Daily Reflection Wednesday of the Twenty-fifth Week  in Ordinary Time

We read today that Jesus is sending out his disciples hither and yon to proclaim the good news. They are not to take anything with them except what is absolutely necessary. Jesus’ message is packed with spiritual information and needs to be parsed carefully, because Jesus’ directives to his disciples are also directives to us also his followers.  

    Luke tells us that Jesus sent his disciples from town to town to preach the Good News. WE are also Jesus’ disciples. We may not preach from a pulpit or standing on a street corner, but Jesus asks us to preach with our facial expressions, physical demeanor (body language communicates its own message!), and kind words. As Jesus is sending his disciples forth, he wants them to remember all that he has taught and shown them. 

    “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Jesus quoted these words to his followers on numerous occasions. First, do I sincerely love myself as I remember that God loves me—loves you—unconditionally? And, like the inquirer in the gospel, we ask “Who is my neighbor?” Yesterday, as I was riding the elevator in my building, I noticed a sign: “Neighbor is not a geographical term. It is a moral concept.” This statement by Rabbi Jonathan Prinz challenges us to re-evaluate not only who our neighbor is, but also how we speak about our neighbor next door, in another state or across the oceans? So, when Jesus sends out his disciples to preach the good news, he wants them to respect those who share the same faith tradition, those who have no faith, and those who are still seeking the meaning of God in their lives. If they refuse to accept, the disciples are not to argue, resort to name calling, or pull out a weapon.  We continue to remind ourselves that Jesus is speaking to us also. “Take nothing for the journey.” Not only is Jesus asking us to divest ourselves of anything superfluous in our lives. He is asking us to be generous with what we own. 

    Centuries before Jesus’ preaching, the author of the Book of Proverbs also counsels us to ask God to provide only what we need. I challenge all of us to take inventory of our material possessions, our verbal vocabulary, our body language, and all that God has given us individually.  Then when we realize that Jesus is speaking to each one of us personally about divesting ourselves of the superfluous, we will generously give.