From the Sunday Note, with additional thoughts–
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 10:29-33 from Sunday’ Gospel
Jesus is exhorting the Twelve to remain faithful to God no matter what—the same message they are to hand on to us. He is not handing out written copies of a speech, but speaking in vivid images and metaphors that are easy to remember and memorize for people who grew up in an oral culture. Two thousand years and a lot of cultural change later, we hear it read out in Mass and translated for us in our Bibles.
Translators, working from hand-written copies of the Gospels written in ancient Greek, have their hands full: little or no punctuation, all caps or all small letters, words not always divided from one another (trying to squeeze more words into precious space) etc. All that on top of the problems inherent in trying to say in one language what was originally spoken or written in another. All translators tell us they despair of conveying to us the full meaning of something originally spoken or written in another language.
In our Gospel for this Sunday, the main thrust of Jesus’ teaching is clear enough: we will face situations where we will fear to practice, to live, to speak up for our faith. These pressures on us may be public or private. On the level of feelings, we are tempted to conclude that God has abandoned us. Jesus teaches that God, though, never abandons his own—not even the little sparrows who appear nearly worthless to us. We may look down on sparrows—but the Father is keeping them in mind. We may feel fear, but we are called to live in trustful faith in any case. We must “acknowledge” (admit we support and follow) Jesus when challenged internally or externally.
There is one small subtlety our translators struggled with here. In the line, “Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge” the translators added the word “knowledge.” Other translations add the word “care” or “will.” None of these words appear in our best Greek manuscripts. The added words are defensible, clarifying choices, and they do smooth out our reading. Yet older translations add no word there at all. With their restraint, they protect a mystical, spiritual sense we likely miss otherwise.
Here is the translation of both the Douay-Rheims 1899 American Version and the King James Version:
“…one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.”
The sparrow who falls to the ground is not abandoned by the Father. The Father falls with the little bird who appears so worthless to us. We are “worth more than many sparrows” Jesus adds. In fact, the Father treasures every single hair on our heads. Should it happen that to remain faithful we must “fall on the ground” we do not fall alone, abandoned by the Father. The Father falls with us.
For further reflection:
From the cross Jesus cries out the first verse of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” This does not sound like a person who realizes that the Father falls with us, does it? With his human nature, Jesus feels abandoned, just as you or I would in that situation. Feelings come unasked for–our bodies and minds automatically recoil from severe pain. So these words of the psalm spring quickly to mind. Yet, as we just read, Jesus knows, in his human and divine heart that he is not abandoned. The first line of Psalm 22 would bring to mind not just those words, but the entire psalm, just as we might quote a brief saying to bring to mind an entire story. Most Jews in Jesus’ day had many of the Psalms memorized and might commonly sing them with others. Here is your assignment: read all the way through Psalm 22. It does not end as it begins.