Scripture Reflection, July 6, 2025, 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 66:10-14c Galatians 6:14-18 Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

Remember those bracelets we wore years ago with the letters WWJD?

Remember those bracelets we wore years ago with the letters WWJD?

Those letters stood for “What Would Jesus Do” and they were meant to cause us to match our behavior to what Jesus would do in the same situation. Today's gospel got me thinking about “WWJS”, or “What Would Jesus Say.”

In the gospel we hear that Jesus "appointed seventy-two others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. “ This was his “advance team”, men and women whose job it was to share his message and prepare the people for his arrival. They carried his message.

The gospels are not written just to tell us what happened in the past; they are written to help shape our present and future. They reach across the years and say to each of us “Go, thou, and do likewise! “ We are part of Jesus’s advanced team today. And we are to speak for him to our time. What would Jesus say?

Fortunately, we don't have to guess. We don't have to scratch our heads and wonder what Jesus would say to our world… because he left us a very clear teaching in Matthew 25. “I was hungry and you gave me no food”, “I was a stranger and you did not welcome me”, “I was ill and you gave me no comfort .…” We know what he would say.

So tonight or tomorrow when you're watching the news on television or reading the newspaper … listen carefully. When you see bombs dropped on hospitals and apartment buildings, when you see hard-working husbands and fathers torn from their families and disappeared, when you hear about proposed legislation that cuts food and health care from our most vulnerable brothers and sisters… when you hear about all these things… listen carefully to hear what Jesus would say. And then..go…

Say what Jesus would say.

by: Pat Schnee