Not looking back

‘… shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.’. (Mark 6:11)

Mark 6:7-13 (Year B: Trinity+6)

                                            pic: Jennifer Kostick

This passage from the Gospel of Mark is a turning point. From now on the disciples are directly involved in, and made responsible for, spreading the good news of God’s kingdom. Their apprenticeship is about to begin. Much awaits them as it awaits us on our journeys. At this point in the journey as recounted by Mark, sights are set southwards towards Jerusalem.  Four key points or lessons for discipleship and service emerge from this passage:

1. In our discipleship we are not meant to travel alone
2. We are counselled to ‘travel light’.
3. We are advised to not jump from one ‘house’ to another but to give time and space to others and ourselves.
4.  We are advised to ‘shake off the dust’ under our feet or lodged in our mind, or, to put it another way don’t waste time or get stuck in a situation where we need to move on.

Travelling ‘two by two’ is a very natural thing to do in any walk of life. We think of loving couples, police officers, street evangelists, election canvassers, news casters, etc.

Travelling light..

Secondly, travelling light makes good sense, literally, in these cost-conscious times. Witness the desperate efforts during long summer holiday airport queues as people switch belongings from one bag to another to meet the 15 KG limit as the case may be! However, taking the advice more generally we need to become more aware of the baggage we carry in our own heads and hearts – deeply rooted hurts, imaginings or preoccupations. Not for nothing is one meditation approaches sold under the heading of ‘Headspace’. We need to create space in our heads to simply be, to breathe, to enjoy, to hear, to see, to receive. We can go around half connected to people around us and half detached with our heads full of all sorts of issues concerning tomorrow, yesterday, this worry or that desire.  Discipleship means that we are placed here with a purpose – to live the good life and to be channels of that life for others. This calls for discipline and exercise where we submit to the better plans of God in our lives.

Third, we need to stick at the job on hand and the commitment we have made. It is all too easy in this fast-moving, social media driven world to be half here and half there and constantly flitting from one thing to another.  Concentration, presence, thoroughness and then completion is the art of the craft worker who is rooted in the present moment of excellence and attention to the now.

Finally, by shaking off the dust we do not allow our own doubts and those demeaning thoughts cultivated by others to impede our thinking and action.  ‘Shaking off the dust’ was, apparently, a culturally appropriate norm and action in 1^st century Palestine (refer to Acts 13:51).

But what is others will not listen to our story? What if our very own identity and journey is a sign of repudiation in the sight of others? A writer on the Carmelite Lectio Divina website here puts it rather well, I think, when commenting on this passage of Mark:

Yet now he imposes on his disciples the direction not to waste time on those who will not receive them. Probably, in this recommendation there is also an adaptation to the situation of the community: they must not regret the break with the Israelite community. There had been a closed attitude and a ferocious and aggressive refusal: well, Jesus had foreseen this too. There was no need to grieve. They must go to other people and they must not waste time trying to win back that which could not be won back.

There is no pleasing everyone..

In short, there is no pleasing everyone all the time. Discipleship comes with choices, self-denial and courage to be different and to follow a new pathway – always grounded on love for those near and far including those to whom we are bound by reason of family, marriage and other bonds. We should not waste precious time and precious energy on arguments or disputes over secondary matters. What counts is compassion, truthfulness and associated action in the here and now.  Tomorrow is another land. Yesterday is gone forever: it is memory we offer to grace and mercy. In the associated story as recounted by Matthew (10:13) Jesus counsels his disciples to let their own peace return to them if the house’s response is not worthy. We need to be at peace with our decisions and actions after a time of discernment, prayer and resolution.  No matter what opposition or misunderstanding arise we need to live at peace with God and ourselves. On this basis we face, literally, any situation.

Let us walk in the light of the present moment practicing compassion and courageously embracing God’s evident will in the grittiness of daily living. We will be guided as true disciples and who knows others may join us too.