Faith is what we place in someone we trust. How different today’s first reading (Gn 12:1-9) and the Gospel (Mt 7:1-5) appear on the surface—one an old story from the Old Testament, the other a new (to his first followers) teaching by Jesus about judging others. But below the surface, they share the same roots. For Abram to leave his homeland and go to an unknown place as a response to God’s call is a great act of trust. It is based in Abram’s unshakeable faith in God. Jesus invites the same trust from his followers. He invites them to have faith in a God who is intimately aware of who they are, down to each hair on their head, and who loves them nonetheless (see Sunday’s Gospel Mt 10-26-33).
This trust in God has interesting consequences if we believe Jesus. Living according to this trust means letting God be in charge, letting go of our needing to control things, or other people. It means trusting that with God in charge, who knows us so intimately, things will turn out well in the end. Jesus does not claim that our trust in God will put an end to strife, pain, and loss. In fact, he takes these things for granted. However, he is just as certain that this Is not the end for us, that somehow, God’s love transcends these limit-situations, including death. It was this trust that made it possible for him both to accept the consequences of and to live a life of boundary-crossing love, constantly leaving the comfortable places that we mark out for one another that leads to our judging others. Because he chose to cross these boundaries, he was placed on a cross. Rather than reverting to the comfortably demarcated restraints we place on each other, he trusted in God. “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul…”. With such radical trust, even life is not demarcated by death. His faith in God leads to his crossing that boundary too. That’s the life into which he calls us to follow him.