Rejoice in the Work

Gospel: Luke 10: 17-24

Today's Gospel portion begins with the disciples returning from their mission.  They are rejoicing at all the wonderful things that happened.  They saw people healed of their infirmities and freed from their demons.  They developed relationships with people at table fellowship, sharing in the joys and sorrows of the people they served.  The disciples were filled with joy and gratitude, and they had to bring that to the Lord upon returning from the mission entrusted to them.

Do we have a similar joy and gratitude in helping others to heal and be freed from their demons? Have we developed similar relationships with people at table - do we share their joys and sorrows?  Or do we instead find every occasion to complain or feel unsatisfied in this work?  Would we rather build empires of influence and power, lording over others? Would we rather walk about in religious finery in elaborate ecclesiastical settings indifferent to the needs of others?

The Gospel portion today invites us to reflect on ministry and our relationship to it.  Perhaps the burnout many feel in ministry is due to the fact that what is being engaged in is not really ministry but instead religious busy work, or the authentic ministry is being done from a place of ego and self-interest rather than love for others.  Whatever the case, today is a day to recover the joy and gratitude of following the Lord in the work he has given us to do. 

Unheeded Warnings

Gospel: Matthew 18: 1-5, 10

"See that you do not despise one of these little ones."

Everyone speaks of the preciousness of children, "respect for life", and a host of other pious platitudes when it comes to children.  We make repeated pledges to protect and care for children, and yet our actions and inactions say something entirely different.  When child and youth protection are turned over to a lawyer and when mandatory trainings in child protection are ended in an institution, words that claim to care for children ring hollow and empty.

But consider our larger world where the trafficking of children for labor and sex go unpunished among the wealthy elites of the world.  We do not care for children when they are separated from their families or deported to third party nations in an unjust immigration system.  We look the other way when children are indiscriminately the victims of civilian bombing attacks by nations, where children become either casualties, orphans, or refugees.  

It is all fine to say that children have guardian angels, but would it not be better if we were their guardian angels? Why do we pass off our responsibility to care for others onto spiritual beings.  Perhaps today's feast day isn't so much about the presence of these beings as much as it is about we human beings becoming so in our world.  Then perhaps our actions will match our rhetoric in the matter of caring for children.  

Mission Statements

Gospel: Luke 10: 1-12

A great many churches have mission and vision statements displayed prominently in the building and posted in every Sunday bulletin.  These were the products of fundraising campaigns conducted by well-paid consulting firms who are not members of the congregation.  Such statements are fairly boilerplate verbiage.  They exist because they are necessary for the purposes of the consulting firm in applying for money at foundations and grant-making institutions.  They say almost nothing real about the church.

Such statements also bear little resemblance to what Jesus instructs the disciples to do as he sends them out on mission, nor do these statements reflect in any way what Jesus himself did in his public ministry.  But for that matter how much of what we do in church life reflects the commission Jesus entrusted to us or the work he undertook while on earth?  What we actually do as church is akin to the extra credit work a student wants to complete rather than the assignments they did not submit when asked of them.

Jesus commissioned his disciples to go about doing what he was doing: proclaiming peace, announcing the Good News of Jubilee, healing people, delivering them from their demons, and nourishing them at table.  The mission and vision statements have already been given to us.  The assignments have been announced.  We can set aside the slick consulting firm and set about to do what has been given for us to do by the Lord.