Wednesday after Sexagesima Sunday
Posted on February 15, 2023 by under
Scripture: St. Matthew 10:2-16 (NKJV)
10:2 Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Cananite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him.
5 These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. 6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. 9 Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, 10 nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food.
11 “Now whatever city or town you enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and stay there till you go out. 12 And when you go into a household, greet it. 13 If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. 15 Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city!
16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”
Devotion
“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”
Our Lord uses animals as figures of speech as He commands His disciples to preach to the towns of Israel. Sheep are defenseless, harmless, bereft of any capacity for coercion. Wolves are quite the opposite: menacing and very capable of doing harm. And while the disciples will be proclaiming the message of the Lord in that kind of hostile environment, they are to remain sheep-like anyway. The Gospel changes the hearts of men, not the sword.
In conjunction with this, our Lord admonishes them to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. The cunning of the serpent is the stuff of legend, going clear back to the garden of Eden in Genesis. And the innocence of doves is a figure that we retain to this day. What a challenge to try to be both! Like serpents, don’t be naive. But unlike serpents, be innocent like doves. Be guilty of no deceit, and uncorrupt in our faith in Jesus Christ. Be sincere in our love for God and our fellow man. And be pure-hearted in our prayerful desire for the salvation of those to whom we speak of our Lord. To this end, the Lord be with us, strengthen us, and have His use of us this day.
Prayer: O Lord God, Who seest that we put not our trust in anything that we do: Mercifully grant that by Thy power we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
