Shake the dust off your feet.

11 καὶ τὸν κονιορτὸν  τον κολληθέντα ἡμῖν ἐκ τῆς πόλεως ὑμῶν εἰς τοὺς πόδας ἀπομασσόμεθα ὑμῖν· πλὴν τοῦτο γινώσκετε ὅτι ἤγγικεν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ. Luke 10:11

14 καὶ ὃς ἂν μὴ δέξηται ὑμᾶς μηδὲ ἀκούσῃ τοὺς λόγους ὑμῶν, ἐξερχόμενοι ἔξω τῆς οἰκίας ἢ τῆς πόλεως ἐκείνης ἐκτινάξατε τὸν κονιορτὸν ἐκ τῶν ποδῶν ὑμῶν.  Matthew 10:14

These words, allegedly from the mouth of Jesus of Nazareth, are something of an admonition to move on, as Mathew clearly indicates, if they do not hear your words.  “Move on to where” is the critical question though, isn’t it?  Can we simply move on to nowhere in particular?  Of course not!

Many, too many years ago I was dismissed from my teaching post, and the advice I was given was directly the above quote from Matthew.  Should I have received that advice?  I am not certain it was a propos, since my third child was just born, and my wife had contracted a serious illness, which prohibited moving on to the next town.  And it was not apparent what town we were to go to.  I admit that I had made many mistakes in my teaching career, and yet I loved teaching and seeing the gears turning in the heads of my students.  Some of course were stuck and did not move because they came to class with a preconceived notion of what is, and were not willing or able to adjust their noematic structures of their consciousnesses to accept the possibility that there might just be other ways of seeing the world.  Of course the subject I taught was Philosophy, and Philosophy entails concept analysis and a skeptical treatment of our preconceptions. 

Naturally I did not follow precisely the advice given, but I did shake the dust off my feet and instead of going on to the next town, I embarked on a journey of several careers.  My first career was to work as a carpenter for the father of one of my students.  It was an exciting career, not only because one built and building is rewarding in its own way, but because the carpentry trade was in my blood, so to speak.  From my genealogical studies I learned that since the time of Napoleon my ancestors and their relatives were carpenters.  Next I embarked on building and contracting on my own, and then when the economy slowed down I went to work as a cabinetmaker for a good friend.  From there I moved on to mill-shop foreman, all of which involved the same type of work - building and wood.

I then moved on to re-educating myself in the field of computer assisted drafting, and went to work as the drafting manager for a design firm.  I had opportunity in this area to teach and that in itself was rewarding.  Having next reached the required age, I retired.  I was retired for a whole 10 days, and my wife told a dean at the college she worked at that I could perhaps fill the position of a philosophy instructor who was unfortunately ill.  So I went back to teaching philosophy – full circle if you like.  I have now been teaching as an adjunct, Philosophy, for nigh on 10 years.

Yesterday, after visiting with the oncologist and learning that, despite the ill effects of chemotherapy, the tumor is, in fact, shrinking, I met the wife of a former colleague.  She invited me to visit with her husband who was down the hall having his chemotherapy treatment.  So I did.  The people were wondering about me wandering down the hall and I told them I was going to visit a friend in treatment room 3.  It was a pleasure and privilege to visit with my former colleague.  We had such a wonderful conversation. It was as though 41 years had melted away and we were in fact again colleagues.  I guess we are and always will be.  We talked of many subjects and did not skip a beat in discussing almost anything possible in our symphony of becoming reacquainted, though ‘reacquainted’ is the wrong term for what transpired.  I felt that all the mistakes I had made while we were colleagues were suddenly forgotten and forgiven, almost as if the burden of the dust from my feet had been wiped off (see Luke quote above).  There was hope also in our conversation, and as Theognis says:  Ἐλπὶς ἐν ἀνθρώποις μούνη θεὸς ἐσθλὴ ἔνεστιν.

When reading Scripture it is advisable to not take words and phrases too literally, or you might miss the point.  Jesus taught in parables, metaphors, and similes.  We ought not to miss their meaning.  Luke tells us elsewhere that the Kingdom of God is internal (ἰδοὺ γὰρ ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ ἐντὸς  ὑμῶν ἐστιν. - Luke 17:21).  But here in Chapter 10 we not only get the message that the dust is wiped off our feet, but that the Kingdom of God is near.  Let me suggest that the tense of ἤγγικεν (perfect active indicative) gives us the force of meaning that the Kingdom is here and now, presently.

I certainly felt the presence of that Kingdom in my conversation with my former colleague yesterday.  It was there at hand and nigh unto the two of us.  We ought to thank the Lord for that glimpse into the eternity that we are both bound; I do and I will.