Embracing Holy Indifference

Nourishing Vocation Lectionary Phase 1: Nourishing Personal Vocational Discernment Section 2: Openness: Embracing Holy Indifference - Summary Reflections From Ephesians 1:15-23, Mark 7:31-37, Genesis 12:1-9, Luke 24:13-35 Openness can be both exciting and challenging. Sometimes, openness is a welcome opportunity to consider something new, to embrace imagination of the possible. At other times, openness can be cause for fear or anxiety: the very nature of openness suggests that we can neither know nor control the outcome. On the one hand, this sojourn into the unknown can leave us unmoored and unsettled: we don’t know what lies ahead. On the other hand, openness invites us to live present-tense – to rest in the assurance that in every moment, we are both held in God’s hands and being guided by God’s Spirit to the places and the experiences that God desires for us. In such a way, openness summons us to dwell in holy indifference, focusing our hearts and minds not on outcomes or results, but rather concentrating on being sustained in every present moment by God who works all things for good. The reading from Ephesians 1 reminds us that Christ-centered hope is not only future-tense, but also present tense, too. Because of this, in Christ, the eyes of our hearts are open to seeing things differently, both for today and for tomorrow. As we consider the story of Jesus opening both the ears and the tongue of the man in Decapolis, we are invited to wonder and ask how Jesus can open us to God’s new possibilities in our own lives and in our communities. Through the call of Abraham and Sarah, we are drawn to wonder how God is calling us to be open to both the literal and metaphorical places that God would have us go, and the walk upon the Emmaus road is an invitation to embrace the newness that God opens up along the paths of our own life’s journeys. Together these readings remind us that we can indeed embrace openness because God is both its source and its fulfillment. Written by Rev. Dr. Charlene Cox