A week and a half
ago, I was in the great city of La Porte, IN, celebrating the Fourth of July
(and we’ll put aside for now the strange incongruity of someone who’s a British
citizen and American permanent resident celebrating that particular holiday…
they were burgers and fireworks, it was great). But, more seriously, going back
and re-reading the Declaration of Independence, I was struck again by how it
concludes with a commitment to Dependence: Reliance on Divine Providence
(depending on God), a mutual pledge to one another of our lives, our fortunes
and our sacred honor – a confession that to be a nation, we need to depend on
one another. And, providentially, while we celebrating the independence of one
nation a week and a half ago, this Sunday the Gospel gives us the perfect
opportunity to celebrate the dependence of the whole Church.
This gospel
follows right on from last week’s; it’s a direct response to Jesus’ shock at
encountering the lack of faith of the people of his own town, and the dishonor
they show him. Still genuinely wounded
by this hurt (a foretaste of the more physical wounds he would later take on
for our sake), still somewhat relieved that he was still able to heal, even if
just “a few,” it seems his awareness of the greatness of his mission has been
enlarged. There are so many in need of
this healing, in need of a word of hope, the call to repentance, conversion to
the glorious new life in which “the riches of his grace are lavished upon us;”
and not everyone is able to receive this.
So, he sends. The Son of God
chooses to make Himself dependent on this ragtag band of disciples, who have
proven the severe limitations of their own faith, who will all abandon and one
betray him: this is who Jesus himself depends on to make his message
known! He didn’t do that out of need, he
didn’t even do it because it particularly sensible, but somehow it was an
expression of his love, for those to whom they’d go, and for the apostles
themselves.
He doesn’t send
them directionless. He sends them in
pairs, able to rely on each other for support, companionship, brotherhood, to
witness to God’s holy love first by their mutual affection. (And, by the way, this is an aside, but for
me, that’s part of the great blessing of being a priest in an order, in the
Congregation of Holy Cross, that I’m not a ‘lone ranger,’ but am sustained by
that brotherhood and minister out of that. It’s very unusual that you’d come
across a Holy Cross priest not living in a community house with other priests
and brothers of the Congregation of Holy Cross. For me, that’s strategic, so as
I can get a PhD from Duke and use that to teach at one of our schools, and I’m
very glad to be able to live with another priest while I do that, but that’s a
lot of the reason I’ve been away from the past month or so, to spend some of my
time when I don’t need to be at Duke back in Indiana with my brothers in Holy
Cross.) Different ones of us are sustained by and witness to different types of
community and family life, and the single vocation is a beautiful one too, it’s
just very much not mine. However we’re
sustained, we are sent, just as Jesus sent these Twelve. That takes place
whenever we baptize, anointing each newly baptized with the strength and
dignity to receive a share in Christ’s prophetic office, a gift that is
strengthened in confirmation, as God’s gift of His own Spirit is strengthened,
that gift which is but the first down payment of the riches in store for us,
riches we invite others to share in, a sharing that paradoxically doesn’t
dilute ours, but magnifies them.
And Jesus sends
these Twelve only partially equipped.
They get sandals and a walking stick, but no food, no money, no second
tunic, no baggage – except, I guess, for their own spiritual, emotional
baggage, which these men are by no means free of. The sandals and the stick are what they need
to walk. They are to be well equipped
for walking. The mission field is vast
and nothing is to hold them back from traversing it; lack of equipment is not
to give them an excuse to ever become too comfortable to move on to the next challenge
to ever start thinking that they’ve found their true home and forget that
they’re a pilgrim people, with a gospel to proclaim as they go on the way.
But, their
walking provisions are the limit of their provisions. Wherever they arrive, they will arrive
without food and without money, with no sack to carry leftovers, with no second
tunic to wear while they wash the tunic they walked in. Wherever they arrive, they arrive totally
dependent on those they come to serve.
And maybe that’s how some of their baggage gets healed. And that kind of healing can be
contagious. We’re told that they had
great success: they exorcised demons and healed the sick.
God heals
through our willingness to be dependent: not on Him and on others as if those
were two separate sources, but on Him through others. Saint John Paul II said that in calling us to
the virtue of solidarity, he’s calling us to act out of an awareness that
“we’re really all responsible for all.” There’s
a correlative to that: if we’re all responsible for all, then we’re all
dependent on all too. Each of us, even
the most privileged, stands in need, depends on the most seemingly
insignificant of God’s creatures, of our brothers and sisters. People who aren’t able to depend sometimes
look powerful, look comfortable, but are always acting out of fear, fear of not
being able to take care of themselves, of not being god, fear of being
dependent creatures, a fear that can paralyze us from taking risks, from picking
up our mats and walking, from striding fearlessly dependent through this vast
mission field and proclaiming the wonder of the riches to be found in God
alone!
God heals. God provides.
And God chooses us (you, and me, those we value, and those who we'd rather ignore)…
God chooses us to dare to be dependent to make that healing known.
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