Year A, Lectionary 91
God cares for us. God loves us. In God's deep compassion for us God seeks to reconcile us back to God. As Apostles of Christ, we are meant to enter into that compassion for the rest of humanity. Jesus could have individually cured all the sick but God chose to do so as a community, as a Church, with the aim of being a light unto the nations. We are given authority but for God's purpose and not our own.
“The divine shows us that service is best done in community”
“The world does not only need more successful people. It needs more compassionate disciples. It needs people whose hearts are moved the way Christ's heart was moved.”
“Every person you meet is somebody the Shepherd is searching for”
“Being offered these readings alongside one another challenges us to recognize that knowing we are beloved comes first before any efforts of mission, ministry or service...our attempts to care can devolve into attempts to control and this is a recipe for fatigue, resentment and conflict”
“when Jesus, who could have done all this on his own, chose instead to commission a group that would constantly get bigger over the years, that itself is a reflection of the Trinitarian life and love of the divine, right. In God self, God isn't alone. So if we image God...then we're not called to be isolationists, individualists.”
“God is willing to...do whatever it takes to protect each and every member of his chosen people. He will give us all that we need and all that he has to save us. In fact, that's what God did.”
