Take Nothing!

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Prv 30:5-9; Lk 9: 1-6

In today’s Gospel, we find Jesus sending his twelve disciples for mission.

The instructions are clear. The disciples are to rely on God and not on material support. 

For the first time, the disciples go into mission without the company of Jesus.

Jesus intends their virgin mission experience also as a preparation for the future when he would not be present with them physically. 

Therefore, the hands-on missionary experience of the disciples will offer them a foretaste of God’s mission with all its challenges and privileges. 

The highlight of the Gospel passage is Jesus’ command, which strictly requires that they ‘take nothing.’ Jesus’ command follows two reasons. 

1.By asking them not to take anything, Jesus challenges the popular fallacy that material support is the first important prerequisite to carry out God’s mission. By forbidding them from taking anything, Jesus wants them to discover the truth that with ‘power and authority’ directly coming from him, they have all that they need to carry out God’s mission. The heralds of the Kingdom have the authority to root out evil in all forms and the power to establish God’s Kingdom in every conceivable way. 

2. Jesus wants to instill in them the faith that the provider for God’s mission is always God Himself. The emissaries of God certainly discover God’s providence when they enter the mission field to offer themselves in dedication and commitment. 

How to carry out evangelization without making material support our firsthand priority?  

Along with the disciples, Jesus wants us to discover for ourselves the ever-available and the ever-abundant grace and providence of God. 

Let us pray for the grace to rely on God’s saving interventions in our mission. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar