Sunday/Dust from Your Feet

 

                     Sunday/Dust from Your Feet

Today's gospel has Christ sending out his disciples to teach. One of his admonitions states:

'And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them.'

It was the custom of the Jews when they returned from foreign (Gentile) lands, as they crossed the frontiers back into their Holy Land, to shake the foreign dust off their feet. This was an act symbolizing that they had broken, on their return to their own land, all connection with Gentile peoples which for whatever reason had been temporarily created. Some say this is more than dismissive but rather a bitter hatred of the Jews, dating back to their return from the Captivity, for all Gentile races.

Here Christ co-opts that tradition and turns it upon the 'new' unbelievers. This gesture would signify that the disciples disclaimed responsibility for the consequences that would come from God. In that light, it is a curse.