Having just returned from my trip and then leaving for Christian Family Camp two days later, I have been thinking about packing more than a bit. What do you include when you are taking inventory for your vacation? I was just at CFC for 3 nights. I am still trying to wrap my head around how parents with small kids pack for being gone an entire week. I am sure it is a balancing act with their kids. “You can only take ONE stuffed animal. Only TWO pool toys.” “Honey, what about those gravity chairs we like?” “Is there really room for extra lights for the late night campfires?” And though the suggested “packing list” is probably a bit of a help for the first time camper, I can imagine that it is overwhelming for a family coming for the first time.
Jesus makes it very easy for his disciples, as he is telling them how to pack for their journey. Take NOTHING with you for the journey. I can imagine the disciples – “What, no cooler of frosty, cold Bud’s? No battery powered fan for the cabins without electricity?” “Watch out guys, he’s in one of THOSE moods again….”
Certainly we can pray into this passage as an invitation to rely completely upon the Lord. And there is much to support that.
And, there are two details that Mark’s account of the mission of the 12 contain, not in the other synoptic accounts, that bear reflecting on. It is telling, isn’t it, what Jesus DOES allow his disciples to bring. Sandals. A walking staff.
Sandals – You will have to walk much further than you ever thought you could. Bare feet will get you part way there, but where I need you to go – you’ll need more. Bring a walking staff to help you overcome the obstacles on the way, – the fences and creeks and difficult places – a staff to help ward off the wild things you might come across. BE PREPARED FOR A JOURNEY filled with difficulties because of your faith – because there will be some. Be prepared to go to places you never dreamed you’d go on your own…
Yesterday morning at Christian Family Camp, as my small group of adults were sharing about the challenge of being on that journey, they situated the start of that journey right where they needed to – in the family. One shared a question that someone asked Mother Theresa. “How do I help create world peace?” “Go home and love your family,” was Mother’s reply. Another shared about his experience of the support and challenge that the people of camp have been to him: “You are the people who make this planet feel like home to me.” Some years, family is all the challenge you will ever need – it takes so much work to create that loving home. A college student said it this way: “I am to be love, from God, through ME, to my family. And to experience love, from God, through my family, to me.”
AND YET, Jesus is insistent – I also need you to do the sandal and walking staff journey. – the harder work of discipleship. What might that look like?
- Most of us followed the story of the daring cave rescue of the soccer team trapped in the flooded cave and rejoiced to see the parents reunited with their kids. And in the same paper, we saw and read stories of parents here illegally who were intentionally separated from their children at the border. Regardless of where you stand on the political solution side of the immigration problem, both sides agree that the system is broken. Perhaps that is the place where you are being called to do some sandal walking. Can we urge our politicians to make a start somewhere in that broken system?
- Read the Papal encyclical ‘Laudato Si’ – and its invitation to walk the journey of recycling, of minimal use of water, or reducing your carbon footprint – to be kind to this planet that births us.
- Maybe it is the Roe v. Wade and the supreme court nominee that might affect this.
- Perhaps it is all about the Michael Brown’s and racial profiling and shootings –How will you travel in that world where the sin of racism is alive and doing well?
Take nothing for the journey EXCEPT your walking stick and sandals. It is good advice for a servant people, isn’t it? If there was ever a time to pick up your walking stick and put on your sandals –it is now!