7th August Trinity
Luke 10: 1-20
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others
and sent them two by two ahead of him, before his face, to every town and place
where he himself was about to go. He told them, “An ample harvest, and few
workers! Ask the harvest master, therefore, to send out workers to help with
the harvesting. Go: I hereby send you out like lambs in the midst of wolves.
“When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this
house.’ If a son of peace is there, your peace will alight on him; if not, it
will turn round and come back to you. Stay in that place, eating and drinking
with them, because the worker is worth his wages. Do not move around from house
to house.
“When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set
before you, and heal the sick and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is close upon
you.’ But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and
say, ‘Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we are shaking off (to
your face). Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is approaching ’ I am
telling you, Sodom will be better off than that town on that day.
“The worse for you, Chorazin! The
worse for you Bethsaida! Because if the deeds of the spirit
that occurred in you had had occurred in Tyre and Sidon they would long since be sitting in sackcloth and ashes as a sign of
their change of heart and mind. But Tyre and Sidon will be better off on the
day of decision than you. And you, Capernaum, won’t you
be exalted to the skies? You will go down to the depths.
He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects
you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me. “
The seventy-two returned with joy and said “Lord,
even the demons submit to us in your name.”
He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from
the sky. Here, I have now given you authority to trample on snakes and
scorpions and on all the power of the enemy and none of it shall ever hurt you.
But do not be glad that the spirits submit to you; be glad that your true being
is taken up into the world of the heavens (that your names are recorded in the
heavens).
7th August/September Trinity
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| Lamb of God |
September 8, 2013
Luke 10: 1 – 20
In the reading, Christ sends
out a multiplicity of people into the world. He tells them that their situation
is like a lamb being sent out among wolves. He also tells them three things
that will protect them from being ‘devoured’.
First they are not to hoard
(no wallet or knapsack). Then they are not to lose focus and get distracted by pausing
to greet others on the way. And further they are to develop a peaceful
equanimity. They are to radiate peace. They are not to worry about results—if
they are not welcomed, they should move on.
We all have our task in life,
and our karmic appointments to keep. Nowadays it is tempting to accumulate
‘stuff’ as a hedge against the wolf of anxiety.
And it goes without saying that we are inundated by sales calls, emails,
media posts that may be distracting us from our true task.
At the same time, amazingly,
we are to send out our peace, and if it is not accepted or absorbed by others,
it is meant to return to us, that is, we are to absorb it back into ourselves. We are meant not to lose our inner balance
if people reject us, or to be disappointed if things don’t turn out the way we
had hoped.
If we can succeed in the
difficult inner tasks of avoiding accumulating, of avoiding distractions, if we
can focus in peace and inner balance, then indeed the wolfish demons of fear
and false expectations must submit to us, to Christ working in us. For this is
the way Christ now works on the earth—in us, and through us.
