Living in the Spirit

June 26, 2022

Scripture Reading: Luke 9:51-62

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’ –Luke 9:56-62

Jesus is saying our commitment to God must be all or nothing if we long for what he called the Kingdom of God, what is now being described as the Compassionate Community or the Beloved Community. The time for our commitment to working toward the full formation of the Kingdom of God is now. The principalities and powers of evil are enfolding us with hatred, bigotry, greed, and lust for power that will be our undoing as individuals and as a nation if we do not turn away from it. They are doing their best to divide and conquer, and it is working. No wonder they do not want us to study history, the failure of great empires would look way too much like our world today.  Government corruption, over-expansion of military spending, and economic troubles where the rich got richer, and the number of poor increased all describe empires before they fell.

Constantine’s takeover of Christianity and redefining its tenets to advance his cause may well have been the final blow to Rome’s decline. Christianity is now a credential for candidates for office, but the Christianity being fostered does not seem to be based on Jesus’s definition of the most important commandants when he answered the question, ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ (Matthew 22:36-40)

We do serve a living Savior who indeed is in the world today* ready and longing to help us in our work. He is asking us to put our hands to the plow and implement the beloved world community he envisions for us rather than allowing those principalities and powers to rule. We never work alone when we are doing God’s work.

Prayer: Lord, grant us the courage and the wisdom to foster a world ruled by love.  Amen.

*Derived from the hymn, He Lives by Alfred Henry Ackley  See at https://www.hymnal.net/fr/hymn/h/503/8

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.