SCRIPTURE:
1ST READING: ISAIAH 66: 10-14C
2ND READING: GALATIANS 6: 14-18
GOSPEL:LUKE 10:1-12, 17-20
Sometimes I feel like I am wearing a heavy backpack. It is a backpack wrapped tightly around my mind, my knees buckling under the weight as I trod down the trail of life.
Along the way I continue to pick up feelings, beliefs, thoughts, experiences and memories that I have come to on my own and that others have helped me form; each new addition making my load heavier.
I don’t want to live that way any more. I am ready to stop, take the backpack off and lighten my load. And so, I decide to let go of things that are no longer driving me towards happiness and peace.
This is an excerpt of one persons feeling about the baggage this person has held on to for many years-causing this person in not finding happiness and peace, not finding their way in life.
You know, sometimes we have to let go to see if there was anything worth holding on to. It seems our readings today are leading us to a place, a kind of peace , showing us what is most important for us. All we have to do is let go of the things of this life that weigh us down, things that control our lives so that we are free to depend on God to give us what we need, to rely on God to show us the way that is best for us.
How about your backpack? Is it heavy? Is it time for you to take a look at what you can let go of? Will you let go of worry? Will you let go of guilt, anger, hatred, bios, addiction, greed? What do you need to throw away to make your load lighter? What does Christ tell us; “carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals!” He says this so that nothing of this world will keep us from being focused on him and his gospel message of truth and love: The message his Father sent him to deliver to us and us to deliver to others.
Today’s first reading comes from the final chapter of Isaiah. In this last section God’s chosen people, the Israelites, have returned to their homeland after exile in Babylon. We hear of the visions for Israel’s future life with the lord. It calls them to an internal change of heart, giving up those things that keep them from God. Look at these visions: “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you!” And; “When you see this, your heart shall rejoice!” Of course, here speaking of the New Jerusalem.
We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned for ourselves so that we can accept that life that is offered to us through our loving God. But there are problems in dealing with our imperfect humanity. Some hold on to the past. Living from your past locks you into a mental prison that doesn’t allow you to express fully what God created you to be.
Life is viewed through the bars of what was- rather than through the freedom of what is and what can be. You don’t have to be locked up carrying the past in your backpack. The doors open from the inside- as our first reading shows, a real change of heart. It takes a little courage to ask God to help you turn the key to let yourself out of that prison.
Our problem with gazing too frequently into the past is that we may turn around to find the future has run out on us. Don’t let that happen you! It is in our human nature to want to know what the results of our efforts will be before we put the energy into them. Like, it is comforting to know that our money will yield a positive return before we invest it.
Changing our lives in the name of Jesus Christ is no different. We want to know that if we choose to unlock the prison door and unload our backpacks of this world’s stuff, and walk into His light, that our lives will be exactly as we imagined. But in this life there are no guarantees except when choosing to live in the light of Christ. Definitely, without question, we know where that will lead us, right?
In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Paul mentions that he bears the marks of Jesus on his body Not only the physical marks but also the spiritual ones. For those early disciples in the gospel, the marks on their bodies, like Paul’s, will be only those that mark them as belonging to Christ. There sign will be simply that they are a part of the mystery of God’s purpose and now revealed in Christ. They are to point the way to Jesus and not particularly to themselves. They see themselves not as central to the story but rather as bearers of the story. They see themselves as being at the service of God and others rather than as objects of admiration by others.
They see themselves as servants rather than people of influence and power. They are humble before all that God is doing in them and in others. And they never imagine what they bring with them is all there is to bring.
Do others see us as being weighed down by backpacks that are filled with busyness, with worries, with pressures, or do they see us traveling and moving about lightly, touching into their worlds with a gentle presence that becomes a gift which leaves them saying, “Amen” and longing for more? I invite us all to ask ourselves these questions this week as we continue our journey together.
We might feel small in face of impacting our beliefs on an unbelieving world. That we feel small perhaps helps us understand the task the early disciples faced in Luke’s gospel. Jesus sent seventy-two disciples ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit to prepare the way.
Jesus knew that they were up against the odds. He describes them as lambs among wolves. “The harvest is abundant,” he says, “but the laborers are few”. More credit then to those early disciples that the Christian message has survived for over two thousand years.
We are not so different than them, are we, in a world where morality and decency are challenged, where laws are being passed that challenge our basic beliefs as Christians?
Jesus gave his disciples some important practical advice. His first words were travel light. How can we concentrate on impacting Jesus’ will if our backpacks are weighing us down? Jesus is asking us to focus on the job at hand, avoiding distractions and not to be deterred by oppositions or setbacks. I believe that most of us, if not all, have faced these once or twice in our lives.
The job to be done might seem impossible in this secular and war torn world, but we take with us the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in us giving us strength to overcome that which would hold us back. We also take with us the example of the early disciples and the scale of their success.
If we lighten our load by emptying our backpacks of that stuff which holds us back, that weigh us down until our knees buckle, and follow Jesus, and rely solely on our loving God to supply us with what we need, we will here the words spoken to us: Rejoice, because your names are written in Heaven!!!!!!!!