Todays reading: Luke 9-10. Jesus gave his disciples power and authority to proclaim the kingdom and to cure diseases (Luke 9:1-2), without any resources and dependent on the hospitality of strangers (9:3-4). Where they received no hospitality they were simply to shake the dust from their feet as they departed (9:5). But since Jesus had given them authority to heal, James and John thought maybe Jesus would give them authority to destroy as well: to call down fire from heaven to burn up a Samaritan village that refused to provide hospitality (9:52-54). Their request earned them a stern rebuke from Jesus (9:55). The footnotes in your Bible should tell you that the description of this rebuke was not original to Luke, but added by a later commentator, and inadvertently incorporated into the manuscript by the next generation of copyists. Still the commentary is apt: “you do not know what kind of spirit you are: the Son of Man did not come to destroy human life, but to save it.” Like James and John, we are quick to assume that we could be trusted with the authority to call down fire on those we feel deserve it. Yet we are not strong on the self-critical awareness to realize that we who want to destroy others are included in the number of those sinners who deserve punishment. And we are quick to forget that you love sinners, O Lord: sinners like James and John, sinners like the Samaritans, sinners like us. In your compassion transform our hearts, we pray, that we also may become people of compassion.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 08:00:00 +0000
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