Headline after headline, reveals to us a world that isn’t as it should be. Wars rage on. Fires continue to spread. Tensions rise. But it’s not just in the news either, it’s in our own lives. There’s always something; the crises seem to never end.

With such a barrage of crises, it’s easy to feel like anything we do or say isn’t actually doing anything. Our words and actions feel like just another drop in the ocean. We can’t fix the world’s crises. We can hardly manage the ones in front of us.
And so, we might find ourselves thinking something along the lines, “I’m just one person. What can I do?”
But I think, as followers of Christ, we’re invited to consider a different question, a question of hope and action. “What is mine to do?”
Because the truth is, we can’t do it all. We can’t fix it all (though we long to). But that doesn’t mean we are left frozen in place, with nothing to do, without a role to play.
It’s what we hear in the Gospel of Luke, from the mouth of John the Baptist. It’s as if John says, “You can’t do it all, but you can do something that matters.”
John is first asked by the crowds, “What, then, should we do?” John replies, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.”
Later the tax collectors ask him the same question. To them John replies, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”
And then, the soldiers ask him a third time. And to them John says, “Do not exhort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, be satisfied with your wages.”
The instructions are different, yet the message is the same: “Do the good that is yours to do.”
Even John lived that truth. Because the people were amazed by John’s words and began to wonder if he was the long-awaited Messiah. But confident in who he was, and knowing the role he was called to play, John pointed the people to the one who was still coming.
“I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire,” John said to the crowds.
Do the good that is yours to do.
Grace and peace,
Kimmy
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