Travel light (Jewell)

TRAVEL LIGHT

This scripture today is about our everyday lives—it is about something that most of us do. It is about something that keeps most of us from encountering the Truth that is right in front of us all the time. Mark’s Jesus speaks of a problem and then he teaches us how to go forward. As usual, Jesus is a very practical teacher…

In verse 1 we hear Jesus and his disciples have come to his hometown. And on the Sabbath Jesus begins to preach in the synagogue. At times I am very glad I do not have to preach in front of people I used to hang out with. They would probably have a good laugh—just seeing me up here, let alone listening to me go on about Jesus. I can imagine it might not fit with the image they have of me.

The people in the synagogue hear Jesus and they are astounded. They ask, “where did this man get this all this stuff?”  “What is this wisdom that he has been given?” Isn’t this Jesus, a person we know? Isn’t this the carpenter, Mary’s son? We know him, we know his family. Verse 3 says the people were offended, they were skeptical—but why did his hometown people reject him? And what does this tell us about our faith? We saw that Jesus, Jesus as he is now, doesn’t fit with the image they have of Mary’s son, the carpenter…isn’t this something that causes us problems, this image making process? The images we build of ourselves and other people. We obviously need memory to learn how to speak Spanish or build a computer. But memory in relationship is the image I build of you. I build an image of you, you build an image of me. And very often it is actually two images that are in relationship. These images separate us. Prejudices of all kinds are built out of this image-making process. There is the image I have of myself, of Muslims, of black people, of gay people, of a heroin addict, of an ex-girlfriend, of my boss. All of these images are of the past—they do not actually tell me who someone is right now. Again, images separate us. If I have an image of myself as a white guy, an American, a Christian, that image not only limits and distorts my observation of myself, it also separates me from others. It separates me from the non-white guy, the non-American, the non-Christian. I have told people that when I first started at the Salvation Army I did not consider myself a racist. But I quickly realized that I had these images that I had built up of poor people, of people on government assistance, of black people, of women and men that sell their bodies. I could not truly see the people I was talking to until I transcended or dropped those images. We can say, no, not necessarily, my images don’t do that—but really look at what these images do—they separate. And where there is division, there is conflict. These conflicts are all over the world—the white cop vs the Black man, the Arab against the Israeli, the Muslim vs the western capitalist. Jesus’ hometown against Jesus. These images also cause us problems with our faith---the people of Nazareth miss the Christ right in front of their face because they can’t get past the image they have of hometown Jesus. Do our images cause us to miss the Christ that is right in front of us? We’ll come back to that…

Jesus responds to the skepticism of his hometown people by saying, “a prophet is without honor in his hometown, with his family, and in his own house. Now, the Hebrew word for prophet, Navie, is a very interesting word with a rich array of meanings. But basically, a Navie or a prophet is one who is an open channel for the Divine—God can flow through them unimpeded. As Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan said, A prophet is one who is empty of all ego (Kaplan).  Jesus refers to himself as a prophet. Remember Jesus also emptied himself and said that when people see him they see God. A prophet, because his or her openness, is where the divine and the human flow together. Jesus is both human and divine for that reason.

In verse 5 we hear that Jesus’ power was reduced in his hometown. Of course. The people could not receive him as the Christ because they were stuck on what he was, what he used to be…they were stuck in the past and the Christ is always RIGHT NOW. They were not open…they were carrying their baggage from the past…Christ is not the Christ if he is not received as the Christ…I cannot see the Christ within you if I only see the jerk I think you used to be…

In verse 6 Jesus is amazed at their lack of faith or unbelief. This is the cry of disbelief in our scripture today—Jesus’ astonishment at the people’s lack of openness. I can hear him thinking, “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do”—they are not open, they are all clogged up with the past, with their ideas and images, “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do”—they can’t see how they’re all broken and divided up—“Forgive them Father for they know not what they do”—they can’t see the Christ right in front of their faces because it doesn’t fit their image of what the Christ should be…

As I said in the beginning, Jesus is a teacher, he is teaching us something about ourselves…he points out the problem and then tells us how to proceed, we find his solution in the next section…

Jesus begins sending out the disciples to teach and minister to the people. He orders them to take nothing—except a staff on their journey. The disciples are travelling light---they are not to carry a lot of baggage around with them—this symbolizes their openness. And by open I don’t mean up for anything, I don’t mean recklessness. I mean open spiritually. The disciples must remain open so that the divine can flow through them—they are contrasted with the people who are not open—who did not receive the Christ. The disciples are to be open channels like a Navie or prophet. It is after all, our baggage that divides us from one another, that causes conflicts. The ideas and images we carry around with us—we must be willing to set those aside. In fact that is what our spiritual disciplines or exercises do for us—they help us clear our minds, they help us let go of our thoughts so that the New or divine can flow into us. He is sending out the prophets with nothing so that they can be open to the power of God.

Jesus next instructs the disciples to shake the dust off their feet as they leave a place that has not welcomed them. In other words, shake off their rejection of you, do not carry it around with you, don’t create a resentment. There is a story from Buddhism that illustrates this.   Two traveling monks reached a river where they met a young woman. Wary of the current, she asked if they could carry her across. One of the monks hesitated, but the other quickly picked her up onto his shoulders, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other bank. She thanked him and departed. 

As the monks continued on their way, the one was brooding and preoccupied. Unable to hold his silence, he spoke out. "Brother, our spiritual training teaches us to avoid any contact with women, but you picked that one up on your shoulders and carried her!" 

"Brother," the second monk replied, "I set her down on the other side, while you are still carrying her."

The experiences , images, and resentments that we carry with us cause us to live in the past, to miss the Truth that is NOW. This stuff keeps us from being open to the divine, it keeps us spiritually constipated. That is what causes the lack of faith that Jesus noticed in his hometown people—they were stuck on yesterday, stuck on the image they had of him—so they missed the Christ standing before them.

We must let go of our baggage…we must travel light. The spiritual journey is a journey that demands we travel light. What is keeping you from being open?? What is separating you from your neighbor, what is separating you from God?? Are you missing the Christ that is right in front of your face??? Are you stuck on an image of what the Christ is supposed to look like???

Are you willing to drop your baggage??? Are you willing to travel light into the New Creation???

Amen.