Meditations/Sermons that didn't get away

He ordered them to take nothing

Mark 6: 1- 13 (NRSV)
He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.

This always makes me smile: it sounds like my mother giving me instructions before sending me off to my grandmother’s house. Put your shoes on. Carry a stick, in case a dog chases you, or you see a snake. No, you don’t need to take snacks. Grandma will take care of that. You don’t need money either—you’d only lose it. It’s a warm day, you don’t need to wear your sweatshirt on top of your blouse. She’ll see to it that you have everything you need. That’s what Grandmas are for.

The disciples were going on a different sort of journey, one they hadn’t been on before. They didn’t even have clear instructions of where they were headed, only a sense of the mission they were about to undertake under Jesus’s authority. They had been witnesses to his ministry, and now they were about to embark on their own. This was no trip to Grandma’s house. So why would Jesus restrict their provisions to so few?

Their ministry would be more than what meets the eye, the healing of the sick, the casting out of demons. For the word of God to actually take hold among the people, the people themselves needed to become involved. So the disciples were told to seek lodging and sustenance from among them, to depend on others’ help to go about their mission.

The church today works the same way: get people to help, get them involved, and pretty soon we’re all working toward the same goal. We are dependent on each other in God’s world, and it’s good for us to remember it. Being dependent isn’t bad. Think how dependent we were on our Grandmas, and how much we enriched each other’s lives. That’s the way God made us—to work together as the Body of Christ.