No excuses!

Matthew 8: 19-22; Luke 9: 51-62

Luke 9: 51-53

51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. ⁵²And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; ⁵³but they did not receive him, because his face was set towards Jerusalem.

Not everyone accepts the teachings and practices of the Kingdom of God inaugurated by Jesus. For those of us who have thrown our lot in with Jesus this can be a hard fact to accept; we struggle to understand why.  Jesus is quite clear on what our attitude should be in such circumstances; live in peace and respect.  The gospel is a peace-making approach to understanding life not a war making approach. Without dissent or the possibility of dissent there can be no genuine discipleship; let’s face it discipleship and especially Anabaptist discipleship is form of dissent. We have decided not to live by the ethics of contemporary culture but instead we have adopted the radical alternative way of life taught by Jesus. We have decided to take the words of Jesus seriously and put them into practice. Others and indeed the majority of our culture have decided not to do this. As a minority, this will mean that we will benefit from our culture extending to us understanding and acceptance and we are taught by Jesus to have the grace to extend the same respect and kindness to our neighbours who do not accept Jesus as Lord. This is of great importance to any hope of peace-making being successful; pluralism may not be perfect but it’s the best option in a diverse culture where interdependence can be cultivated based on mutual respect and positive regard. There is a cost to being a disciple of Jesus; the cost is taking the words of Jesus seriously and applying them to our lives. Loving our neighbours as much as we love ourselves seems to be a great place to start. No excuses!