Today’s passage is Matthew 10:16-23.
Jesus tells his disciples to be as wary as snakes and as harmless as doves even though he’s sending them like sheep among wolves to preach the gospel.
He warns them they’ll be persecuted, families will be torn apart and people will hate them but to endure it all.
The picture Jesus gives his disciples is completely foreign to me.
It is not the world I live in.
I have visited that world in India and Indonesia where religious passion runs high, but in the rich and secular Western world, no one I know cares about God or religion.
My best friend from high school is an atheist. So is my Indian friend.
My other Canadian friend sees himself as a Jew racially not religiously.
My mother doesn’t seem to care at all about God nor my stepfather.
My stepdaughter and her family have largely replaced God with Scouts.
My son thinks Jesus is just another irrelevant ancient religious guy and the God of the Bible does not exist
because there are mysterious spiritual forces that we align ourselves with for good health and happiness.
Only my daughter and my sister believe in Jesus and God’s revelation in the Bible.
No one hates me because I believe in Jesus.
Despite my faith and my talking about it, they still like me.
They think I’m misguided, that’s all.
They have no interest in the afterlife because they don’t believe there is one.
They say that when we die our decomposed body re-enters the environment.
They think life ends with death.
They say to think otherwise is to be a child.
I can only wait for their suffering to provide the fertile ground for hearing the good news as it has for me.
Lord, give me your passion for my family and friends who don’t believe. Give me your tears to cry for them.
