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God’s List for You
4 min
Gospel
Mt 9:35–10:1, 5a, 6-8
And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity.
These twelve Jesus sent out, charging them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans,
but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And preach as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without pay, give without pay.
Readings are taken from Dynamic Catholic’s Bible: RSV Catholic Edition.
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Transcript
God’s List for You
What jumps out at you
today? This otherness we've spoken about at different times in our journey. There is
this tendency to impose otherness on people in the gospels, is to see people as
different to us or separate from us or other than us. And this otherness prevents us
from learning powerful and valuable lessons from the gospel. And so to counteract this
otherness, the challenge is to see ourselves in every single person in the gospels, to
see ourselves in every single person, the best and the worst, as we judge them, to see
ourselves in all of them. And then sometimes we see these lists of things that Jesus
did. And in this case, the list of things that his disciples did or being called to do.
And I always find these lists interesting. And the thing that jumped out at me today was
the list at the end, where Jesus sent them out to preach that the kingdom of heaven was
at hand. And then to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leopards, cast out
demons. I like to look at these lists and think, "Okay, heal the sick. How am I the
sick? How is God wanting to heal me? Raise the dead. In what ways am I dead? What
aspects of my life are dead and need to be raised from the dead? Or maybe there's a
relationship in my life that needs to be raised from the dead. Or cleanse lepers. In
what ways am I like a leper and need to be cleansed of my leprosy and cast out demons?
What demons are roaming around in me at this moment, and need to be cast
out?"
We all have them. You can get a demon of anger around a
situation. You can get a demon of unforgiveness. You can get a demon of selfishness. You
can get so many ways to explore these ideas, rather than the actual literal physical
infirmities that we associate with them in the Gospels. And so challenge today, look at
the gospel and see yourself in someone different to who you've seen yourself in the
past, and ask, "How is God calling you to transformation through that person's story?"
Have a great day. Remember, don't just be yourself. Be
the-very-best-version-of-yourself, all that God created you to be.
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