – in cautious self-defense. Fear and suspicion will be the little rooms in which we live out our little lives.

In today’s gospel from Matthew we see and hear a different imagination at work. It is Jesus’ imagination. Here other images – fear-less images – want to feed our sense of life. How does Jesus imagine life? He tells us. Listen to him. Not one sparrow lights upon the ground and takes wing again without our Father keeping close and careful track. Our Father even counts and caresses every strand of hair on our head.

And what does Jesus want for us and our lives? Again he tells us. Have no fear! Don’t be afraid! Fear no one! Don’t be intimidated by power which seeks to control and dominate. Don’t stand in awe of such power. “Have no fear!” is Jesus’ most repeated command to his disciples – to us. It is his deepest desire that we not live in fear. In the church of Jesus fear should find no place among us.

What can banish our fear? What can take it away? It is love. Love drives fear out of us. As the evangelist John has told us: In love there is no room for fear; real love banishes fear.[1 Jn 4, 18] And for Jesus we are really loved. We are so deeply loved. We are loved with a love scarcely imaginable to us. Not one sparrow lights upon the ground and takes wing again without our Father keeping close and careful track. And are we not of much more value than a sparrow?

Whereas the world may count our money, God counts and caresses our hair. We must unlearn our fear. And we have fears aplenty, don’t we? Above all, we must unlearn any fear we have of God. Here it is that Jesus commands us most insistently: Have no fear! Have no fear before God!

For Jesus it is an unspeakable pornography which imagines God indulging in our foreplay of rivalry and revenge. God does not return evil for evil – blow for blow. That is not God’s way. Rather, it is the sinner’s hair that God counts and caresses. It is the sinner’s coming and going that God closely and caringly tracks. It is the sinner who is of more value than can be possibly imagined.

As his disciples, let us listen to Jesus and learn from him! Let us transform our images of life! Before life and before the God of life – Jesus commands us: Have no fear! Fear no one! You are safe. You are loved beyond all comprehension. Have no fear! And let us so live that we take away the fear of the world!