In the gospel we hear extraordinary claims made for the disciples of Jesus: "You are the salt of the earth" (Mtt 5: 13) and "You are the light of the world." (Mtt 5: 14) Normally one would think that the rich and powerful would be the focus yet here he is talking to Galilean peasants who are to fulfil this intimidating function. Missionary disciples are not meant to be invisible. To intentionally evangelize we need to draw attention to Jesus which has the byproduct of drawing attention to ourselves. If we are true to our calling we bring flavour to life and cast light on others to drive out their darkness. We are not disciples to save only ourselves from sin, despair and evil rather the charisms given us are there to serve the Gospel. The paradox of all of this is that we do not proclaim success, like some form of "prosperity gospel" but we proclaim Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2: 2). Our happiness is not found in some self help technique or secret knowledge rather it is founded in the person of Jesus Christ who confounds worldly wisdom and pretension.
No comments:
Post a Comment