When Jesus makes his proclamation in
the Gospel of Matthew today as he sends his disciples out to be missionaries to the
world, I feel like he is specifically speaking to us in the modern world. He tells them to travel lightly – to
not take a walking stick or a second tunic or a pair of sandals, to not take
gold or copper or silver in their money belts. I was talking to some of the boy
scouts over the weekend about their hiking trips and about my trip to Spain,
and I was telling them that for that pilgrimage I went on, I tried to be as minimalist as possible. For example, I only took two pairs of
underwear, one pair of pants, one sweater, and a small ziplock bag of
toiletries. When they looked at me funny
when I told them I took so few things, especially the two pair of underwear, I
explained to them when you have to carry everything on your back in a backpack,
that even an extra pair of socks would make a difference. Perhaps Jesus knows what it is like
for us human beings to have things weigh us down in life. It can be physical things we attach ourselves
to, or it can be the things that weigh down our hearts and minds, that keep up
from turning over our lives to God. Where is our security? Where is our shelter in life? Are we stuffing all this stuff in
our backpack so that we get tired after just a couple steps on our journey of
faith? How can we lighten up our load?
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