What is your biggest fear?  Even the thought of our biggest fear may run a shiver down our spine.  It could be a fear of heights, snakes, insects…  The list goes on.  What most of us never think about is a fear almost all of us have deep down inside.  It is a fear we subconsciously work to avoid each day.  That fear is rejection.  The fear of not being accepted.  We try so hard to fit in wherever we are.  Now, within a prayer group or church setting if we are asked what is the biggest fear we have in our faith, we would likely think of the fear of not getting to heaven.  This creates a great irony in our daily life.  Each day, out of fear of rejection within the secular world, we make choices that separate us from God.  All this while at the same time, we also have a lingering fear of not being with Jesus in paradise.  We live in the now and take for granted that which requires great sacrifice.  We do so at risk of losing our very souls.  We believe that we have time.  We can simply go to confession and all is well…until mere hours or perhaps days pass and we are right back in the same vicious cycle.

  In this week’s readings we hear about Jeremiah and how he spoke the truth to the people to the point that they threw him into a cistern to die.  Did Jeremiah live in the fear of being rejected by the people?  Absolutely not!  He sacrificed his safety to the point of nearly being put to death in order to share the truth of God.  In today’s Gospel from Luke, we hear Jesus say, “Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the Earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” (LK 12:51)  Just as Jesus Himself knew that the belief of the people in Him would create division among families, He does not expect us to be the arbiters of peace within ours when it comes to sharing the truth.

  You see brothers and sisters, we must no longer live and act in a way that gains us acceptance and praise in this world.  We must be willing to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of all so that they may hear the truth.  Let us stand up just as Jeremiah and the Apostles did, as true disciples of Christ.  Let us live as we say, “yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” (GAL 2:20)