Dust off your Feet
If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Matthew 10. 5 - 15
After yesterday's epistle reading from 1 Corinthians 13. 4 - 15, it is fitting that the gospel chosen for the day was Matthew 10. 5 - 15. When the words from 1 Corinthians sink in and you read, mark and inwardly digest them, you know deep in your soul that you must move on from people who don't.
Love has no qualifiers; God created all people in God's image to be beloved children of God as objects of God's affection. As the words of Jesus tell us in the gospels, our mission is to spread that love and peace.
But where we are not welcomed or listened to, where Love requires qualifications and conditions, Jesus says "shake off the dust from your feet as you leave." As the translation in The Message bible says,
"if they don’t welcome you, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way."
Sometimes that's just what we have to do.
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