No, "Yeah buts.."

Reflection: Some medicine is hard to swallow, right? Like when our doctor gives us a so-called “horse-pill” that’s hard to choke it down.  And some medicine has a terrible taste that’s hard to get around.   Still, hard as some medicine may be to swallow, we need to take it for whatever ails us today - so we can look forward to feeling like new - tomorrow.

Jesus’s teachings are good medicine for the soul, but some are hard to swallow, are they not?  Nowhere, perhaps, is this truer than in the reading for Sunday.  In it, Jesus tells any and all who would be his followers, any and all who would seek to be “children of the Most High,” that they are required to do things like: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” And then, without taking a breath, He also says to give to anyone who asks, to turn your cheek if slapped, to love the unlovable and to lend without any desire to get anything back. 

He says to do this all without judging, but rather with unselfish, loving kindness for all. And he means it.

So - how are you doing with all this? Yeah, me too. Here’s the thing (and a main theme of Luke’s Gospel): Discipleship is costly.  It calls us to look deeply at ourselves and the world around us.  And it requires us to change.  And God knows that change in us comes slowly and usually with much resistance on our part.  But in His teaching to us – Jesus is casting a vision for us.  The One who promises to teach us to cast our nets to fish for people wants us to envision a world where His way of life isn’t a pipe dream – but an actual, achievable reality. 

The question is: Can we envision it?  Are we willing to do whatever it takes to achieve it?  Little-by-little are we learning to let the “medicine” take effect in order for our new life in the Kingdom of God to come to fruition?