A Cycle – 11^th Sunday in Ordinary Time 26

Mt,9:36-10:8

. John in his gospel summarized the gospel message this way: “God so loved he world, that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” What God has done for us is not hard for us to understand. What is hard for us is what God expects of us in response.  What God desires has never changed since the we were created in the image and likeness of God.  His plan was simple.  We were created for intimacy with God. We were created immortal and would interact with God every day.  He also gave us free will and the ability to choose how we live out that intimacy.  Free will was a gift to us and it has always been a challenge for us to live according to God’s plan.  God made our choice simple, avoid doing one thing and we would live in intimacy with God.  We know how that ended but God’s desire for us never changed.

Today’s readings should make our choices clear.  We can choose to live our holiness by God’s design and by the gift of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Or we continue to make the same mistake as Adam and seek to become like God by our own concept of what pleases God.  

The scriptures provide us with many examples of bad choices by God’s chosen people.  They also show us the faithfulness of God and His overlooking and continually offering us a chance to allow His love to penetrate our hearts.  They are given to us to reflect on our inability to trust God.  We are like a two year old child standing firm and declaring they “can do it by themselves.”  Adam and Eve’s sin should have taught u we cannot do it by ourselves and how we can trust God. But it seems we never learn from the mistakes of others. Yet God constantly has reminded us that He is faithful and sees what He created not what we have done.  He remains faithful to the covenant He has made with us whom He has called “His own.”  A covenant that demands that we respond with our hearts and trust in His prose to one day welcome us as faithful servants.  It really is simple and yet the scriptures show us how easy it is for us to do our will not God’s will.

It has always been a choice.  He reinforced that choice when He reinforced His covenant with Moses.  “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you, life and death, the blessing, and the curse. So, choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants” Dut.30:19.  But we know our ability to remain faithful goes beyond our choices.  Perhaps it is because we have failed to understand the vision and God told us, “Without vision we perish.”  Today’s readings are a reinforcement of God’s vision.  We are to be a holy nation, a royal people, priests, and kings. The body of Christ giving witness as a community of faith.  We get caught up in our own spiritual journey that we have failed to see how much we need to do more than grow individually as a disciple. We are to remember Christ’s sacrifice was more than just salvation for us as individuals, but it was for all sin of all people for all time.

We easily ignore the fact that Adam and Eve sinned together.  As the body of Christ, called to be witnesses. Supporters of one another.  We need to be unafraid to point out sin, always proclaiming our desire to follow God and to be faithful to the covenant. We can easily get caught up in our own inability to be faithful disciples.  Faith is personal and we can never dismiss how critical it is for us to individually develop an intimacy with God.  At the same time, we must remember we are called to grow in our need to be faithful to the reason we exist as a member of a church. We are part of a body of believers.  It is not just up to our pastor and his staff to constantly be working to achieve the mission of evangelization.

What we do here on Sunday is designed to be more than fulfilling an obligation. It is empowering us with the gift of Christ to go forth and proclaim the good news to everyone. Unfortunately, we are just as unaware of our need to do more than what we do each Sunday.  We are encountering Christ and by word and sacrament we are empowered to go forth and proclaim the good news.  If we are satisfied with the vibrancy of our parish and those who engage in ministry, we see no need to do anything more than receive the Eucharist. But God is telling us we are called to be visible witnesses and become a community on a mission to proclaim Jesus as Lord.

We fail to realize God’s covenant with us demands a response from us.  The disciples discovered that when Christ sent them out to heal the sick, cast out demons and proclaim the gospel. There is a requirement to do more and to trust that God has provided us with all we need to be participants in God’s covenant.  We must do more than just show up. We must discover our giftedness and use that giftedness to expand the Kingdom of God. We must grow in intimacy with God by immersing ourselves in prayer, the scripters and come together as a community to worship our God.