Imagining the Lectionary: Muddy boot discipleship (Proper 8A / Ordinary 13A)

Imagining the Lectionary:  Muddy boot discipleship (Proper 8A / Ordinary 13A)
 
Reflection accompanying image “Difficult path ahead”.
 
"Don't think I've come to make life cozy. I've come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God. Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies. If you prefer father or mother over me, you don't deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don't deserve me. If you don't go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don't deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me."  (Matthew 10:34-39)
 
Jesus roots his wisdom in real life and aims to open up the faith perception of his followers to new ways of seeing the world and themselves. Here he takes the all too familiar pressures of trying to do the right thing in a world of multiple choice demands and responsibilities and turns it into an object lesson in trust. The passage in Matthew is littered with emotional tripwires and false choices and at first glance the pathway
advocated by Jesus seems impassable. It looks like a relational lose-lose quagmire in which we will get irretrievably and thoroughly bogged down. The warning sign put in place by Jesus is clear and unmistakable. Them or me. You choose.

Continues ...