The Joy of the Sent

WORD 2day: Thursday, 26th week in Ordinary time

October 3, 2019: Nehemiah 8:1-12; Luke 10: 1-12

The joy of the Lord is your strength (Neh 8:10), exclaims the first reading today. No doubt, prosperity and progress are a blessing from the Lord. They are great sources of happiness and joy. But they are not the fundamental sources of true happiness and true joy, and certainly not the only sources! 

Today there is almost a racket created and promoted by some self-appointed god-men, who seem to be marketing God and the goodies from God... 'you donate, you shall be blessed', 'you come to this fellowship and all your troubles shall be over', 'you join this church and you shall become prosperous and debt-free'... Prosperity Gospel, in short runs the danger of commodifying God, making God a means towards well being. What is God - some kind of an ATM or a vending machine?

That which gives true and complete joy is the Word of the Lord, the precepts of the Lord, the teachings of the Lord - the holy Will of God. "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete" (Jn 15:11) said the Lord. 

Jesus' words today make it plain to the world, and particularly to us - what we might imagine to be important - comforts and career, ego and impressions, status and social image - may not be important at all in the final analysis. That which can really give us joy is, to know what the Lord wants from us and live according to that! Because it is the Lord who created us, has called us and sent us.

Let us remember - we are SENT into the world!