Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Tone 4; Bishop-Martyr Nykolai (Nicholas) Charnetsky and the Twenty-Seven Other New Blesseds of the Church of Rus’-Ukraine Beatified in 2001; Our Venerable Father Samson, Host of Strangers (527-65)
Romans 10:1-10; Ephesians 6:10-17; Matthew 8:28-9:1; Luke 21:12-19
Apostles’ Fast.
Read Matthew 8:28-9:1
Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region. (8:34)
The town asks Jesus to leave. One could call this a dis-invitation. Although there is a great spiritual good that has happened, in that two possessed men were liberated from demons, there was also a material loss to the town in losing all these pigs. The material loss is considered much more important than the spiritual gain. That sometimes happens in our life that we value the material over the spiritual.
The town asked Jesus to leave. What did Jesus do? He left. A similar situation has happened in our society in our times when prayer was taken out of schools and government sessions. There was a time when all school days and all government sessions began with prayer. But then our elected leaders decided to remove prayer in these contexts. It is a kind of dis-invitation. What will Jesus do?