Homily: Travelling Light

Year B / Ordinary Time / Week 15/ Sunday

Readings: Amos 7.12-15 / Psalm 84.9ab and 10, 11-12, 13-14 (R/v 8) / Ephesians 1.3-14 / Mark 6.7-13

Dear sisters and brothers, have you ever travelled light, carrying less than you thought you required, only to find that you needed more?

Like when you visited a friend overseas and had to borrow a sweater, or when you worked overseas and needed those work files you left behind, or perhaps when you hiked over the weekend and could do with more food and water for the climb.

Traveling light is a theme in today’s gospel.

We hear it in Jesus’ very first instruction to “Take nothing for the journey, but a walking stick—no food, no sack, no money in their belts. To wear sandals but not a second tunic”. 

Usually with this gospel we focus more on the themes of Jesus sending his disciples on mission and on his instructions about handling acceptance and rejection, success and failure. 

Today, let us contemplate Jesus’ instruction to take nothing for the journey, that is, to travel light through life and on mission. 

Doesn’t this instruction seem odd, even counter-intuitive, to ensuring success? Yet Jesus insists that his disciples travel light. And yes, their mission does succeed: they preached repentance, drove out demons and cured the sick. So, what are we to learn from this?

Some good lessons for Christian life. Like this lesson on kindness I learnt during my recent travel to New York City for a summer school programme. After walking around the city one weekend morning, I entered Dig Inn, a café serving seasonal American food, mostly vegetables, from local farmers. I picked out the vegetables, protein and starch I wanted to fill my lunch bowl with. At the checkout, the cashier asked me to pay using a card. The café had gone cashless to be efficient since my last visit.  As a religious, I have no credit or debit card. I had cash only. The cashier insisted: “Pay by card”. I could see my lunch disappearing, my hunger growing. A staff member of Dig Inn, Bernard, spoke to the cashier. Then he smiled at me, shook my hand and said, “Lunch is on me”. Perhaps, you’ve experienced similar acts of surprising kindness and care by strangers by loved ones. 

I’ve thought about Bernard a lot as I prepared this homily. Why would he care for me, a stranger? What made him sacrifice his own lunch to feed me? Could it be his values? Was it his upbringing? Could he be paying forward the charity he had received before? Was it his religion? 

I will never know the reason. But I am certain of a fundamental Christian truth Bernard’s kindness revealed: that God made humankind to be good. To be kind and gracious, to be compassionate and generous towards one another. To be good towards one another and for each other.

To be good because this is how God is in our lives. God is good. And Jesus revealed this goodness of God in his life, through his ministry and by dying to save all. This was Jesus mission. This is also our mission as Christians: to do good to others and to save them.  But we can only accomplish this mission for all by creating space for God to do this good through us. 

This is why traveling light, or taking nothing for the mission, as Jesus instructs, is indeed today’s good news. It is God’s wisdom for us.  Sound wisdom for us to live purposefully as Christians. Wisdom that helps us become more and more like God who is good. Wisdom that frees us to act like Jesus on mission, and that his disciples learnt by traveling light.

If we imbibe and practise this wisdom, we will free ourselves even more to do God’s work. Free ourselves from 

our fixations with having right knowledge and skills that trap us from volunteering for ministry,  

the overemphasis  on  holiness, piety and obedience that scare many from letting Jesus lead us into God’s saving work, and

our fears and shame that we are not good enough and that imprison us from being Jesus’ collaborators on mission.

This wisdom frees us because it invites us to depend totally on God, so that we can travel far in life and faith, on mission and in service. 

I believe we can be confident that we can put Jesus’ instruction into practice. St Paul tells us why this confidence is ours in our second reading. Simply put, it is because we are “in him”. Paul uses this phrase “in him” repeatedly to remind us that it is in him, in Christ, in Jesus, that we can indeed let go and let God lead us in life, in faith and on mission because: 

In Him who is Christ, God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. 

In him, God has chosen us before the world began. 

In him who is love, God has destined us to be his adopted children.

In him, we have redemption and forgiveness.

In him, we know the wisdom and insight of God’s mystery in our lives: to save us

In him, you and I have heard this truth, the gospel of our salvation, so that we might exist for the praise of God’s glory. 

To hear the truth of our salvation and to praise the glory of God. This was Jesus’ mission. This is also our mission.

Why does God choose us to do this? For the same reason he chose Amos. In the first reading, God did not choose him because he had been educated or trained to be a prophet. God simply chose him and said, “Go, prophesy”. And God chooses you and I for the same reason.  Not because we have theologically trained or are formed for pastoral ministry. Not because we are pious or devout. Not even if we are obedient and God fearing. No, God chooses us because God simply wants us to be his prophets. 

Others, including the Church, may regard us not ready or ill-suited or unworthy for mission. But God calls us because God desires no one else to continue Jesus’ mission. As St Teresa of Avila reminds us: “Christ has no body on earth but ours”. We are to be Christ to others. This is what Christian means: bearing the name of Christ. This is what Communion does: transform us into the Body of Christ.

This is why traveling light matters: it enables us to make room for God in our lives. Necessary room for God to labor in us and with us for Christ-like work for all. Christ-like work: 

like the many Bernards who make real God’s compassion and kindness in our lives.

like those in Chiang Rai, Mosul and on the US-Mexico border who care for, rescue and save others from harm, injury and death because God values life.

like those who forgive the unfaithful and sinful among family and friends to bring them home like God always does. 

like those who overcome hatred, prejudice and discrimination to accept and welcome the divorce and unwed, gays and lesbians, criminals and migrant refugees because God’s love embraces all.

like those who feed the hungry, seek out the lost, comfort the afflicted, and free the burdened because God’s life is for all.

Some of these acts are extraordinary. Many however are everyday acts you and I are already doing for one another. 

Our everyday kindness, compassion, forgiveness, care, and love. All of these are the simple ways we are already witnessing to others about God’s goodness working in the world. This is how we are prophets, in deeds, more than in words, to all. I believe we are able to do these because we have created room for God in our lives.

Today, we hear again Jesus' simple instruction, “take nothing for the journey”. He is not repeating himself; he is in fact inviting us to travel light so that we can create even more space within ourselves for God.  More space to let God direct our lives. More space for God to be with us. More space for us to let God be God to us. More space so we can be who God wants us to be for others: God’s prophets announcing God’s goodness.

Now isn’t it worthwhile to travel light so that God can travel far with us for the good of all?

Preached at the Church of the Transfiguration

photo: www.procaffenation.com/hitchhiking (Internet)