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.