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15th Sunday of Ordinary Time B
July 12, 2015
Reading I: Amos 7:12-15
Responsorial Psalm 85:9-10, 11-12, 13-14
Reading II: Ephesians 1:3-14 or 1:3-10
Gospel: Mark 6:7-13
Reading 1AMOS 7:12-15
Amaziah, priest of Bethel, said to Amos,
“Off with you, visionary, flee to the land of Judah!
There earn your bread by prophesying,
but never again prophesy in Bethel;
for it is the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple.”
Amos answered Amaziah, “I was no prophet,
nor have I belonged to a company of prophets;
I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores.
The LORD took me from following the flock, and said to me,
Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”
GospelMARK 6:7-13
Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two
and gave them authority over unclean spirits.
He instructed them to take nothing for the journey
but a walking stick—
no food, no sack, no money in their belts.
They were, however, to wear sandals
but not a second tunic.
He said to them,
“Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave.
Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you,
leave there and shake the dust off your feet
in testimony against them.”
So they went off and preached repentance.
The Twelve drove out many demons,
and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071215.cfm
Take nothing for the journey
Let's imagine one of the twelve sitting, talking, surrounded by a group of listeners. He's not just reminiscing. He's actually teaching, but it's hard to tell the difference. He's done this before so it's becoming like a habit, and yet every time it's a fresh experience for him and for the listeners. They've asked him about the first time Jeshua had sent them out to the villages, to 'proclaim the good news' as they used to say. Someone said, 'That must have been a bit odd. Were people hanging out for some good news?'
The apostle laughs. 'No, they certainly weren't. In fact they were very skeptical. The only thing we had going for us was saying we were his disciples, but even that didn't cut much ice back then. Might be different in some places now, but mostly people are always going to ready to stick you with questions. Out there good news is about a good harvest somewhere and the price of bread or fish, or whether some rotten commander of the local garrison had been recalled yet.'
'Why did you have to go in pairs? That was never the way with the old prophets. Didn't he trust you, or what?'
'No, that wasn't it,' says the apostle. 'He had no reason to trust us, but he did. If we messed up he'd live with the consequences. No, this was so we could back up one another. We didn't have a set spiel to recite; not like the temple people or even some synagogue leaders who trot out the same stuff over and over.
'We just had to tell the people about Jeshua and what he was saying and doing. The key bit was that the time had come for a total re-think about how you approach religion and god and life and law. It was such an odd idea that we had to call it by a Greek word: metanoia. Jews had never ever dreampt of re-booting the whole system so there isn't a word for it in Aramaic, nor in Hebrew I think. But actually that's what Jeshua was on about, and it goes a long way further than the old Repent! Repent!
'Like I was saying, we weren't teaching lessons we'd learned. We could only talk about life as Jeshua lived it, and we with him. It involved a new way of looking at all our values and priorities, and stuff like that. I reckon he knew we'd get tangled up so there had always to be a back-up. When I'd run out of ways to explain something, my mate would be able to take it further, or maybe just start another topic.
'Come to think of it, having two together makes you more credible by the standards of the old law. You know, that thing about two or three witnesses being enough in the case where you have doubts about some bloke, whether he's telling the truth or taking you for a ride. Anyway, on top of that it made us work together, when some of us would've wanted to go it alone. That's got to become a rule, that one.'
'But what's this about no food for the road, no backpack, no cash to buy lunch? Not even a coat for a cold night. Is that what he said?'
'Well, not exactly,' the apostle grinned. 'There's a bit of embellishment going on there. What do we call it again? I've got used to the Greek word "hyperbole". No, all he said was Take Nothing. Trouble is we found he meant it literally. Take nothing with you.'
'Well, what's the point of that,' they asked.
'For a start,' the apostle explained, 'it's a precaution so people will see you're not on the make. You walk into a village empty handed, and you leave the same way. There's nothing cuts your credibility faster than you taking payment for delivering the message. It only takes one bloke at the local to suggest you're making a killing out of their gullibility and you're done for.
'There's a bonus too. We found that people came around us because we did look a bit like some of the prophets from the old days. In fact I think Jeshua mentioned Amos once or twice. No, Mark, don't write that down. It's not part of the story. He mentioned lots of things, and this is just one that struck me as interesting. He seemed to like Amos, not for the awful language he used, but for the way he took the mickey out of that pompous Amaziah.
'How does it go? "Amos told the priest of Bethel, I never was one of your trained prophets. I was just a farmhand when the Lord grabbed me and said: Go prophesy!" Maybe Jeshua felt a bit like that himself. I know most of us did. Jeshua didn't have much time for the rabbis and scholars because he could see the system had become corrupt. It was all rotten, like it was in Amos' day, really. And the people have felt for a long time that the priests are in it for what they can get out of it. That's religion for you.
'So this Take Nothing is just so the people will see you're genuine, aye?'
'Ah now, I wouldn't say that's even the main thing. In fact we're talking here about an absolute basic issue. If you're going to be sent out like apostles you'll need to hold on to this principle really hard because it's not an easy one to accept, let alone to adopt as your own and see it as the key to your worth as one sent to proclaim Jeshua's message.
'The real meaning of the rule to Take Nothing is this: When you speak to the people you can only rely on the power of God in your words, not on any fancy accreditation you might have, or on letters of authorisation from the temple, and certainly not on anything you can do to impress the people. I wouldn't say all people are cynics but they've been fed a lot of codswollop over the years, and they can sniff out a fraud pretty quick, the best of them. There's always some poor sods that'll swallow anything.
'But what we're talking about is too important to allow it to get mistaken for another short cut to heaven. So be careful you never try to put it across as a success formula, a key to salvation, a one-size-fits-all solution to the world's problems. The demands that Jeshua made on us were totally personal to each of us, and that's what you've got to communicate. You can only let people know what you've come to understand, yourself, and what you believe. You share your self with them, and they will pick up those vibes from you. You let them see you are sincere. Then God's word comes across with power, it's own power. It does not need any boosting from you to make it stick.'
There was silence for a long time as the apostle became lost in the mystery that had become his life's experience. The listeners could almost feel the spirit present in the group, in their hearts.
'But you're always talking about how one or other of the twelve is a good preacher. Others not so good. Doesn't a convincing speaker have more impact than one who stumbles along?' The question broke into the silence. It came from one of the restless ones down the back, and a few felt annoyed with her.
'Yes, certainly. Some people have a talent for preaching, for prophecy, and some for writing, and others for caring for the poor or the sick. We have to use our talents as best we can, to the full. God's word does not reach others except we proclaim it, and the better it is proclaimed the greater the impact it will have. But at the same time, it's not us that make the impact. We do not cause anything to happen. We don't make someone choose to listen, and change their life. We are only the voice that carries God's word. It has its own power to change a person. We can't change anyone. We only witness to the truth we speak.
'The worst thing is that the preacher becomes a professional. Remember, you will never be more than a catalyst. Your action is quickly done. Your influence is fleeting. Once the spirit lives in an open mind and a welcoming heart, she takes over and she needs no human control over her action. Was it Jeremiah that said the time is coming when brother will not need to teach brother, because the spirit will teach each one. Make sure you explain that, and send the people away in freedom.'
This time the interruption came from the front row, a fresh-faced young man who had been leaning forward with a puzzled expression all the while. 'Teacher,' he said. 'Excuse me, but I thought we were to deliver a message and make converts and set up communities and make this movement spread. Now you say we won't be professionals or have qualifications or be part of something big. Frankly, i'm getting lost in all this.'
'Yes,' the apostles smiled gently. 'I can understand that. But, you know, we went through that too with Jeshua. We thought we were going to set the world on fire, and one day we came back and told him how people had listened to us, and he laughed and laughed. "I saw Satan cast down from the skies!" he said, and made a joke of it. We were stung, and I reckon he went close to losing a few of us that day. But in the end we got the message.
'When we talk to people we put our faith on the line. We allow people to see that we believe in what we're saying, and when they laugh at us and walk away, it hurts. You'll feel their scorn, like Amos felt the scorn of the temple priest. But because he had come with nothing, no standing and no baggage, the priest had no power over him. He could not be censured or demoted, or silenced, because his commission came directly from God.
'You read Paul's letters. You'll find all this was Paul's experience too. He writes a lot about the power of God's word, about not having any power in himself to persuade anybody, about getting his commission from the Lord, and about feeling compelled to share what he believed.
'So it's essential to carry no baggage that you'd be tempted to display as some kind of accreditation. The same goes for nice language too, and creeds, and which Group you belong to. When it's all said and done, the people need to see what you believe, and that you believe it - but above all that you believe it. You are the witness. You yourself.'
'Will christians take the place of the jews, now the temple has been destroyed, do you think?' A ripple went through the group as everyone turned to look at the older well-dressed man who'd asked this.
'I think the temple establishment lost the plot a long time ago, and this may be unavoidable when you have a temple, with official priests living their separate lives and performing their rituals. The person gets lost in the magic that surrounds them. If our movement ever develops into another organisation like the temple, we'll have lost it. If the gospel gets done up in fancy robes, with hierarchies of priests and rituals of worship it will be because we did not understand Jeshua's rule, to take nothing but ourselves.
'And it will also show we did not trust in the power of God. Instead we create man-made things, systems, organisations, sacred orders that we rely on, or that we can blame when we have to face the fact we're not making progress along the way of Jeshua. If you believe in God and trust in the power of his word that you proclaim you will not cover up that trust in any human forms. You will take nothing for the journey. And God will be powerful in you.'