Friday Focus, October 02, 2026
We Are Called to Be A Living Sign of The Lord’s Presence
Christina (Tina) McKinlay
October 1, 2026
Smiling Jesus
Friday Focus, 2 October 2026
Luke 10.13-16
We Are Called to Be A Living Sign of The Lord’s Presence
In today’s Gospel, Jesus identifies himself very closely with his disciples — ‘anyone who listens to you listens to me; anyone who rejects you rejects me’.
The risen Lord continues to identify himself with his disciples today, with each one of us. Each of us is called to be a living sign of the Lord’s presence. The Lord wants to be present in our world through each one of us. We have each received the extraordinary calling to be the Lord’s ambassador in our world, to reveal his presence to others.
As disciples and ambassadors of Christ, we will not always be welcomed, just as Jesus himself was not always welcomed. He, who was so accepting of others, was often rejected by others.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus refers to three Galilean towns who rejected him: Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum.
As people of faith, we too will sometimes experience rejection. Sometimes those who matter most to us will not receive or value our faith and all it entails. Such rejection can be painful, as it was for Jesus, and as it was for those he sent out.
Yet, God worked powerfully through Jesus’ most extreme experience of rejection — his death on a cross.
Human rejection of the gospel never has the last word.
God can be powerfully at work for the spread of the gospel through such experiences in ways that we are not always fully aware of at the time. All the Lord asks of us is that we be faithful in our witness, regardless of how it is received.
Norman+