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. 

Don't Look Back

Gospel: Luke 9: 57-62

"No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God."

So much of our lives is looking in the rearview mirror.  We perseverate on our past sins, not trusting in God's mercy and creating despair for ourselves.  We hold grudges across the years, creating endless strife with others and within ourselves.  We long to live in another time - 1962, 1952, 1342 - imagining ourselves in other ages, other costumes to the neglect of the needs of our own times and the people in our own lives.  

The image of an ancient plowman is instructive for us, one still relevant today.  The person at the plow cannot look backwards; they must look ever forwards or disaster befalls both the crops and the one driving the plow.  The same is true in our spiritual lives.  We hit obstacles we did not see because we were not looking in the right place.  We create disasters for ourselves and others because our attention was in the past and not in the present.  

The spiritual life is a pilgrimage, and in such a journey there is only one direction to go - forward.  A pilgrimage never goes backwards.  The pilgrim is about the end goal - the kingdom of heaven - and the present moment of the journey.  The pilgrim is about helping others along the journey as well - not encouraging them to go backwards, but always encouraging others forward.  The goal is ahead of us, not behind us.