Mother Claire's Sermons

As parents, one of the life skills my husband and I are teaching our kids is how to proportionally react to things. That it’s ok to feel disappointed, but maybe sitting down and screaming isn’t the best way to express those feelings. It’s ok to be angry, but hitting is not an acceptable way to express that anger. It’s ok to be sad that we’re leaving the park, but running away and hiding is not an option. Even as we learn to self-regulate as we grow up, we don’t always react to things appropriately. We overreact or underreact all the time, just usually not by sitting down and screaming. But we do the adult equivalent. We push away people we love. We inappropriately use substances. We pretend problems don’t exist - the adult equivalent of when my kids pretend not to hear me when I have something to say that they don’t want to hear. Today, in eight short verses, Luke gives us two opportunities to overreact and one to underreact. We start out strong with an overreaction. Jesus says, “whoev...