Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

Reflecting on Luke 10: 1-12, 17-20

What an interesting gospel.  Apparently, those 72 disciples were doing “advance work” in the towns Jesus planned to visit. Maybe they were sent to assure people that what they had heard about him was actually true.

Yes, they might have said, he truly did say that he was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecies! And when they tried to push him over the cliff he just passed right through them! And yes, he told his friends to cast their nets back in the water after they had fished all night, and the catch was so great they couldn’t haul it in! And yes, he did raise the widow’s son from the dead!

Imagine yourself on that mission. You don’t have anything to comfort you on the dusty road. No cell phone to stay in touch with family. No band aids for blisters. No extra jacket for the cold nights. It sounds, to my wimpy ears, like a miserable experience.

And yet, imagine being the first person to announce the kingdom of God to a city longing for that message. What joy. What grace. Oh yeah. I’d sign up for that.

Speaking of signing, those who bravely signed the Declaration of Independence agreed with Thomas Jefferson that “all men are created equal.” Some of them believed that so deeply that, if they owned slaves, they set them free. Jefferson himself, however, hypocritically owned 175 slaves on the day of his death, the Fourth of July, 1826.

The kingdom is at hand, Jesus said. As we celebrate freedom this weekend, let’s consider the ways in which we are building the kingdom, and declaring our independence from the hypocrisies which dilute our witness to Christ.

What inconsistencies in your life keep you from truly experiencing freedom?

Kathy McGovern ©2016

Ordinary Time - Cycle C