9th Week of Pentecost

The Apostle’s Schedule
2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10
So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Working together, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says: “In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We cause no one to stumble in anything, in order that no fault may be found with our ministry; on the contrary, in everything we commend ourselves as ministers of God, through much endurance, in afflictions, hardships, constraints, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, vigils, fasts; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, in a holy spirit, in unfeigned love, in truthful speech, in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness at the right and at the left; through glory and dishonor, insult and praise. We are treated as deceivers and yet are truthful; as unrecognized and yet acknowledged; as dying and behold we live; as chastised and yet not put to death; as sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor yet enriching many; as having nothing and yet possessing all things.

Luke 4:14-21
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all. He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

In the Gospel today, we hear a positive story of Jesus’ early preaching, yet, if we continue reading the passage we see that because of the words Jesus spoke the people, his own people, wanted to kill him and throw Him off of a cliff. Jesus’ words were such that one must react to them. Either Jesus fulfills prophecy or He is a blasphemer and liar.

The Apostles would travel the world preaching a message that demanded response. Either what they are saying is true, and I must change or what they are saying is false and dangerous. Either they are deceivers or they are truthful, either they have nothing or they have everything.

What part of Jesus’ message matters enough to me one way or the other that I would be willing to go to the end of the earth like the apostles or throw Jesus off a cliff like his neighbors? The answer should be that the whole Gospel matters to me, and that the whole Gospel, even the smallest part is important enough that I would travel to the ends of the earth.

Praise, glory, an honor to the King of kings and Lord of lords; he is the Creator of heaven and earth,
the One who ordered the stars in their places.
To him is due adoration and praise, all days and nights,
from all peoples, nations and tribes, at all times and feasts, now and for ever Amen.