Friday, June 13, 2008

Today’s text

Matthew 10:1-8

He summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits with power to drive them out and to cure all kinds of disease and all kinds of illness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon who is known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who was also his betrayer. These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them as follows: 'Do not make your way to gentile territory, and do not enter any Samaritan town; go instead to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. And as you go, proclaim that the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those suffering from virulent skin-diseases, drive out devils. You received without charge, give without charge.'

Prayer

Who are we Jesus? We have gathered around you now for the past two millennia. We call upon you in diverse languages and try to discern your way amid the maw of cultures that are at far odds with you.

As often as not, we lose our way. Our times, places and societies exercise far greater power over our identities than do you. Yet, there remains in me a desire to be shaped by you, to live a life that expresses you, a life in which you might recognize a soul that belongs to you.

But I cannot do that alone. It has taken me nearly all of five decades to know this. I need a community that believes the kingdom of heaven is, indeed, near, and hence can give of heart and soul without charge. I need a community that knows and is your compassion, a community where my faults can find forgiveness and a wandering soul can find welcome.

I need those who know your mission to cure and cleanse and raise the dead. (And who are more dead than they who imagine they can truly live without you and the nearness of your rule?).

I want more and more to find myself among this people of hope you create, a people defined by your mission, a people who crave your nearness and who hunger and thirst for the mercy that is your face on our earth.

For this is who we are, why we gather and why our hope is you, alone.

Pr. David L. Miller