The Vestry came up with a great idea. We will be leaving in pairs right after this service. Our plan is to walk to Stockton and spread the Good News. You won't need to bring water or anything else to carry. Do I have any takers? It sounds like a pretty foreboding prospect, doesn't it? Even though foot travel was common in Biblical times, the commission Jesus gave to the first disciples in today's Gospel had to have sounded similarly foreboding. They were to make no provision for themselves. Their orders were to walk off into arid conditions with only a staff. What made them so bold?
This is more than an idle question of curiosity. It is a vital question for our own spiritual growth. We may not be commissioned to walk off into the desert, but most of us are facing journeys that are similarly frightening. Sometimes scary journeys are foisted upon us by circumstances. That happens when a loved one dies. We are forced to journey into grief and a changed future. We are forced to reinvent life. That's scary. Something similar happens when we are propelled out of a job at a time not of our choosing. This creates the opportunity to take a fresh look at life, but with scary uncertainty about our security. Less visible journeys that similarly frighten may await us. We may need to confront a bad habit or an unhealthy relationship. It is easy to postpone these journeys, even though we know they are needed, because they demand stepping away from what is known into a new, unknown way of being. Fear of the unknown blocks us from starting the journey. If we can learn what emboldened these first disciples, it will help us overcome our fear in all the journeys we face.
I have been watching a lot of Little League All-Star action lately. At a game last week, I asked my pals in the stands for help figuring out what made it possible for these first disciples to overcome their fears. My pals said baseball must hold the answer. They said, "Look at these kids. They weren't all playing well at the beginning of the season, but they hung in there with hard work and perseverance and looked what happened. They moved past all the bumps in the road, and good things happened. If you just persevere, you give good things a chance to happen." That's not a bad message, but there is one little hitch with preaching it. They little hitch is that it is directly opposite the approach Jesus takes in today's Gospel. He does not advise the disciples to persevere. They are not to persevere until they find the best place to stay; they are to stay in the first place that receives them. They are not to persevere until they are persuasive; they are to shake off the dust of any unreceptive town and move on.
I am absolutely convinced that Jesus played baseball, but he seems to be promoting an entirely different baseball lesson than perseverance. You will often hear coaches say, "Take what they give you." If they give you a walk, take it; it's as good as a hit. If they pitch to the outside, use it; hit to the opposite field. "Take what you are given" is Jesus theme. It is God's job, not ours, to persevere in making good things happen. Our job is to notice what God has already done, to receive those blessings, and to relish them.
Did those first disciples have a knack for noticing, receiving and relishing God's blessings that enabled them to overcome fear? I think they did. They noticed something that probably made the journeys they were setting out upon a lot less scary than those journeys seem to us. They no doubt noticed and knew that they could count on hospitality along their way to meet their needs. They could count on hospitality because throughout the Middle East, there has always been a strong cultural mandate to receive and care for traveling strangers. This was true in Biblical times, and it is largely still true today. The arid conditions force people to recognize how much they need one another.
This has direct application to our journeys and how they might be made less frightening. We still need each other as much as desert travelers did in Biblical times. God has designed us to meet one another's needs, to ease one another's fears. This is at the core of God's thinking about creation, about redemption, and about eternal life. Just like our opening prayer said today, God aims for us to be united in pure affection. And so, God gives us the means to ease one another's journeys. All we need to do is to notice, to receive, and to relish what God has provided.
A parishioner told me last week that she has discovered "the power of the pew." Have you discovered the "power of the pew?" I'm talking about something more than a place to sit. She said she sees many of the same people seated nearby most Sundays. For the most part, brief pleasantries have been the nature of routine contact. But recently, she had a need and reached out to some of those familiar faces. Remarkably, among them were people who had exactly the kind of resources she was looking for to address her need. Isn't that something? God had placed in others right around her the resources needed to ease a journey.
This must be only a hint of the wealth God has housed here for our needs as we face the journeys in our lives. Stay after this service for coffee hour. Make a point of talking to someone you don't usually talk to and volunteer what you enjoy doing or what you know about. Ask the same of your conversation partner. The more we get to know each other, the more we will discover the richness of what God has entrusted to this community for our support and for the support of our hurting world. The Kingdom of God is here. It is all around us and in us, waiting to be discovered. We just need to notice it, to receive it, and to relish it.