Homily Notes Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time 2018
15th Sunday, “Let Go and Trust”
The instruction Jesus gives in today’s Gospel probably misinterpreted by many who hear it. We can dismiss what he says as totally impractical, as too idealistic. Why?
First, because most of us are not on a missionary journey. We are pretty much cemented in place. Most of us are not going out on the highway to preach expel evil spirits, heal the sick, or do any of the other things Jesus describes. Missionaries do that, but few of us consider ourselves missionaries.
The other thing that we cannot relate to is to the whole idea that we are supposed to take nothing on the journey. Perhaps we feel like we cannot live like vagrants throughout our life. We need homes. We must have jobs. Some possessions are necessary for us to survive. But is that what Jesus is calling on us to do? Are we asked to be homeless wandering preachers if we are really going to live out the Gospel in all its fullness? Somehow, we all feel like we fall short of this goal, so we turn a deaf ear to the words of the Lord.
The mistake we make is that we think that we are to live as simply as Jesus describes throughout our lives. Maybe what Jesus was doing was using this missionary exercise as part of the formation of his disciples. He wanted to teach them certain lessons they needed to learn. He thought that the only way to do it was to send them on pilgrimage for a while.
The Jesuits are the order founded by St. Ignatius Loyola. Pope Francis belongs to this religious order. The Jesuits pride themselves on having the hardest and longest formation of any of the religious orders. It might be twelve years before a Jesuit is ordained to the priesthood.
One of the things that happens to a Jesuit in formation is that in the first year of formation, after they make a 30 day silent retreat, they are put on a bus, plane or train with a one way ticket to somewhere. The young men have $35 dollars in their pockets when they leave. And they are told to make their way back from where they are sent, but not to come back for one to three months. Many Jesuits find this exercise to be one of the most important of their formation. Some must sleep in homeless shelters, others in the street. The novices must look for work. At times they have to beg for alms in order to eat. The young men are treated kindly sometimes. Other times, they are scorned. As we can imagine, it is hard to face the uncertainty of it all. Always they must move back toward the formation house.
I had a friend who was a Jesuit novice at one time. He ultimately left the order. One day he called me. He said he would be passing through town. He needed a place to stay. I was surprised to hear from him. I wondered why he was traveling around when he was supposed to be in novitiate. When I arrived, he shared that he was on his pilgrimage. He had arranged with all his friends to put him up for certain periods of time. He had planned out his whole month before he left the novitiate. Somehow, I do not think this was what his Novice master had in mind. But I also think I might have done the same thing. We all would probably find it hard to trust God that much.
What Jesus was doing in the Gospel today was very similar to what the Jesuits do in formation. He wanted his disciples to learn that they were going to have to give up control of their lives if they were going to live according to Gospel values.
We say that Jesus sent the apostles on mission without anything. But is that true? Really, they had two very important things they took with them. One thing that they took with them was they took a companion for the journey. The apostles did not travel alone. When things got tough I am sure the partners Jesus sent on mission supported one another. The second thing the Apostles took with them was their interior life. God’s grace was with them always. What the apostles learned was when things got challenging they had strength that they never knew they possessed.
We remember today that we are all on pilgrimage through this life. We come to understand somewhere along the line that our material possessions are not our most important asset. What is most helpful on the journey are the people we have in our life who we can lean on in difficult moments. Hopefully, some of those people are siting around us today. The second thing that we should understand is that we have an inner strength that we can always carry with us that is a gift from God. We call that grace.
Jesus encourages us by his words in the Gospel today. To give up control and to trust.