Bishop Barron preaches on overcoming fear by shifting focus from body to soul
A Sunday sermon by Bishop Robert Barron on Jesus's command "Fear no one" from Matthew chapter 10.
Summary
Bishop Barron delivers a Sunday sermon centered on one of what he calls the most challenging commands of Jesus: "Fear no one," drawn from the tenth chapter of Matthew's Gospel. He argues that fear is a natural condition of finite creatures, and that ruthless leaders throughout history have exploited this fear to manipulate and control people. The sermon's central argument is that the only path out of this condition is a metanoia — a fundamental transformation of perspective — in which a person shifts their deepest concern from the body to the soul. Bishop Barron illustrates this transition through the examples of St. Thomas More, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, and Pope John Paul II, each of whom faced mortal threats yet declared their freedom from fear. He concludes by connecting this teaching to the gift of "fear of the Lord," which he defines not as terror of God but as caring more about doing God's will than about any bodily consequence.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction: The Teaching of Jesus
Bishop Barron: People who have been following me for a long time know that I put a great stress on who Jesus is, and that we have tended to reduce Jesus to one ethical teacher among many. I've complained about that for years — the reduction of Jesus simply to the level of a great teacher. Now, I don't mean thereby to imply for a minute that his teaching isn't important or astonishing, because it is. And I want to focus this week and next on what we're reading from the tenth chapter of Matthew. Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is the Sermon on the Mount. Chapter 10 is Jesus speaking to his disciples as he's commissioning them to go on mission. And so we get this wonderful instruction in the spiritual life, and what we hear is astonishing. It will change your life if this teaching of Jesus really sinks in.
"Fear No One": The Command and the Challenge
Bishop Barron: Here is the line that our Gospel really commences with. Jesus says to them: "Fear no one." Fear no one. I submit to you this is one of the most challenging and strange and disquieting of Jesus's commands. It's up there with "love your enemies" and "bless those who curse you." Fear no one. What world do you live in?
Paul Tillich, the great Protestant theologian, had a line I've always loved. He said, "Finitude in awareness is anxiety." What he means is that to be finite and to know it is to be afraid. It produces anxiety. It's just part of what it means to be a finite creature. The word that Tillich would have used in his German is Angst — fear. Our word "anxiety" comes from that. They're both rooted in the Latin word angustiāre, which means "the narrows" or "the straits." Like a ship that has sailed into the narrows — it's in the angustiāre. How often in life do we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place? We've got a Sophie's choice, some awful decision — it's this or that, and this one is terrible and that one is terrible too. We're finite, we're limited, and therefore we live in fear.
Now, shift from that general sense of Angst, of angustiae, to other people. Do other people make us feel afraid? Yes, and here's why. We all know this deep truth about the human condition: there are a lot of things that frighten us. Therefore, if you want to control somebody, if you want to hurt somebody, if you want to manipulate somebody — frighten them. Find out what they're afraid of and use that to maneuver them.
I'm a student of history and biography and love reading about the presidents and great historical figures. I'll say it bluntly: one thing practically all leaders have in common is this principle. They know that if they want to bring people from point A to point B, one method is to find out what those people are afraid of and then threaten them with it. If you have enough power and you know what people are afraid of, you can get them to do whatever you want. And that's why a lot of us go through life afraid of a lot of people, threatened by a lot of people.
Metanoia: The Transition from Body to Soul
Bishop Barron: So Jesus says, "Fear no one." How is that possible? If finitude in awareness is anxiety — and it is — and if ruthless people know how to use our fears to manipulate us, how do I avoid being afraid? How do I find a place in this life where I'm not afraid? He commands us: fear no one.
Think of the opening sermon of St. Pope John Paul II. What is his great line? "Be not afraid." And John Paul II lived through the Nazis. He lived through the worst of the communist dictatorship in his native country. He knew all about the ways that ruthless and tyrannical people frighten others into acquiescence. He grew up with it. He lived in the midst of that culture. And yet it was precisely John Paul who could say at the beginning of his papacy, "Don't be afraid" — echoing this command of Jesus: fear nobody.
So how is that possible? It's possible if and only if you go through something like a metanoia. That word in Greek, which we translate as "conversion" — meta means "beyond," nous means "mind" — metanoia means "go beyond the mind you have." Change your way of thinking and seeing. Change the fundamental attitude of your life.
In terms of this Gospel, it means transitioning from a preoccupation with the body to a preoccupation with the soul. Look at all the things I've been talking about — the things that frighten us. I'm afraid of losing comfort. I'm afraid of losing peace. I'm afraid of losing my health. I'm afraid of pain. All these things affect us at the level of the body. And that is exactly what ruthless and tyrannical people use to manipulate us — our fears of these bodily pains.
But what if you made a transition? What if you underwent a metanoia and now the center of your life is not your body and its preoccupations, but the soul? What is the soul? Let's call it that dimension of you that connects you to God — that eternal dimension of you, that new and deeper center that links you to the power that is here and now creating the universe.
Think of Teresa of Avila and the interior castle. It's the same idea. Move from the dangerous, superficial side of your life to this deep place in the center where you live in communion with God. From that central place, you can look at the body and all of its successes and failures and preoccupations and fears with a certain detachment, because you have found a place of peace beyond the fears associated with the body. This is one of the most fundamental moves in the spiritual life. The only one who can say "I'm not afraid of anybody" is someone who has moved from the surface to the depth.
St. Thomas More: Fear No One in Practice
Bishop Barron: Let me make this more concrete. Think of someone like St. Thomas More, a hero of mine. More had every possible advantage in terms of his bodily wellbeing. He was a very wealthy man. He was an aristocrat. He lived in a fine mansion. He had the respect of his peers. He was well known all over Europe — a renowned literary and political figure. He was a confidant of the king. More had all of that.
Was he afraid of losing all of it? Well, yes, at one level I'm sure he was. But when the decisive moment came and King Henry VIII said, "I'm taking over the Church in England," and More stood against him — what did Henry VIII do? One by one, he took away all these bodily advantages. He took away his money, took away his home, took away his family, put him in prison and took away his freedom. At the end of the day, he took away his life.
But More, standing on the scaffold, could say: "I die the king's good servant, but God's first." Where was he standing? Not on the scaffold — I mean, where was he standing spiritually to make a statement like that? He had to have made this transition from the body to the soul. He had to have moved to a deeper place where he wasn't afraid. Fear no one. Fear no one.
Martin Luther King Jr.: The Night Before
Bishop Barron: What also comes to mind here is the great Martin Luther King Jr. We all know the "I Have a Dream" speech, which is magnificent. But another speech of King's that I think is perhaps as impressive is the one he gave literally the night before he was assassinated. He went to address a group of his followers in Memphis and spoke in these prophetic tones, as though he had left that moment and gone to a deeper or higher place. He said to them: "I've seen the promised land. I might not get there with you, but I've seen the promised land. I've been to the mountaintop."
What was he talking about? We're not entirely sure, but it seems to me he was witnessing to a transition to this deeper or higher place. And then — look it up on YouTube, look up that speech — he says: "I'm not fearing any man." This was the night before he was shot to death. He was being threatened in the most dramatic way possible at the level of his body, but he could say, "I'm not fearing any man." He had moved into the space that Jesus talks about here, where you can say: "Fear no one. Fear no one."
Fear of the Lord: The Gift That Sets Us Free
Bishop Barron: I'll close with this. I've been confirming young people as I record these words — I'm just finishing up the confirmation season — and we call upon the Holy Spirit, who comes bearing his gifts: wisdom, knowledge, understanding, piety, counsel, fortitude. But the last one is called fear of the Lord. It's very interesting — fear of the Lord. It doesn't mean, of course, be afraid of God. Here is what it means: you are more afraid of not doing God's will than of anything in the world.
I do God's will — I'll be unpopular. I do God's will — I could lose my job. I do God's will — they could throw me in prison. I do God's will — they could kill me. If you have fear of the Lord, you say: "That's not what concerns me." "I'm not fearing any man," King says. More: "I die the king's good servant, but God's first." What are they witnessing to? They have the fear of the Lord.
Now, listen again to Jesus as he concludes this little section: "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul." There is no tyrant, no oppressive or cruel dictator, who can kill the soul. They can kill the body — yes, indeed they can. There is a line from Gandhi I've always loved. Gandhi said, when facing all the opposition: "They may torture my body. They may break my bones. They may even kill me. Then they will have my dead body, but not my obedience." That is an extraordinary line. Someone could say that only if he has made this transition to the soul.
So again, Jesus: "Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." That is fear of the Lord. Fear no man. Don't fear any person in this world — that is the bodily preoccupation. Rather, be in awe of the one who is commanding you at the level of the soul. You make that transition, and your whole life changes.
And God bless you.