What Must I Do?

Gospel: Luke 10: 25-37

The lawyer wants to know what he must do in order to inherit eternal life.  The answer is to be like the Samaritan in this story Jesus tells - to care for those on the margins, those who are sick and dying.  The Samaritan did not stop to consider the man's racial or ethnic identities.  He did not see if the man had lawful status or not.  He did not look for any other reason to exclude him from his circle of care and concern.  He simply provided healing to this man in need.

On the other hand, the alleged religious people - the keepers of Temple ritual - did not hesitate in finding some reason to not help this poor man.  No doubt they regarded their religious duties of Temple worship as being more important than caring for the man.  They felt that maintaining ritual purity and performing the Temple rituals as prescribed was the way to inherit eternal life.  They may have even regarded their own safety as more important than helping this man.

A building made of stone cannot be saved by the use of oil and wine.  They are not living things with an eternal destiny.  God made only one temple of worship dedicated to him - the human person.  To provide oil and wine in order to heal, liberate, and nourish others in need is the only path to eternal life, the only authentic worship in spirit and in truth.  And to do so without freely without regard to a person's identity is the way of Jesus.  

Increase Our Faith

Gospel: Luke 17: 5-10

The disciples come to Jesus and ask him to increase their faith.  Like many things people say to Jesus, it is ignored or used as an opportunity to say something else.  Here, Jesus does talk about an increase in faith, but not in the way the disciples wanted.  He first states that if you had even a modicum of faith you could do great things, but you do not.  He then states that the person of faith is like a servant who merely does their duty without seeking any reward or accolades.  

The disciples are wanting the reward without doing any of the work.  They want the baby Jesus magic to just give them a strong faith, much like an unfit person wanting a well-toned body without hitting the gym.  Faith is like any virtue.  It is acquired through habit, through trial and error, through a long process of working at it.  We cannot expect to have faith or any other virtue present within us without working at it day in and day out.

Jesus came into this world as an ordinary human being who over time lived an extraordinary human life.  That is the normal course of things for every human being who seeks to live a life of great faith.  There are no short cuts, no placebos.  We are merely servants of the Lord here to do our daily duties in faith, not seeking reward or exception.  If we ask for an increase in faith, we must then kneel down to wash the feet of others as the Lord Jesus himself had done.

Seeing the Good

Gospel: Luke 10: 17-24

Jesus had sent out his disciples to do the work that he has been doing: healing people of their illness, delivering them from their demons, nourishing people at table, extending peace and reconciliation to all they meet.  The disciples now return from that mission, and they are rejoicing that they have had success in this work.  They were able to see people healed, liberated, nourished, reconciled, and this brought great joy to them.

Jesus calls and send us out to do the same work.  It is our task to find those in need of healing and provide for them according to our talents.  We are to look for those possessed by demons and liberate them however we may be called to do so.  We are to seek the hungry and lonely, providing them food and presence.  We are to extend reconciliation and peace to all we encounter in the mission the Lord Jesus has sent us out to do.

And, each day, we are to rejoice in the good that has been accomplished.  We must celebrate with those who are healed, with those who are liberated, with those now fed and nourished.  We must give thanks to God for these great deeds and for being part of these joys with those who have received them.  This is the work of the disciple, and each day it brings great joys that lead us to give thanks to God and to have great joy always.

Woe to Us

Gospel: Luke 10: 13-16

It is an odd Christianity that claims to believe in mercy while insisting on the perpetuation of an unjust death penalty system.  It is a perverse religion that claims biblical belief while maligning and exploiting immigrants, refugees, and migrants.  It is an abomination before God to claim the name of Christian while deriding and depriving the poor and marginalized of access to health care, shelter, and food - all things the Lord Jesus provided to people without question or qualification.

The woes that Jesus speaks to his generation are woes that echo through the ages to every time and place.  Those woes were uttered to those who claimed the name of God's chosen people in a religious community that appealed to tradition as its defense of its practices.  Those same woes now echo in our time to a religion claiming to be God's people and who appeal to their traditions in order to continue these atrocities in our own time.  

If we observe the decline of religion - the shuttering of church buildings and the waning attendance at services - and we do not at all look at the utter incongruence of our actions compared to those of the Lord Jesus, then woe to us.  We who fail to repent of our sins, who seek blame upon the various scapegoats we create to deflect blame from ourselves - woe to us.  We who cast statuary to the ideologues of our day in defense of our culture of death - woe to us.  

The Guardians

Gospel: Matthew 18: 1-5, 10

Time and again Jesus sets before us the presence of children to serve as a model for the Christian life, and to warn us about having any harm come to these children in the form of any violence or scandal.  How are we doing on that score?  For all the talk we have about caring for children, the report card remains very poor in our actual results.  The violence and scandal that children experience in our world continues unabated in our day.

Some see in this Gospel passage some reference to abortion, and yet those who would make that claim have little concern for the exploitation of children for sex and labor profiteering.  They have little regard for the genocide of Gaza or sub-Saharan Africa where children are directly targets.  There is actual glee at deporting young children unaccompanied back to countries torn by violence, or keeping them in unsanitary cages indefinitely separated from their families.  

If we ourselves are not willing to be guardians and protectors of children, then today's feast has no meaning other than to shift our responsibility on to beings of another realm.  Today's reading and feast remind us that we are the first and primary guardians of children in our world, that Jesus has left us with this responsibility to them, and for all our talk about having an "adult faith", it is the faith of children, the faith in children, that is our model for Christian living. 

Making Excuses

Gospel: Luke 9: 57-62

So many people claim they want to follow Jesus.  Everything is great until some inconvenience arises, or something uncomfortable takes place that leads us to look for an excuse, something we think is more important than following the Lord.  On the face of things it might be hard to imagine such a thing, but upon closer inspection we find that it is quite common for us to devise a reason or two for backing out of the journey with the Lord.

Do I really have to love my enemies? Yes, yes you do.  Do I really have to personally engage with the sick, the poor, the possessed, the hungry in order to help them?  Yep.  But that person is illegal or unworthy of my help!  No, no they are not.  They are all God's people deserving of love and care.  But they're unclean, not of our company, and ought not be in our presence!  And so were you when I came among you and invited you to table.

We find so many different ways to avoid walking with the Lord.  Very often we pretend that we actually are walking with the Lord and justify these attitudes we have toward others.  We somehow manage to do the exact opposite of what Jesus calls us to do and what he himself did, and somehow we find a way to call that discipleship or Christianity.  Today is a day for us to reflect on whether we are actually following the Lord and imitating his example, or whether we are about something else entirely.