“Traveling Light”
Mark 6:1-13; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, grace to you and peace from our triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
In today’s gospel, Jesus is on the move. He’s traveled to
So even when Jesus himself has stopped traveling, his Word, his love and care, his teaching – his ministry – is on the move in the persons of his disciples, who by Jesus’ command and authority find themselves preachers, teachers and healers.
The movement of Jesus, however, didn’t start with his ministry. It really began when the Holy Spirit came over Mary and conceived in her a child. The incarnation. Even then, though still in Mary’s womb, Jesus set others in motion: “When
Traveling, moving, teaching, preaching, healing, ministering. The Christian life is anything but static. If you want to live that life, you need to travel light. In verses seven and eight of Mark Jesus explains what he means by traveling light as he sends out the disciples: take nothing except a staff, no food, no luggage, no money. You can wear sandals, but not two tunics. Pretty bare bones equipping, don’t you think.
But it’s not just in the equipping. They are to travel light as they interact with the people meet. Don’t get hooked into arguments or frustration when you discover you’re not welcome or people won’t listen. Keep moving. Keep moving.
Can you imagine going on a business trip or a vacation traveling that light? For some people, packing is half the fun of going. Getting all the right stuff, making sure you’ve remembered every thing and got it packed correctly. Jesus is saying forget all that.
I mean can you think of a place in the gospels where we are told who was in charge of luggage for Jesus or the disciples? For that matter who did the laundry and the mending. Who set up the tent, if there even was a tent? Where did they stay, and who made the arrangements?
We don’t know. It wasn’t recorded. Because it wasn’t central to what brought Jesus to live among us as one of us in the first place. Jesus command to the disciples to travel light as they go about the ministry of the gospel is more than about style or appearance.
In commanding the disciples in this way, Jesus is saying, travel light so you can BE light. It is your preaching, your teaching, your healing in Jesus’ name and by his authority that brings light into a world darkened by sin and death. People are waiting for the light, hoping for it, dying to hear it and receive it – and you are the ones to bring them that light. Don’t wait, don’t get comfortable. Keep moving because lives, indeed, souls, depend on it.
Are you traveling light? Are you bringing the light? Are you yourself light in your world? Are WE traveling light and being light as a people of God? Are being obedient to the command Jesus gives us today in this gospel story?
I have to confess there I times when I wonder about myself, how obedient I am. When I heard these words of Jesus, I felt kind of conflicted. What Jesus is calling the disciples to do – preach, teach, heal – is exactly how, over the last several years, I have discerned my call to CLC. It’s felt good to know that there was a scriptural basis and indeed a specific command from Christ, to do what I heard God calling me to do.
But was I doing them? And even more important, was my doing, was my preaching, teaching, and healing, coming out of my being? In other words, was I not just traveling light but was I being light, the light of Christ to each of you, to the strangers and the poor, the unchurched, the sick and the dying?
To be honest, far too often I didn’t measure up. I cared more about my luggage and my baggage, my accommodations and my schedules that I did about the people who were waiting for the Word, the insight, the healing, the light light that they were hoping I might be carrying. And the more I realized that, the harder I was on myself, and the tougher it became to keep moving. Not to get stuck in self-pity or in projecting the anger at my own failings onto others.
So I found Paul’s words to the Corinthians today to be a godsend. Reassuring, forgiving, yet pointing me back toward the light, toward my call, and ultimately toward the one who is the true source of my being. Paul reminds us that our weakness is our strength. The very things that pain us the most about ourselves are what remind us how much we need the light of Christ.
Paul boasts of his weakness, not out of pride, but because that searching inventory of self, makes room for Christ to dwell in him. For Christ’s light to shine out through this weak man named Paul. It is our weakness and failing that are the key to us being light for others. What Henri Nouwen called wounded healers.
Those who have suffered, but their experience of suffering are equipped to bring others healing and peace not for themselves but for the sake of Christ. Pail wrote, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. Because the strength the light of Christ is within me Or as that song we all learned in Sunday school says, “I am weak, but he is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.”
Travel light. Be light. Jesus words are a command, not a suggestion here. If we are to find our way as a congregation, it will only be by and in the light of Christ. But the only way to be light, as the disciples found out, is to move, to travel light in obedience to Christ: preaching, teaching, healing in whatever way and with whatever gifts the Spirit has given.
You cannot be light to others if your light is hid under a bushel basket, or hidden away in your bedroom or inside a church building. You and I must be willing to be sent. To travel light, as light, for the sake of the Light.
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