Boldness

Jesus said to the Twelve: “Fear no one. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. 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. Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.” (Matthew 10.26-33) 

In the 1990s a popular branding phrase was the command, “Be bold.” I’m not quite sure what it was about the age that required the command, but it became iconic for the times. “Be bold.” It appeared on t-shirts and other sportswear. It found its way to energy drinks and action sports, including race-car driving, moving into the mainstream of society where it became a lifestyle brand. Everyone was supposed to be bold.

As we all know, to be bold means to be confident, to embrace risk, and to stand up for convictions. It means to take decisive actions and to pursue unconventional ideas. All of these things are done without being held back by fear, hesitation, or the judgments of others. In short, a bold person has courage, confidence, and isn’t bound by convention or the way things are usually done.

Oddly, it isn’t a word usually associated with the gospels. Truth be told, the word doesn’t appear in the gospels. The closest is found in John 7.26 when the Jews said of Jesus, “Look, he is speaking openly.” It might mean about the same thing, but there is a special nuance to the word bold. Maybe that’s why we don’t hear all that many sermons preached from the pulpit telling people in the pew to be bold. 

And yet, there is little doubt that the directives that Jesus gives to his disciples in the gospel text that we have on this Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time is all about being bold. He tells them, “Fear no one.” He says, “What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.” These verses leave little doubt that Jesus is calling on his followers to be bold.

The text that we have before us is part of a larger section of Matthew’s gospel usually called the mission discourse because Jesus provides directions for his disciples on how they are to behave when they take his message into the broader world. This snippet of that larger whole falls under the title “the third part of the mission discourse.”

Most scholars admit that Matthew has stitched together multiple statements of Jesus that occurred in separate situations. In the long run, it doesn’t matter. There is a unifying principle still at work summed up in the phrase “Fear no one.” In other words, “be bold.” He wants his followers not to be held back because of fear. “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul,” he tells them, urging them to silence that inner voice within themselves that would have them step back, shy away, or skirt the issue.

The reason for the boldness is simple, at least in Jesus’ mind. His followers should fear God alone and his judgment, not human beings and their judgments. “Be afraid,” he says to them, “of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” In not the smoothest of transitions, admittedly, he assures them that they should place their trust in God who cares for them. “Even all the hairs of your head are counted,” he tells them, “so do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.”

There is no equivocation, no hesitation, no ambiguity in what he says to them. The same boldness that he asks of his followers is found in his words to them. But not only in his words, but also in his actions. He stood toe to toe with the religious leaders of Judaism, calling them out for their pride, their big egos, and their failure to see what really matters to the Most High God. He sat at a table with sinners and withstood the sneers and the putdowns, instead speaking of finding the one lost sheep. He pitied the plight of the poor, fed those with empty stomachs, and healed those wounded in body and in spirit, regardless of what the prosperous, the privileged, and the powerful said about him. 

He simply showed no fear. His strength in the face of opposition and persecution came from the assurance that His Heavenly Father cared about him, watchful over him as that same God was for the birds of the air, not a single one of them falling from the sky without the Creator’s knowledge. With sure knowledge of his Father’s love, he walked bravely, stood tall, and cowered before no one.

It was not bravado on his part. It was bravery. And he called upon those who wished to follow in his footsteps to show the same bravery, the same backbone, the same boldness. Whatever the situation, whatever the circumstances, whatever the opposition. Cowardice in any form meant a failure to follow through on a commitment to become his continued presence in the world.

I suppose that is why the word “whispered” pops off the page for me in the text today. Jesus uses it as the opposite of proclaiming. “What you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. The pair of words provide a stark contrast in one’s style of speech. They are as different as night and day. Someone who whispers something doesn’t want the words that are spoken overheard. The literal translation from the text says “what you hear in the ear,” the phrase providing us with a visual, not all that different from the person who cups his or her hands over their mouth as they speak softly into someone’s ear.

On the other hand, to proclaim something from the rooftops is to shout at the top of your lungs. It carries the connotation of heralding the good news, a person wanting to share with the whole neighborhood the good news he or she has received. They want everybody to hear. It is clear that Jesus wants his followers to not be bashful about spreading the good news. They are to speak loudly, clearly, and decisively.

All of which, I suppose, leads us to the question of whether our discipleship looks more like whispering in the ear or does it look more like proclaiming from the rooftops. If our following Jesus sounds more like a whisper than a shout, then we aren’t behaving like the bold and confident disciples that Jesus calls us to be. We are mealy-mouthed, meaning we are hesitant, weak in our words, afraid to speak bravely. 

Of course, it is more than just words. The notion of whispering can apply to our actions as well. Do our deeds as disciples appear to be weak and scared, at best only faint imitations of Jesus’ own actions? Or do our actions reflect the boldness and the bravery of the true disciple, someone who is willing to become the voice of Jesus in the world, speaking truth to power, standing up for the rights of the disenfranchised, taking sides with the poor and the disadvantaged? Are our actions so loud and clear that they can be heard from the rooftops?

These are important questions for us to ask ourselves, living as we do in a world where the poor stay poor, the sick stay sick, and the persecuted stay persecuted, all of which suggests that followers of Jesus are not shouting from the rooftops about injustices in this world, but are, at best, whispering in one another’s ears about the sad situation in which neglected and forgotten people find themselves. 

Here one caveat is in order. Shouting from the rooftop is not the same thing as just making noise. There are plenty of people in our world who are very good at making noise, but there are far fewer people who are good at righting injustices with a clear and forceful voice. There are qualitative differences. Being a loud-mouth doesn’t qualify one for discipleship. As a rule, it is a sure sign of the opposite. Loud-mouths tend to belittle others, brag about themselves, and bring harm to others by their words. Often, there is a meanness and a snideness behind their words, not compassion and care for others.

So, to be bold as Jesus calls us to be does not give us a license to be mean, mean-spirited, or behave like mean girls in high school. That should be obvious. But apparently it isn’t because we find ourselves living in a world where the words and ways of Jesus are just as often used as weapons against others, hurled accusingly at others, casting criticism at them, dividing people further apart rather than bringing them closer together. That is not the boldness that Jesus asks of his followers. That is just meanness dressed up in the rags of  self-righteousness. 

The boldness that Jesus asks of us is the capacity to confront injustice with clarity, to be confident about our convictions even when the world tells us we’re being unrealistic, to be unconventional in our attitudes about the impoverished, the unimportant people, the uninvited guests to the table, meaning we don’t adopt the herd mentality in these matters just because it’s the safest place to stand. Oftentimes, being bold means to stand alone. But as we stand alone, it is good to remember that it is better than standing in a crowd of cowards. After all, Jesus stood alone before Pontius Pilate and before the Jewish religious leaders.

We do not live in bold times. We live in loud times, but that is not the same thing. We do not have bold leaders, which only means we are not bold people. True boldness, as understood by the ways and words of Jesus, simply is not the norm. Not that Jesus had any illusions that his ways would become normative. In fact, he was sure of the opposite. Immediately before offering his followers these guidelines, he also told them that he was sending them out “like sheep in the midst of wolves.” 

But he also believed that the only way to change the world was if there were a few bold and brave souls who were not intimidated and who would not back off in the face of harassment, persecution, or criticism, but who would have the confidence and the spine to take on the judgment of others and the wicked ways of the world. It would require only a few lights flickering in the darkness to prove that there was a better way, a truer way, a way closer to the ways of God.

One of the most famous recognizable phrases of the latter half of the 20th century was the opening monologue of the multiple Star Trek series that were popular at the time. It was the way each episode began, with the mission statement of the Starship Enterprise “to go boldly where no man has gone before.” It was a good catch phrase, emphasizing the daring and brave efforts of the Star Fleet as they pursued a new world, plowing through space into the unknown, confident and unafraid, not beholden to the past, but believing in the promise of the future.

For the Christian believer, we also must go boldly, but not where no man has gone before. We are to go boldly where Jesus the Galilean Teacher has gone before, following in his footsteps, envisioning a new world as he did, a world of peace and justice, a world of compassion and charity, a world where the calf and the young lion shall browse together. He has shown us the way. But do we have the boldness to go there? That is the question we are left with.

–Jeremy Myers