The directions Jesus gives his disciples as he sends them out seem pretty strange: “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.” (Mk 6:7-13)
For those who may start packing for a vacation two weeks in advance this sounds crazy, for others, it’s still weird. Maybe it made sense in Jesus time?
But before we consign this to the category of stories that might have made sense then, but really have no relevance to us, let’s take a deeper look.
First we can note that there are plenty of people, well after the time of Jesus, who followed pretty much these instructions. The friars who followed St Francis and St Dominic did exactly that. And Buddhist monks have always done the same and still do in many places today. But those examples are still a long time ago, or far away. A much more contemporary example is provided by Leon Logothetis who documented his travels around the world, literally without money, in the Netflix series “The Kindness Diaries” – although he did have a motorbike, maybe that was his walking stick? I’d also say that, for those of us of a certain age, the idea of setting off and hitchhiking to wherever (without much clothing or money) was a commonplace, even if it’s less in fashion today.
So the context is perhaps not as strange or as foreign as it might first seem. However I think this may still be missing the main point that Mark is making when he tells us this story.
The journey he is telling us about is the journey of life, life as a disciple of Jesus. On that journey we don’t need money and food, or rather we don’t need to worry about taking them with us, planning to make sure we have enough – we should expect that we will receive what we need. We don’t need extra clothing, forget the extra suitcase. But we should expect to travel. We will need our walking stick and sandals, we will need to be prepared for the effort of going somewhere different, we will need support to get there. We might say our walking stick is our faith, or the kindness we find around us even in strange places. Whatever form it takes, it is a recognition that the strength to travel doesn’t come from within us but from without.
If we are prepared to make this journey then amazing things will happen. We will drive out demons of hatred, maybe even of addiction, we anoint with the oil of kindness and will cure loneliness and despair. This journey may not cover many miles, but it will take us a long way, our sandals will be well-worn. We will be changed by our experiences, just as the disciples were.