Isaiah 66:10-14/ Galatians 6:14-18/ Luke 10:1-12, 17-20
We may remember one of the sayings of Jesus that goes like this: Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow has its own worries. Today has enough worries of its own.
Yes, today has enough of troubles and worries of its own.
Yet, it seems that we have an addiction to worries and anxieties, not just for today, but for tomorrow also, and the day after, and the day after that, and so on.
Yes, we worry and get anxious about what will happen later on today, what will happen tomorrow, what will happen in the future.
That is why one of the things that we are often tempted to read is the horoscope, although we shouldn’t.
We can find it in the newspaper everyday or even just log in on the internet to read the horoscope for the day.
Whether we take it seriously or lightly, that’s another matter altogether.
But life is really no laughing matter especially when our future is at stake.
There is this conversation between a fortune teller and his client.
Fortune teller: For the first 40 years, your life will be hard and unhappy.
Client: Oh?! And then, after that?
Fortune teller: After that, you will get used to it.
Of course we shouldn’t consult fortune tellers or palm reader (or the horoscope), because our future is in the hands of God.
And in the gospel, we hear what Jesus has to say about our future.
Jesus tells us that we are going to be labourers for His harvest.
And going out there into the harvest, it would be like lambs among wolves.
And if we are going to be honest about it, we would surely be thinking: Is it going to be that difficult? Is it going to be that scary?
But if we really want to face the truth of discipleship, then the reality is that it is going to be that difficult, it is going to be that scary.
Yes, that is the truth of discipleship. Yet, that truth will set us free from our anxieties and worries.
And when we are freed from the grip of our worries and anxieties then we will have peace of heart.
And that is what Jesus wants us to be - messengers of peace. He sends us out into the harvest of the world to be witnesses of peace.
But it is hard to be a messenger of peace; it is difficult to be a witness of peace.
Because in this world, the wolves will be howling at us, the snakes will bite us and the scorpions will sting us.
It is said that “people can live through great hardships and yet perish from hard feelings” (Solzhenitsyn)
The hardness of this world can also harden our hearts.
And when our hearts are hardened, then instead of giving peace to others, we may end up giving them a piece of our mind.
Yet the hardness of heart can only be softened and healed by the waters of peace that flow from the heart of God.
As we heard God saying in the 1st reading : I will send peace flowing like a river.
The image of peace flowing like a river is indeed very fitting.
Because true peace is like a river – the deeper it is, the less noise it makes.
Also the image of peace flowing like a river is fitting because as a river glides along smoothly, it remains the same river flowing in the one direction.
The only thing that changes is the landscape on either side of the bank.
And it is the waters of a river that gives life and peace and softens the hardness of the world.
The hardness that we receive from the world is like a label that is stuck on a bottle.
The easiest way to remove the label from the bottle is to soak the bottle in water and leave it there until the label is softened and detaches from the bottle with little effort.
Similarly we come for Mass to be soaked in the healing waters of the river of God’s peace so that the hard labels of bitterness and resentment can be removed, and our hearts softened.
God wants to heal and comfort us just like a mother would comfort her child.
That is why we have to observe and respect the sacred ambience and the decorum and the solemnity of the Mass.
Because we have come to be healed and comforted by God, and to let God’s peace flow into our hearts like a river.
When we are healed and filled with peace, then we can go out into the world to be messengers of God’s peace and to be channels of peace that flows like a river.
The world is too used to hardness. It has heard too much of the howling of the wolves and felt the pain of the bite of serpents and the sting of scorpions.
But deep in the heart of every person is a longing for peace – the peace that can heal the pain of the world.
May that healing begin with us; may God’s peace flow into our hearts like a river.
And may that peace flow from us into the world to heal the world.