Thursday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
“Leave there and shake the dust off your feet.”
These sound like mentoring words. Even therapy words.
As I was exiting my first (not) marriage (I received an official annulment, so I think this phrasing is appropriate) I was summoned by my then pastor—a Mennonite pastor. Some helpful pastoral counsel would have done me a world of good. It was a very difficult time, to say the least.
But his word of wisdom to me was that my marriage was “ideal.” I should stay in it, he said.
He also counseled that staying in my marriage would be the right career move for me, given that I was rising in the leadership of the denomination. Why would I want to give that up? That was his question to me, as if the answer were obvious.
He didn’t, by the way, ask me anything about what my marriage was like. He knew. It was “ideal”.
There are times in our lives when we need to heed Jesus’ advice. We reach out. We seek counsel. We take a risk by, perhaps, telling our story to someone. We don’t know how they will respond. Will their response be in keeping with what we have shared? Will it honor what, in the case of the disciples, they sought to teach?
Maybe. Maybe not.
I think what Jesus is telling us today is that if we’re going to put ourselves out there, if we’re going to be vulnerable in some way—by sharing something about our life, by teaching something we deeply believe is important, by preaching something that we think is true—we have to be prepared for the possibility that it may be rejected. And when that happens, we have to “leave” and “shake the dust off our feet.”
By many accounts, what Jesus taught and preached was rejected. Even is today, and even by folks who call themselves Christians. He was crucified, after all.
I think about this when Father Satish delivers one of his homilies. He often takes risks. He says things that challenge us and make us uncomfortable. He makes himself vulnerable because he is determined to preach the Gospel—that is, the Word that got Jesus killed.
And while I hope this isn’t the case, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Father Satish’s homilies have not always been well received. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has heard a harsh word from a parishioner who was made uncomfortable by what Father Satish said.
I think Jesus’ counsel not just to his disciples but to us too is that there are times when we just gotta shake the dust off our feet. There are times when we have to trust that we are living into the Gospel and our best selves. And if others see fit to tell see it otherwise, so be it.
-Susan Trollinger