This morning’s Gospel reading is Mark 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.
Today's Gospel puts me in mind of a great scene from the final Indiana Jones movie, The Last Crusade. (You know I'm right.) The climax of the film finds Indy solving three challenges to get to the Holy Grail, the last of which involves crossing an impossible chasm within the mountain that protects the Grail.
In the first two challenges, Indy only has to use his wits. The final challenge, however, forces him to set aside rational thought and rely solely on trust. He correctly deduces that the final test is a leap of faith, not of reason, and that there is no clever way to defeat the challenge otherwise. Throughout the series, Indy has always relied on rationalism over belief, but with his own father's life on the line, he has no choice but to take that leap.
How does he do it? With a single step made purely on faith, at which point his trust is rewarded.
In today's Gospel, we see the same dynamic in this preview of both the Great Commission and the Church. At this point, the Twelve have accompanied Jesus on His ministry for a significant amount of time; in Mark's Gospel, Jesus' reputation as a powerful teacher and healer had already spread throughout the region, and with it some resistance to Him as well. Having had that 'training,' so to speak, Jesus needed to accustom the disciples to their own eventual mission -- to go forth and make disciples of all nations and to carry on His Word to all.
However, the manner in which Jesus sends them out shows how reliant they must be on Him. He orders them to go out with as little in provisions as possible, not even with food or money to buy it. In fact, they couldn't even carry a sack in case others gave them provisions for what lie ahead. They could carry no outer cloak for inclement weather, nor even an extra pair of shoes.
Jesus sent them out as is, with no preparation except for His Word and the authority to act in His name to heal the sick and "preach repentance." That would be a daunting task now, but in those days, it could have meant starvation or death by any number of other means. No one in their rational mind would undertake such a mission with no provisioning at all.
That was the point, of course. Jesus needed them to rely on faith in Him and the Lord, not on their own rational calculations. The disciples went out as the embodiment of faith rather than great thinkers or adventurers, cloaked in poverty so that His power could shine through their weaknesses.
The disciples needed to endure this because far greater trials and missions would await them after Jesus ascended at the end of His mission. Jesus would send the Holy Spirit at that time to strengthen the apostles, but they would face the same conditions and worse as the church began its true mission of spreading the Gospel to every nation. As difficult as this trial run would be, it still would take place in relatively familiar territory and among people with a common framework of scriptures. The common culture of hospitality in the region would allow the disciples to connect with people in each community, helping to bolster them along the way, but also ensuring that the disciples actively engaged people with the Word as the way to connect to those communities.
Why send the disciples out in pairs, though? One explanation for this could be found in Jewish law, where two witnesses were required for any allegation of criminal conduct (Numbers 35:50, Deuteronomy 19:15). Obviously, the Gospel is not a crime, but the disciples had been sent out as witnesses to the salvation of Christ through repentance of sins. Clearly, safety was a consideration, as would be companionship and health on such journeys. But having two witnesses to the miracles to which the disciples had to attest would force those in Judean and Galilean communities to seriously consider the testimony being offered, even apart from the healings and exorcisms performed by the pairs.
Even in pairs, though, the disciples must have felt reservations about journeying without any sort of provisioning. They had no rational vision of how that could possibly succeed. And yet they followed Christ's call, taking their own leaps of faith with the first step on the journey to proclaim the Gospel of salvation. They put their full trust in Jesus rather than their own calculations, and in doing so helped to spread the Word and convert many to salvation.
This is the lesson we are called to learn in this Gospel, too. Reason and faith are not mutually exclusive, and in many ways operate in complementary fashion when properly oriented. Reason is, after all, a gift from God and part of our creation in His image. However, faith, charity, and hope are more important, and all of those call us to put our trust in the Lord rather than than our own limited reason when it matters most. Even when we cannot see the path for ourselves, we listen to His call and make that first step, that leap of faith that He will be the bridge under our feet to cross the chasm.
If we do that, we will have chosen ... wisely.
Previous reflections on these readings:
The front page image is "Calling of the First Apostles" by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1481. On display in the Sistine Chapel, The Vatican. Via Wikimedia Commons.
“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.
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