not of this world

it’s the proximity again that strikes me:

I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has power to cast into hell;
yes, I tell you, fear him!
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows…
Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
Luke 12:5-7, 32

in our reading through the gospels we recently discussed the hyperbole that Jesus often employs (ie the cutting off the eye or hand that offends rather than being thrown whole into the fires of gehenna), and what we came to seems to fit here as well.
often we will express frustration that Jesus was not more ‘plain spoken’ — you know, the ol’ “why doesn’t he just tell us more clearly, more exactly, what the h-e-double hockey sticks he’s talking about? the dos and don’ts approach was tried in the Torah, and the biblical narratives show how well that went for the many, though a remnant managed to get the point. Christ’s words are often shocking and frought with paradox, but paradox has an important purpose. it gets our attention, it (hopefully) challenges us and makes us wrestle with the deeper meaning of what we perhaps would have just yawned and passed over (or formulaically complied with) if we had been told it plainly. deeper, deeper, God is always patiently, seemingly teasingly, beckoning the one who would go deeper, who would tarry awhile, who would sit at His feet and really listen, really be humble enough to learn something the worth of which is without price, so as to give up all for its possession.

Scripture teaches that fear of God is the beginning of wisdom (Prov 9:10), that the whole of the law is contained in loving the Lord you God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:29-31), and that perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18).

fear is a natural pedagogical step that gets our attention, children that we are even after we no longer look like children and have lost all the best characteristics of what it is to be a child.

and sort of an aside (if you’ve come this far), loved learning that root, the greek paidagogos, which was a slave whose sole job was to lead a child to school.
fear leads the child of faith to the school of divine love which will eventually make way for the dismissing of the slave.