‘Declaring Ourselves for Christ’, Laurence Freeman, WCCM Journal, August 2026
In Chapter 10 of Matthew, Jesus warns his followers that by following him they will experience rejection and betrayal. He describes the pain that we must go through to emerge into the new world he calls the Reign of God. He is strengthening them in advance against fear, but he adds something that might seem at first to add to their fear:
‘Everyone who declares himself for me in the presence of others, I will declare myself for before my Father. Whoever disowns me before others I will disown before my Father in heaven’.
It’s tempting to skip over this kind of saying and look for the easier ones about love and forgiveness. Yet understood, it can be enlightening.
What does it mean to declare ourselves for Christ? Not being a religious bore or fanatic. Not religious triumphalism. Not the insecure need to prove we are right. I feel it means that we are no longer compelled by fear to hide from the deepest truth. When fear is mastered, we become transparent. We say what we genuinely think. We acknowledge what we truly believe, no longer governed by the fretful calculation of how others judge us.
Transparency of this order is neither naïve nor aggressive. It exudes peace. It expands space rather than filling it. It invites rather than compels. The courageous openness of this kind in just one person releases openness in others. When members of the Trump administration are asked in Congressional enquiries if they accept the result of the 2020 election (that Trump claims was ‘stolen’), they squirm and repeatedly expose their fear of his disapproval by refusing to say what every reasonable person knows is true. This, I think, is what Jesus means by ‘declaring’ for him before others: fearlessly telling the truth of fearlessness at whatever cost to ourselves. We are then redeemed, not from divine punishment but from fear.
The courage of a truthful declaration against the threats of fear and repression has the power to ‘put to rout the arrogant of heart and mind and tear imperial powers from their thrones’ as Mary declared at the Annunciation (Lk 1:51). It makes visible the Mind of Christ. It dispels the pollution of fear and deception. The Mind of Christ – which all aspire to – is freeing because it does not orbit around self-protection. It does not need to calculate endlessly how to survive. It simply breathes deeply and loves. Fear closes and locks every gate. Love leaves every door open. As the contemplative mind perceives, fear is not only personal, it is cultural. Entire societies and institutions can become organised around fear. Bureaucracies, governments, media, financial markets, and even religious teachings can be seduced by discovering that frightened people are easier to manage than free spirits. The Church herself, for example, has not been immune to this temptation. Throughout history there have been periods when fear became so powerful an instrument of religious and moral control that the system was inherited by those who themselves had been imprisoned by it. The language of liberation used in the Gospel was covered over by threats of eternal punishment or excommunication. When this happened it was not because Christ teaches fear but because Christians were infected by the fears of their age. The power of fear is extraordinarily subtle. Those who are themselves afraid spread fear without understanding what they are doing. They might sincerely believe they are protecting truth, defending morality or preserving order. But sincerity alone doesn’t open the gates of the Reign of God. Authenticity is also necessary to make us resonate with the truth. Yet fear easily disguises itself as virtuous. This is why discernment is needed to expose fear and why everything should be questioned. Truth is never afraid. Love has nothing to defend because it ‘shines on good and bad alike and is kind to the ungrateful and the bad’.
A Hymn to God the Father, John Donne
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, thou hast done;
I fear no more.
