Unique and original

In our youth we reject the advice and direction of family so that we may be different and stand out from the crowd as unique in the entire universe. Then we quickly fall into a sameness with friends lest we seem unusual to the crowd with which we run. In the eighth grade corduroy was the acceptable fashion for boys of the late 1950s and for some months the corduroy pants and accompanying shirt had to be pink and black. It could be a pink shirt or black shirt and the pants had to be the alternate color. But when the fashion trend began each of us had to have some combination of those colors. Otherwise one was not accepted comfortably among one's classmates.

The 1961 musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying featured a scene in which a secretary sang about the most unusual and original dress she had bought that day for a date with a junior executive only to discover that several other secretaries had made the same purchase. What made her unique had suddenly turned her into a carbon copy.

Luke's Gospel for today commissions 72 disciples as missionaries to the surrounding towns Jesus wants visited. He offers specific instructions and is quite blunt in telling these disciples what to do and what not to do. Most important in his bluntness is the direction that the disciples are to shake the dust from their feet if the Gospel preached in a certain place is rejected. And Jesus states that there is a serious price to pay for such rejection. It will be easier for the sinners in Sodom than for those who reject Jesus.

We too are sent as missionaries to our nearest neighbors. Pope Francis has made that emphatic in many of his homilies. Many of us want to let well enough alone and not disturb the peace among those who do not believe as we do. We want to fit in and not be seen as different. We don't want to stand out in our beliefs lest we be politically incorrect or offensive. Our goals and objectives in life aren't much different from everyone else's.

But Jesus calls us to be missionaries of his Gospel. If we can water down that Gospel, we gladly follow and perhaps even preach. It is more difficult to speak of living a virtuous life or loving one's neighbor or bringing peace to the world or living unselfishly or seeking justice than it is to indulge our senses and passions for our own personal pleasures. It is also easier to issue broad condemnations of one another. The Gospel still calls, however, and Christians are called to preach it. Moreover, we are called to live it.