Is it possible to live without fear? Today’s reflection explores Jesus’s exhortation to “fear not” and the power of choice.

June 21, 2026: Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jeremiah 20:10–13
Psalm 69:8–10, 14, 17, 33–35
Romans 5:12–15
Matthew 10:26–33

Fear Not.

Is it possible to live without fear?

It’s a common, if quixotic, juxtaposition in both Scripture and Church tradition. A person finds themselves in impossible circumstances. Instead of practical help (tools, maybe? cash? A plan?), they receive what seems like singularly unhelpful advice: Don’t be afraid! People at the mercy of fate, of the elements, of the moral vicissitudes of their fellow humans all get the same response. God is constantly urging us to let go of their fears, and move forward. Don’t sweat it; there’s nothing to get upset about here.

What is going on? Isn’t fear built into our physiological being? Fear is irrational, as much an unthinking response to perceived threat as ducking away from an oncoming object. We are made to be afraid, to curl up in self-protection, to flee from danger. Fear is born from an encounter with the unknown. It is conditioned by sufferings of the kind that our psalmist knows well, and is all too graphic in recounting: vulnerability, betrayal, malicious attack. Fear is driven by the desire to live and to avoid pain; it motivates behavior that is a physical, practical response to that imperative.

If God made humans this way, why are we always being advised to act contrary to our nature? Moreover, how is it that some people – quite ordinary, fuddled, imperfect people – are able to leave their fear behind? Not just any fear, but the most essential one: fear of life’s end and of the great unknown that comes after.

Pain is real. No non-human animal would choose pain willingly. The cart horse drags his burden to the point of utter exhaustion only under duress, because his free spirit has been tamed and taught to obey. What makes people different? No pain, no gain, so the saying goes. This is undoubtedly true with limited this-wordly goals. Dieting and exercise bring about weight loss; meditation quiets and clarifies the mind; recovery from injury demands the agony of physical therapy. Limited goals, limited pain. Honesty is painful sometimes, but no true relationship can be built on lies. Love is tested by periods of disaffection, of frustration or hurt. In all these situations, there is real pain to be confronted, but also a visible, if not always quantifiable, result on the other side. You know, at least, what you’re hurting for.

But is it possible to face earthly extinction without fear? After all, that is what God is really recommending to those folks in the Bible. The angel tells Mary not to be afraid: terrible advice, really, for a single woman in an intensely patriarchal society, whose fiance is about to find out that she’s carrying someone else’s child. Or Peter: cowering in a tiny boat beset by a massive storm, Jesus bids him to step out onto the water. Really? What could go wrong?

Furthermore – does Jesus take his own advice? I cannot imagine that those lonely hours in Gethsemane were without fear. Otherwise, why would he have begged God to let the bitter cup pass from his lips? The more he understood about what was coming, the greater his fear – the fear of any human who loves life, and wants to keep it – must have been. And yet, this is the same person who counsels that the one who would save his life must lose it. To cling to any possession – even life itself – is to ensure the pain of loss. Nothing except God’s love lasts forever. How then does Jesus move from terror to serenity in the face of mortal danger, so that he is free to choose a path that leads through pain, to death?

Pain is in store for us all: particularly, as Jesus himself warned, for those who choose to follow his Way. Daniel Berrigan put it rather more bluntly: “If you’re going to follow Jesus, you better look good on wood.”

Death, too, comes for everyone, randomly, without regard for our plans or feelings. But to hasten its coming? For an idea? To give up the beauties and consolations of this world, willingly – and to do so without fear, and without regret? This seems impossible, given our nature. Yet history is rich with examples of people who did just such a thing – and not just people who happen to be fully human and fully divine. Occasionally, people willfully choose integrity over convenience, even if it costs them their life. It is precisely at such moments – in their abnegation, it would seem, of the most precious gifts that human life has to offer – that they are the most fully realized humans of all.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus offers us a bit of illumination on this mystery. He’s prepping the disciples for the tough road ahead, once they find themselves on their own without his constant guidance and intervention. At one point, the disciples must become witnesses, and teachers of the new Way. Jesus envisions for them how that process can occur.

“Fear no one,” he says, particularly those who can “kill the body but not the soul.” Why? Not because pain and physical death are desirable. Nor is Jesus proposing some kind of “pay now, play later” deal, which negates the integrity and value of the physical in favor of the spiritual.

This is not about scorn for the body. Jesus loved life, and he lived it with relish; Scripture is abundantly clear on this point. But, as he tries to explain to his friends, one must be willing to leave it behind, even to suffer greatly in doing so. Why? Because the best part of being alive, the most preciously human part of all, is the ability to choose what we do, and how we live – and if need be, how we meet death. Jesus vanquishes death through choosing death, not by avoiding it. It is in the choice, not the death, wherein his victory lies.

To give into fear is to abnegate choice. In so doing, we lose the power over our own integrity, which comes from within and is independent of any physical limitation. Jesus’ later encounter with Pilate is a dramatic enactment of this truth. Pilate is bewildered by Jesus' lack of engagement on his own behalf: Don’t you know, he insists, that I have the power to crucify you? But Jesus is unimpressed. You would have no power over me, he replies, if it were not given to you from above. That is to say, Your power over my body is merely borrowed power. Over my inner life, and my choices, you have no power at all.

Accordingly, the only person we should fear is the one “who can destroy both body and soul.” God has granted each of us this terrible power over ourselves; the power to choose eternal life. In this sense, Churchill was right: the only thing to fear is the fear inside of us, that causes us to allow others, or situations, to rob us of the power to do right for right’s sake, to speak fearlessly, to seek justice, to be the face and hands of a loving God to others. God gives us the power of choice. We are intimately known; we are extravagantly loved; therefore, we are set free. Any lover knows that love without freedom to choose is no love at all.

In this sense, pain is no obstacle, and a martyr’s death is no defeat. “I am small and weak, but I want to do the right thing.” These are the words of Hans Scholl, a German medical student living under Nazi rule, a deeply committed Christian, and a passionate believer in human freedom. His poems and letters paint the picture of someone who struggled with accepting his bisexuality. As a teenager, his relationship with another boy had resulted in being charged with a violation of Paragraph 175, the section of the German legal code criminalizing homosexual behavior which both predated Nazi rule, and survived it well into the late 20th century. Only a spotless record and a judge’s unexpected leniency saved him from a long prison sentence, or worse.

In the following years, despite social and professional success, he was continually plagued with depression, loneliness, and feelings of unworthiness. Yet, it was this same young man who was inspired to form “The White Rose,” a non-violent resistance group, and through it to write and disseminate anti-Nazi leaflets at the greatest personal risk until his arrest, show trial, and hasty execution in February, 1943, alongside other members of the group.

Perhaps Scholl’s example shows us how this baffling advice of “Fear not” can be lived by the average person: not that we do not fear, but that we refuse to allow fear to govern our choices. Like him, we, too, are fragile beings at the mercy of nature and our fellow humans. Yet this apparent fragility conceals a fearsome power, granted by God and which no one – least of all one who threatens physical or psychological violence – can extinguish. At the guillotine, Scholl’s last words were “Freedom lives!” It is a fitting response to the death penalty, to evil, and the unjust regime under which he lived and which demanded his death. It echoes Jesus’ own words about what is worthy of fear, and what isn’t. By his execution, the Nazi state achieved a lifeless body; his choice that triumphed over fear lives on.

Lori Ranner is the author of five novels and the upcoming authorized biography of medievalist and LGBTQ+ Studies pioneer John Eastburn Boswell, to be published by Eerdmans in the coming year. She has taught classical languages and history at universities and high schools in the New Orleans area for twenty-three years.