Scripture – Luke 10:1-12 (New International Version (NIV))
Jesus Sends Out the Seventy-Two
1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two[a] others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.
5 “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ 6 If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.
8 “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. 9 Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.’ 12 I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.
Poem – if a community is a house
By Angelica Maria Aguilera
Poem commissioned for The Neighbourhood Developers 40th birthday
if a community is a house
i imagine the bricks as all its people,
each shaped uniquely and wedged in differently,
mundane as the sky but it falls and we are all screwed.
a house of course is greased with grit,
a thousand bricks holding it up day in and out without
asking for rest
ode to the organizers, the bodega owners, the families and the
street sweepers
ode to the mailmen, the kindergarten teachers with patience flexible as a gymnastic star, the neighbors that make themselves our mothers when our mothers are off making a life for us,
ode to the streetlights that guide us back to our bedrooms and into the loudest dreams
ode to the cement sidewalks that serve as classrooms for character
to the friends that teach us where we can call home
to the spaces that raise us, give us space to leave, and arms to come back to
if a community is a house
that means it is always under construction
the upkeep is infinite, and tireless
the crooked oil painting waits for hands to guide it
the leaking faucet is no competition to the plumber’s loyal wrench
a hideous wallpaper is nothing to a mother’s ruthless eye for discount decor
and manipulation of coupons
home is picky about its use in context
it knows itself to be more verb than noun
it is the tending not the structure that most correctly captures it
it is the pieces of yourself you nail into the walls, the fragments of
heart molded into the tiles, the continuous work that constitutes the word
that creates the sweet sweet sweetness of
home.