Guts, Listening, and Urgency

 One familiar story which contains a familiar parable flows into another familiar story. Is there anything at all new to say about the Samaritan that’s called “good” or the Mary and Martha sisterly tiff? Unclear. But given our deep dive into Luke, and looking for threads, Pastor Megan notices two things: Luke is driving home that 1) we are meant to be moved with compassion, and 2) we are implored to listen to Jesus. Both are imperative in Luke’s gospel, and in Luke’s understanding of what it means to walk the Way of Jesus, with faces turned toward Jerusalem. Taken together, Megan wonders if there’s a thematic thread of urgency. There’s false urgencies that cause us to sidestep one in need (rooted in white supremacy culture), and real urgency to prepare for and engage resistance to empire (rooted in our call to collective liberation). Somehow we are invited to discern well between the Big Urgency and the little urgencies so that we can be sustained on this discipleship path taking us on a collision course with the corrupt powers of the world.

Hymn 527 – Bless the Arms That Comfort. Text: Mary Louise Bringle (USA), © 2001 The Hymn Society (admin. Hope Publishing Co.) Music: Gustav Holst (England), 1906. Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-726929. All rights reserved.