Daily Devotions

He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. Mark 6:8-13

This piece of the story is special to me. The very first sermon I wrote, the first Sunday that I got to preach, at the first congregation I was called to serve, was based on these same words of Jesus.

I remember sitting in my new office, a yellow legal pad in front of me, my typewriter waiting at the back of my desk, reading these words. I had just traveled from Minnesota to Texas in the biggest U-Haul truck they had. It was filled to the brim with the accumulated possessions, including not-so-excellent hand-me-downs, of 27 years of life. The parsonage was a mess, boxes everywhere, stuff stuffed in every corner.

And there I was, reading these verses addressed to those sent out to do ministry in Jesus’ name…travel light it said. Don’t be encumbered by too much stuff. Take only what you need and be ready to run to the next town.

I felt exposed. I had blown it before I even had a fighting chance to try.

But there is wisdom in these words. Even when we hear them, as I heard them then, only as law. The world tells us to accumulate accumulate accumulate. Whoever dies with the most toys wins. You can’t do ministry today without an awesome building, projector screens, a mammoth pipe organ, a hot rock band, a slick pastor who forgot to tuck his shirt in… And we know, in the bottom of our gut, that there are so many things wrong with thinking that way that we hardly know where to start. The wisdom is that Jesus’ admonition to travel light attacks us right at the point where we think we need more.

And the good news rushes in. Jesus is enough. The message is enough. The power that flows through God’s people is the power of God, not the power of power equipment. It was enough to receive the courage to move and then to go. And the disciples went out and they produced godly fruit – lives transformed and redirected, hurting people restored, hope swallowing up despair.

I thought it was about me as I wrote that first sermon. I’ve learned it is about us. And I won’t be content until that us includes everyone. We might need to shake the dust off our feet now and again, but that isn’t to say that we won’t be back tomorrow.

Let us pray: Guide us, Redeemer, Lord and Savior! Pilot us. Help us drop our baggage and go. Fill us with that courage and power to confront all that is in and around us that opposes your rule of love and service. For we know it is only in being truly known by you, that we have any hope of being truly free. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Then he went about among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. Mark 6:6-7

What would it have been like for the followers of Jesus to experience the rejection that Jesus faced in Nazareth? What changed in their conversation after leaving Nazareth compared to the journey there? Did Jesus tell “I remember when…” stories filled with laughter and the kind of light-heartedness we all use when we try to communicate “where we’re from” with friends? Or was there a darkness in the air?

Whatever they might have expected, mob violence might not have been high on their list. But they saw it with their own eyes. They saw Jesus doing exactly what they have grown to love in him – speaking with authority and conviction, challenging conventional wisdom, helping the hurting, promising a future of hope and restoration – and they saw the very people among whom Jesus had grown up rise up to throw him out of town.

Certainly at least one of them must have thought, “What have I gotten myself into here?”

Then, before they knew it, Jesus was sending them out in teams of two to do the very same things they had been watching Jesus do.

It is classic mentoring in action – tell them how to do it, show them how to do it, watch them do it, send them out to do it on their own. But they weren’t being sent to sell vacuum cleaners or newspaper subscriptions door to door. They were being sent to convict and console, to challenge and correct, to help and to heal. And they were being sent with the very likely possibility that, just as they were going to do what they had witnessed Jesus doing, they were also opening themselves to the very same treatment that he had received.

Thus they must have appreciated the company of their co-disciple.

To go in teams of two met the requirement of truth telling, that whatever one bore witness to must be substantiated by one or more witnesses. And it also provided for a measure of security, both emotional and physical. So off they went. Under the direction, and with the authority, of Jesus who sent them.

Just like us.

Where did we get the idea that the Christian faith is about OUR comfort? Who suggested that we would live the faith without opposition or bear witness without having to overcome our own fears? The truth is, we might live a comfortable faith if we remain cloistered within the mighty fortress walls of our church buildings, but it we take the faith to the streets (which is where Jesus has sent us), it won’t always be pretty.

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, you entrusted your work to those who weren’t fully prepared or equipped, but here we are today. Your plan works when we work it. Fill us with good courage, and connect us with others, that we might be bold witnesses for you outside of the safe walls of our buildings. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief. Mark 6:4-6

I love the story of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” An entire community, including the emperor, is conned into believing what their senses, their heart and their brain tells them is not true. But no one is willing to speak up. Until a child breaks the silence and exposes the emperor…as exposed.

Systems, especially family systems, are very resistant to change. They self perpetuate over time and develop incredible resistance to outside intervention. Even faith systems, belief systems. Perhaps, especially faith systems, belief systems.

Millions of dollars are spent ever year because of our internal resistance to change. I have both morning and nighttime routines of getting ready for the day. Far too often, they don’t include flossing my teeth. So I just came home from an early morning dentist appointment. Had I flossed my teeth through the years like I was told to…every time I ever went to the dentist…I might not have had to go through the tortuous gum treatments I’ve had these last three months nor would I have had to pay the cost of the new crown that just found a new home in my mouth.

Companies spend millions of dollars trying to overcome our internal resistance to change. They hire consultants who bring outside ideas and energy into the system with the hope of positive results. As we know, that doesn’t always work.

A priest, a rabbi and a consultant were traveling on an airplane. There was a crisis and it was clear that the plane was going to crash and they would all be killed. The priest began to pray and finger his rosary beads, the rabbi began to read the Torah and the consultant began to organize a committee on air traffic safety.

So it is. We are change resistant people. The Bible would call us “stiff-necked.” That’s how the people in Jesus’ hometown were. He was amazed at their unbelief. He knew them, they knew him, but their system wasn’t able to process or receive the message that he was bringing and living among them. They refused to see that the emperor wore no clothes.

Are we destined to always be so change resistant that we can do no other than resist Jesus? Left to our own devices, probably so. But, while Jesus left his hometown behind him, he continued to carry their unbelief in his heart. All the way to the cross where it was nailed along with all the other symptoms and results of our brokenness. But before he got there, and after Easter Sunday morning, he promised to be present through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The power to lead us to the truth AND to open our eyes to see it for what it is. The power to change. The power to do what we cannot do by our own understanding or effort.

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, we believe, help our unbelief. We trust you, help us trust you always and in all things. Guide us to do our part, even as you do in and around us what we cannot do ourselves. In Jesus’ name. Amen.