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Take nothing for your journey…no bread, no bag, no money.
I do not know about you, but I do not travel light. My packing has a theme: what if? What if it is cold or what if it is hot? What if we get invited to a fancy restaurant or party while traveling or what if the sky falls in and I need whatever it is I think I cannot live without?
Jesus commissioned his twelve apostles to go out in pairs to preach and teach, cast out demons and care for the sick and infirm. They were to rely on the goodness of those they visited taking no money, no food or what we would call luggage. If hospitality was not offered they were to shake the dust off their feet and move on and begin again. In their day and age this may have been possible, not easy but still possible. In our day and age, it is contrary to all we know. So how do we interpret this idea of taking nothing for our journey to spread the good news that Jesus so adamantly and eloquently preached?
I did not know how to answer this question, so I turned to Sacred Space, a ministry of the Irish Jesuits (www.sacredspace.ie). They posed the idea of imagining you were invited to join the twelve and were excited about the prospect. However, when you learned it meant traveling light, no money, no credit card and no car it seemed impossible. Would that be the end of it, or would you think about it? For most of us it would be a challenge we could not envision so we would have to look for alternatives. Divesting ourselves completely is not practical or responsible so how can we take what Jesus says about traveling light and adapt it to our modern and uber-capitalistic era?
Richard Rohr describes the first half of life as a time to establish ourselves. Sometimes that can result in creating an aura around who we are through what we own. Our house, car or clothes say something about us and sometimes we use these things to speak for us. With age comes wisdom and the acknowledgment that what we have accumulated is not who we are.
As we hear the stories about Jesus and what he said and did we can, with a little imagination, follow his lead and create moments of caring for those we live with and meet. We might not be called to give up everything and embark on a journey of intentional evangelization as the apostles did, but we have countless ways to come to the aid of others even during our busy modern lives.
God will lead us if we take the time to ask and pay attention to what is going on around us. Opportunities abound just as they did for the apostles. We need to summon up the courage to embrace the opportunities.
It might mean moving out of certain circles and into others. Or, thinking twice before making a purchase. It might mean sharing more of what we have with others. Or it might be asking us to shed our false selves and let our real selves emerge as we explore what God has in store for us. Do our creature comforts, our homes, our cars, and our lifestyles project a picture to the world that we have become so accustomed to that we make them a priority?
From what we know of the twelve apostles they were regular people. They were not regal people, rich people or even educated people. They were chosen because they had faith to minister in their time. We are called to do the same.
Peace,
Anne
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