The Lord Jesus appointed seventy-two disciples whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit (Lk 10:1).

Jesus sent out disciples ahead of him. He sends us out as well. Just as Mary conceived Jesus through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, she went in haste to assist Elizabeth who also was to give birth. What happened when Mary came upon Elizabeth? No sooner had Mary’s greeting reached Elizabeth John leapt in her womb with gladness. This is the model of evangelization. Sharing the joy of Christ that we experience with others.

Christianity is a religion of encounter, yes we are a people of the book like our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters, but we are primarily a people of encounter with Jesus the Christ. We encounter Jesus through a regular practice and discipline of prayer, worship, study, fellowship, and service. Our pastor Fr. Don has shared with us a wonderful image to represent the path of discipleship and that is the image of the cross. The vertical part of the cross represents how we develop our personal relationship with Jesus, the horizontal represents our bearing Jesus to and with others. If we only have the vertical, the one on one relationship with Jesus, we just have a stick. If we just serve others without encountering Jesus, we just have a stick.

Christianity is the way of the cross, not the way of the stick. We are to be contemplatives in action. We are about building relationships between ourselves and Jesus and others. When we experience the joy of encounter with Jesus, as did Mary, as did his apostles, as did his disciples, we are to then go out to share the good news of that unique encounter. Not necessarily to some far away land, but primarily into our everyday experiences. We are to love others as Jesus loves us, we are to share the inexpressible joy of that love, and that love we share is to be unconditional, agape in the Greek. “[T]he surrender of life for the sake of others” (Lohfink, 73).

The Christian commission is to build Christian communities one smile at a time, one person at a time, one encounter at a time, one relationship at a time. I agree with Gerhard Lohfink in his piece, “What Does the Love Commandment Mean?” that love is not a pious universal that we love all humanity in some vague removed or remote way, no: this love is something tangible, corporal, it’s hands on: “This love constantly breaks out of the individual communities to embrace non-Christians, guests, strangers, the suffering (obviously including those in other countries) but it is always tied to the concrete experience of common life in the individual community” (72).

May we pray for and experience the gift of joy this morning and share that experience with those we meet today. With each encounter let us reach out beyond our self to engage others with hospitality, respect, and joy. Each pair of eyeballs that you engage, smile and say hello. Just that simple, genuine expression acknowledges to the other that they matter to you. If someone asks you how you are, instead of saying, “Fine.” Say instead, “Better since you asked.” There are many ways to reach out and give of ourselves to others in love. Be open, surrender to Jesus, let us rise up, and be on our way to bear Christ to those we encounter today!

Link to today’s Mass readings:

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/101817.cfm

Lohfink, Gerhard. “What Does the Love Commandment Mean?” In No Irrelevant Jesus:      On Jesus and the Church Today, translated by Linda M. Maloney, 64-74. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014.