and another "Just Joey" rose blooming in our back yard. The readings from today are full of brutality. The Israelites are being forced into slavery in Egypt in the first reading from Exodus. The first born sons have been ordered to be killed by the Pharoah. In the gospel from today (Matt. 10:34-11:1) Jesus is spelling out further what it means to be his disciple. It means going against what is our comfort in order to love others. This gospel is troubling for me and always has been because Jesus says: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth.I have come to bring not peace but the sword.For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother,and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;and one's enemies will be those of his household." WHAT? Therein lies the trouble! While we call it Good News, this gospel tells us that we can expect real struggles in our efforts to follow the spirit of love. The interior struggle to rise above my weaker self sounds like seriously bad news, but there is an up side. My experience, though small as it is, is that when I have made a sacrifice out of love, when I've risked "persecution" out of love, when I've done the countercultural act, out of love, then there is a consequent buoying of spirit that makes me feel alive and maybe even MORE alive. Then it feels like I'm living in the flow.. How do you understand the words of Jesus?
No comments:
Post a Comment