Jesus wasn't tell the disciples to practice poverty. He was telling them to depend on the hospitality of people to foster friendliness.

Thursday, 2/6/14

When Jesus told his disciples to carry no money or food he was not telling them to practice poverty. No, he was telling them to depend on people’s hospitality so that a friendly relationship should develop among them.

In the nineteen fifties and sixties, just after their war over there, I had a country parish in Korea, and the hardest thing about it was mixing in close with people who were struggling with extreme poverty. Sleeping on the hard floor in any of their houses I would look up, and count the flies gathered on their ceilings for warmth.

Riding jam-packed buses instead of breezing around in a car wasn’t too nice, and I didn’t like being served a dish deep in red pepper, or a bowl of minnows with their little dead eyes staring up at me. Now those people are richer than me, and our email friendships have survived.

One priest friend of mine wouldn’t eat their food, but one time he gave in, saying he would take an egg. The lady reached into her clothing for an egg. Then she pulled out her hairpin, and she poked a hole in the egg for sucking.