Ordinary Time

Pause

“I feel so alive!” We all have experiences that can make us shout that phrase. But we can also feel those occasions don’t come along often enough and we long to know that feeling again, especially in difficult times.

Feeling alive is attached always to the One who gives us life. Open yourself in these next moments to be touched by life as it is meant to be.

Listen

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

Matthew 10:34–39

Think

Bringing a sword and not peace is not quite what I want Jesus to say. Jesus is supposed to tell us to put our fighting words away. Jesus is supposed to be easygoing. Jesus is supposed to make everyone happy, right?

Hunger and poverty make me mad. But filling hungry bellies and helping families find their means of support are efforts that upset our social balance, so these injustices will not end easily. What makes you angry? War? Drop-out rates? Racism? Debt? Gangs?

Jesus wants us to be kingdom people, getting angry and turning the world upside down. Jesus got angry. He even died because he wasn’t willing to compromise. He turned things too upside-down for those in his part of the world, so maybe we aren’t supposed to be keeping everybody happy. Maybe, instead, we are called to proclaim God’s upside-down kingdom by standing uncompromisingly for the weak, broken, and hated.

Lesley-Ann Nix

Pray

God, I am surrounded by injustice. Give me the courage and wisdom necessary to stand for your upside-down kingdom in the face of injustice. You are my strength, my vision, and my life. Amen.

Go

Breathe. Breathe deeply and feel the spirit of life within. Know that the Giver of life is with you, making you alive by the Spirit that is still at work in all of creation.

Then walk. Walk confidently into your day, aware that the life-giving Christ is alongside you with every step.