Friday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus today invites us to friendship. He stresses that those who hear his message amd learn of his miracles should out of common sense and logic have turned toward him in faith and truth.

But many rejected him and were busy with the world and lesser pursuits. 

Our reading from Luke is set between sending the disciples out and their return. 

And he stresses to them that those who do listen to them, listens to Jesus and the one who sent him. And those who rejected them, rejected Jesus and his Father in heaven. 

Later in the Gospel, the disciples would describe in detail the miracles they performed including driving out demons. There would be much rejoicing. They had been sent to do the will of God and while there were successes there was also those who would not listen.

We of course are also called to do the will of God which includes tellign others the good news of Jesus Christ. If we are a friend of Jesus Christ it should be easy for us to share what Jesus means to us. The challenge is of course we live in a world like the disciples lived. There are many around us who believe and many who do not. We live and work with both types of people. And while we can be amazed they do not believe, even when they hear the truth, it is part of the life of a follower to be rejected because of our faith in Jesus.

And that is how it will be.

Many will hear the truth and hold onto the world. On to fear adn anxiety and worry and living a lost life with no destination besides more money, more pleasure or more things. 

It reminds me of the dialogue in Alice’s Adventrues in Wonderland. The Lewis Carroll book where, Alice asks the Cheshire Cat for directions, saying, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”. The Cat famously replies, “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to”. When Alice responds that she doesn’t much care where she’s going, the Cat then states, “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go” 

Most people in the word do not know where they want to go. Not really. If they have rejected the good news then they are not planning and preparing themselves to get to the destination of Heaven. But like Alice they ask for directions, or rather ask the world what is the best path in life and are offered poor substitutes for eternal life. They are offered only things that fade away from this world. 

So today we must ask ourselves, where do we want to go?  If we dont know, then it doesnt matter where we end up. But if we know Jesus Christ and know we want to be with him in heaven. To spend eternal life with our Father in heaven, then we need to travel on the way Jesus gave us. The commandments are just a road map to those who say, I want to be in heaven. That is my ultimate destination.