Travelling Mercies

Mark 6:1-13

July 8, 2018

I am not a good packer. You know the folks who can pack for a week in a Altoids tin? Yeah, I’m not one of them. Going away for a couple of days? I might need my guitar. I might need my flute. I might need my disc golf bag. I might need my laptop. I will surely need both of the books I’m reading. I mean, of course, all three of the books I’m reading. I probably need running things … and a couple of hats. And, sure, Mr. Bounce wants to come, too. So we’ll need some of his toys. It’s a good thing we’re not flying.

Yeah, I am not a good packer. Take nothing but a staff, a pair of sandals, and a single tunic? On a journey of unknown length and you don’t even know where you’re staying the night? That’s not me.

So it’s a good thing that, unlike Jesus, I have a place to go home to.

Consider that for a moment: if we say we follow Jesus then we are proclaiming something deeply at odds with our own culture and, if we are honest, with the way that most of us live our own lives most of the time. We say we are trying to follow Jesus, yet this one we say we’re trying to follow was, by all accounts, poor, unemployed, and, it seems, frequently un-housed.

He probably really could pack his stuff in an Altoids tin when he headed out; and he did head out.

Hitting the road is what happens when you are less than welcome in your hometown. Jesus was less than welcome.

The first time he spoke up in his home faith community in Nazareth the crowd tried to throw him off of nearby cliff, according to Luke’s account. They did so because his interpretation of familiar texts challenged their comfortable status quo.

Jesus had a choice in that moment: he could hang around and argue the finer points of the text or he could move on. If this had happened today, his choice might have been, “do I have that argument on Facebook, or do I head out into the world to change what I can change, knowing that the number of minds changed in on-line arguments is about that same as the number of changes of clothes that I can pack in an Altoids tin?”

In other words, Jesus became a political refugee just as he had been as a child fleeing Herod. If he was not precisely an asylum seeker it was only because he knew early on that the kingdom he sought was not going to be readily available in his time and place. If, as he put it later on, “my kingdom is not of this world,” that means everyone is an immigrant in the kingdom of God.

So he sent his followers out into this world knowing that they, too, would wander as refugees –  rarely, if ever, finding a place to call home. He instructed them to travel light, and to be ready to pick up and leave at a moment’s notice.

“If folks don’t want to listen, then shake the dust off of your sandals and move on.” While that gesture may be, as the text puts it, a “testimony against them,” it is also a healthy practice. “Let go. Don’t hold on to a grudge just because they didn’t hear what you had to say. Don’t get stuck. Move on,” Jesus instructs.

“Pack light. Don’t carry that grudge with you. Pack light. Anger is too heavy a burden for your journey. Pack light. Leave your fear at home.”

Well, OK, Jesus, if I leave all of that familiar stuff at home, what am I supposed to bring along?

Like I said, Jesus could pretty much pack in an Altoid tin.

Here’s what he took with him: joy; gentleness; kindness; generosity; goodness; patience; faith; peace; and love.

Whatever road you are on, you can pack these. Whomever else you meet along the road, you can share these – they are inexhaustible gifts. And, as we consider all those folks out on the road, along the border, detained, hoping, struggling, dreaming – we have these gifts to share. They are our traveling mercies.

When we head out carrying these in our bags – in our hearts – we can cast out demons – even the ones we have been carrying ourselves. When we head out carrying these gifts, healing will happen. When we head out carrying these gifts, we’ll find ourselves walking every step a step closer to the beloved community, the kindom of heaven, the reign of God. May we find ourselves on that road this summer. Amen.