Hands to the Plow

What this episode covers

(Proper 8 - The Rev. Richard E. Helmer) We wrestle, as followers of Christ, with the same things Jesus' would-be followers wrestled with. We have obligations - obligations to family, to tradition, to institution, to the pressing needs and concerns of our worldly lives. We spook easily at change, we blanch at difference, we resist the challenge those outside our doors pose to us, we seek safety in what we know and fear what we don't. Jesus deliberately shakes up his hearers and us, shocks us out of our comfort and into a vulnerable, itinerate place - the place of ongoing journey, the fragility of raw humanity on a dusty road, even staring into the face of darkness, death, and dissolution. Only in that way will we "get" - both literally and figuratively - the Gospel. Only in that way, he reminds us, will we fully find God.

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