As you hopefully know, I lead a Bible study on Tuesday mornings which goes over the reading for the coming Sunday, usually focused on the Gospel. It’s hopefully helpful for the people who attend and watch on Facebook to dig more deeply into the passages. And it is very helpful for me. In addition to the study time to prepare, it is helpful to talk about it.

This week, I looked at it and realized this is the shortest Gospel passage we have in the three-year lectionary cycle; three verses, 88 words. At first glance we readily see the familiar agency that Jesus imparts to his Apostles, his “sent ones,” which extends also to those given the spiritual gift of prophecy, which is not fortune telling but speaking God’s will, as well as the righteous who are doers of God’s will.

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We had a wonderful Vacation Bible School this past week. We had over thirty children participate. That included almost all of our congregation’s children who were in town, plus a number of friends and other kids from the community. We also had a large number of middle and high school youth volunteer to help and of course a strong group of volunteers. We must thank co-leaders Amy Gammons and Meghan McLaughlin who led it all wonderfully.

On Thursday, our theme was “God is Love”, and we talked about how God’s greatest demonstration of love is Jesus dying on the cross to save us from our sins, and was raised from the dead for our salvation. That is what theologians refer to as, “The Big Enchilada.” It is the core of the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ. We teach it again and again with the hope and expectation that it will sink into the very foundations of who these kids are. God loves you. God saved you. God will never let you go. If the kids remember nothing else from this week, we hope and pray they will never forget that.

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Back at the start of the pandemic, one of the big medical schools (I’m not sure which) produced a graphic cartoon to show how highly infectious diseases like respiratory viruses spread. It showed a large box with dozens of blue dots bouncing off each other. Then one red dot entered the box. When it touched a blue dot, that dot turned red, as did any dot it touched. Every red dot turned any blue dot it touched red. Soon, most of the dots turned red.

That’s how cold and flu bugs spread across the world, although not ever at 100%. Its principle applies to ideas as well. Ideas stick to people and spread quickly, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. They can sweep across cultures. Ready examples are in popular music. The Beatles got so popular that their live performances were drowned out by the audience’s screams. Or K-Pop – which is a Korean dance music craze that began about 10-15 years ago and remains wildly popular.

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