Y’all………..

It would seem that we are living in dark and discouraging times.  It would seem that it’s always a fight and back and forth between conservative and liberal, Democrat and Republican, right vs. left, this religious denomination vs. that religious denomination back and forth, my way or the highway.  It would seem that this fight has become a “good vs. bad” type thing.   It would seem that there are folks whom some of us respected, admired, and dare I say loved, who have shown themselves to be far different from what our perceptions of them have been.

Sometimes I just wanna scream STOP It!  Other times it’s a quiet “Why can’t we all just get along?”  More recently, my thoughts have been more like, “What the hell is wrong with you?”  I find it exhausting, this push and pull and continuous descension, and I find myself wondering, “What if?  Why?   How can we stop this madness?”

Well, Imma tell ya.  We can’t.  We simply can’t stop folks from doing what they’re gonna do and being who they’ve shown to us they actually are.  But, as he so often did, Jesus gives us a bit of direction that we can apply here.  In the Gospel reading appointed for today,   (Luke 10:1-12, 17-20, often called “The Great Commission,”)  Jesus is telling the twelve disciples what’s up, just how they’re supposed to proceed with the actually being disciples thing, and what they can expect.  And in the middle of this oral handbook he’s delivering, he includes this little zinger:  “Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words—go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet.”  To put a more modern spin on it, in the film “Frozen,” Elsa sings, “Let It Go.”

And that’s a hard thing to do and it goes against everything that those of us who are/were educators believe.  We try desperately to never, ever, give up on our students.  We find new and different ways to try to reach them.  And sometimes, we find new and different people (specialists) who have a better chance at getting whatever point across to some of these kids.  But sometimes, sometimes there are students/kids/folks who are just never gonna get it.  Never.  And that hurts.  But we persevere and keep working with the next batch of folks who are given to us to try to reach.  It’s what we do.

And going right along with that, it’s the same with those of us who preach and teach love continually.  Some folks are never gonna get it.  Some folks just refuse to be reached.  And that’s heartbreaking.  Even Jesus had to learn this lesson the hard way.  In Luke 19:41-44, Jesus wept over Jerusalem as He approached the city, knowing that its inhabitants would soon reject Him and face destruction.   His weeping highlights Jesus’s sorrow for the spiritual blindness and hardness of heart that would lead to their downfall. It also reveals His deep love and concern for the people of Jerusalem, despite their rejection of Him.

Ugh.  But Jesus kept right on doing what he was doing, and so do we.  But I’m gonna let ya in on a little secret.  Sometimes, no, actually ALL the time whilst I’m talking about this love stuff that Jesus was so adamant about, I’m also, in many ways, preaching to myself.  I have to continually police myself to not fall to the temptation to be a wee bit nasty, mean, hateful, or rude.  I love the story Anne Lamott relates “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.”

She writes about A.J. Muste, a life-long pacifist who, during the Vietnam War, stood in front of the White House night after night, for years, holding a lighted candle.  A one person protest, conducted near the end of his life.  One very rainy night, a reporter asked him, “Mr. Muste, do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night with a candle?”

“Oh,” Muste replied, “I don’t do it to change the country, I do it so the country won’t change me.”

So we “shake the dust from our sandals” when we have to, and keep going, trying remind ourselves along with everyone else, to spread Jesus’s  message of love, of inclusiveness, of joy, of trying to be the (say it with me) the only Jesus some folks will ever see; the only Bible some folks will ever read.  And maybe, just maybe, to be that candle in the darkness for someone.