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Let Your Peace Return To You?


Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave. As you enter the home, give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. (Matthew 10: 11-15)

          I listened to this passage on my way to the hospital yesterday morning. The first thing that came to mind was “so much for ‘judge not, that ye be not judged.’” Shake the dust off my feet if they don’t listen to me? I suppose that’s not calling down fire and brimstone, but then again, Jesus said that fire and brimstone was too good for those who rejected what the disciples had to tell them.
          But there’s another way to look at it that doesn’t speak to me. It screams. It’s not about what happens to “those fools.” It’s about how I respond to what those fools do. Those who know me even a little know that I’m not a “let your peace return to you” or “shake the dust off your feet” sort. Neither am I a “call down lightning on them” sort. But I am a bit of a pit bull mixed with a bull in china shop. How do I stop caring and walk away like nothing is wrong? That, to me, sounds like hatred. That sounds like judging them and declaring them not worth my bother. 
          And yet, Jesus said to shake the dust off my feet and let my peace return to me. This reminds me of my thoughts on peace as I was starting to look at the fruit of the Spirit. The problem with peace is that peace is calm. In other words, there aren’t highs and lows. It’s a flat line. Peace is “dead.” That’s not entirely true, of course, but for a beginner, it is. How does one let one’s peace return to one when one is all riled up? How does one let one’s peace return to one when all around one is riled up? 
          I think this one will require much thought and prayer.

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