Thursday in the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time, February 1, 2024

Mark 6, 7-13

Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick –no food, no sack, no money in their belts. They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave from there. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.” So they went off and preached repentance. The Twelve drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

Earlier in his Gospel, St. Mark has shown how the Lord Jesus exercised authority over sicknesses, infirmities, storms, and demons. He possesses this authority in himself and it does not come from the Jewish rulers.  As a Galilean, the leadership in Jerusalem sees him and treats him as an outsider, yet he is the one with true power and wisdom — with true authority that has been approved by the Father at his baptism in the Jordan.  In the Gospel reading for today’s Mass, we see him bestowing authority on his own to his Apostles.  At the same time, he purposely did not confer the usual trappings of authority on them.  While having greater power than any humans had ever possessed — over unclean spirits, no less — they were to take “nothing for the journey but a walking stick”.  Traveling distances without the normal provisions of food and water, they would arrive at their destinations as refugees fleeing an army, or as those who had escaped from robbers.  They would not resemble the envoys of the Messiah.  They would seem weak.  And this was the point, for as St. Paul would write how the Lord answered his prayer to take away his infirmity, saying, “My grace is sufficient for you: for power is made perfect in infirmity.” Paul then reflected, “Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. For which cause I please myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ. For when I am weak, then am I powerful” (2 Corinthians 9-10).  The Lord shows his power through the weak in order to make it clear that it is his power performing the works, and that his chosen ones are but the instruments, conveyors, of it.  And there is joy in being his instruments.  

“They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic.”  The Apostles are granted sandals, which are necessary for crossing stretches of the wilderness and walking in towns, and also to make it clear that they were not runaway slaves, for slaves did not wear sandals.  On the other hand, they were to wear no second tunic.  This would be the equivalent of a modern tee shirt.  They were dressed in such a way as to match the clothing of the lowest, poorest person they were likely to meet.  This must have been a humbling experience for men like Peter, who owned his own house and boat, and for Matthew, the formerly rich tax collector.  Attired in this way, they could in no way set themselves up as anyone important, since this would result in ridicule, and so they could speak only of Jesus.  This may remind us of how the Lord told them, at another time, “But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak: for it is not you that speak, but the spirit of your Father that speaks in you” (Matthew 10, 19-20).  Their persecutors would be confounded by an eloquence that could not have come from them.

“Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave from there.”  The Lord did not want it to seem that they were preaching for money, as others did.  Nor did he want them to temper their preaching so as not to offend anyone.  They were not in a town for their own purposes but for the Lord’s.  This order would serve to keep the Apostles on task, and also bolster their credibility in the eyes of the townspeople.  “Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.”  That is, do not merely walk away from the place to try your luck somewhere else.  They were heralds of the King, and to reject them was to reject him.  We see how these towns would be treated by the example of the king in the parable of the king who prepared a wedding feast for his son: the king sent out his messengers to invite the guests, but the guests rejected them and even killed some.  As a result,  “when the king had heard of it, he was angry: and sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers and burnt their city” (Matthew 22, 7).  And, “It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment” than for them (Matthew 11, 24).

“So they went off and preached repentance.”  The hardest thing to preach, and the most necessary, is repentance.  The people who stop to listen think the preacher is speaking to someone else.  The Apostles, though, could back up their words with powerful deeds: they “drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”  Acting in the Lord’s name, he acted through their words and hands.  

We know ourselves best in silence and in the simplest possible living, and in knowing ourselves, we gain true humility.  In true humility, which enables us to be obedient to God’s commands, he will work through our words and hands as well.