Gospel: Luke 9: 43-45
Everyone is amazed at the incredible things Jesus does. He goes from town to town healing people of their illness, rejecting no one who comes to him. He liberates people from the demons that hold them bound, again excluding no one. He eats at table with all sorts of people - Pharisees and other sinners - very openly. He feeds people, and the only criterion to receive food is that you are hungry. All are truly welcome, all are fully served.
Even though people are marveling at all these deeds of Jesus, they will hand him over to be executed. The people of religion will collude with the powers of the world to hand Jesus over and execute him. This fact may be even more startling, and yet it is all too common. It happens in our own day. Jesus is handed over when the poor are neglected, when refugees and immigrants are maligned, when the table is only welcome for the Pharisees. The people of religion collude with the powers of the world in all these things.
The failures of the hierarchy and those who wear their phylacteries and tassels prominently do not excuse us from following the Lord Jesus in our own lives. It still remains for us to imitate him in our lives by healing, liberating, and feeding others each and every day wherever we go. If we allow the scandals of religion and worldly powers to neglect the care of the poor and marginalized then we are no better than they. The focus of the disciple must ever be on the work of the kingdom, the work of healing, liberating, nourishing.
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