05-09-24

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
May 9, 2024
I have always resonated with Matthew 10:11-14, where Jesus sent his disciples on a short mission, but in case they ran into some not-so-welcoming people, the disciples were told, 

“…shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.”

It almost sounds as if Jesus is telling them to be like ducks—to let stuff roll off them like rain off the back of a duck. There are probably people who truly are duck-like, but most of us are not. We can have ten successes in one day, but the one failure (one less than stellar outcome) is what consumes us, especially as we lay in bed at night. Jesus encouraged his disciples to let go and move on. Some of us might be good at this in one aspect of life but lousy in another. For more than a decade, the business world has celebrated failure in the belief that innovation requires failure. But innovation won’t happen if we are unable to move beyond failure. For Jesus, there was an urgency in sharing the news of the Kin(g)dom of Heaven, and it feels as if Jesus wanted us to move forward even when things did not succeed. Doing some evaluation and seeking ways of improving are always good, and I doubt Jesus was opposed to such things. I imagine it was more about dwelling on the failure that Jesus was most concerned about. I am reminded of the parable of the Sower who sowed the seeds but didn’t get frustrated or spend much time digging the seeds out from the rocks or those near the weeds. The Sower just went on sowing. In many situations, our task is to sow the seeds of love and to realize (as Paul will say) that maybe someone else will come along, when we are no longer present, and do the watering and the weeding necessary to bring about the next step in growth. The moment we get stuck on a failure is the moment we stop sowing. There is work to be done.

I am a human, not a duck. Stuff doesn’t always roll off me. Help, Gracious God, especially in those moments when I am too focused on a failure to see the next new thing coming my way. Amen.