Jesus was not telling his disciples to practice poverty. No, he was telling them to practice friendliness.

Thursday, 2/7/13

When Jesus told his disciples not to bring money or food with them he was not telling them to practice poverty.

No, he was telling them to practice friendliness. Instead of getting rooms at Holiday Inns, they were to move in with people, sharing whatever they were eating. (Father Jose from St. Matthews is just back from vacationing in India. He told me on the phone that the hardest part of visiting around there was that they expected him to eat at every house.)

Clericalism, when it means claiming to belonging to a social order above the common people goes against Our Lord’s saying, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority felt; but it shall not be so among you.”

Jesus told is disciples that if they were not welcome in any town on leaving they should shake the inhospitable town’s dust off their sandals. I have heard that the only time Jews were told to shake the dust off their sandals was when they were entering the temple. They were not to bring the world’s filth into God’s holy place. By reversing that procedure Jesus was implying that the whole world was God’s holy place, and they were not to contaminate it with the inhospitable town’s dust.