NOTES for Luk 8:1-3

Again and again the Gospel tells us that there is room for everyone in the Church, that everyone can follow Christ "preaching and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God!" Everyone, regardless of one's past. Even after being Christians for a long time, we often think that the past cannot be changed. It is not so hard to believe that God holds our present and our future in His hands. We know that He knows everything about our past. But it is very hard to believe that He can change the past too: He can so change our attitude toward a painful past that it ceases to affect our life; He can heal wounds received by us in deep childhood, wounds we may not even remember, though they distort our life, our perception of reality, our understanding of ourselves, and our relationships with other people.

We see what kind of people follow Christ through the cities and villages. They are different; they are wounded, uneducated, formerly demon-possessed, sick, sinful women and sinners, and all of them can carry the Good, Joyful News, the news that the Kingdom of God is coming to earth, the news that for God time does not exist and He is able to change everything if we allow Him to enter our heart. But we can serve God not only by preaching. Others have a quieter, more silent ministry. This is not necessarily solitary reclusive prayer in a cell, or the work of a doctor or nurse. Service to God can also be something we very rarely perceive this way: "many others ... served Him with their possessions." That is, they helped materially. They fed, gave drink, clothed, and gave a place to spend the night. They may have performed no great deeds and never preached. They simply shared generously what they had.

Yes, of course, in the Gospel Christ says that "it is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." But the rich man in this sense is not the one who simply has much; it is the one who does not understand that his possessions were given to him by God, that they do not belong to him. Only by beginning to give can he enter the Kingdom. By beginning to give, he will become rich in another way. After all, one can give only what is one's own; one cannot give what belongs to another, and by deciding to tear something away from oneself, one acquires the Kingdom.

We are called to serve God with the gifts He Himself has given us: for one person this is the gift of speech; for another, the gift of understanding other people; for another, the gift of helping with one's possessions, which God also gives.