Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. He said to them, ‘Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money—not even an extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there, and leave from there. Wherever they do not welcome you, as you are leaving that town shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.’
-Luke 9:1-5
The aftershocks of Vatican II (1962-65), rippled through Christian thought and practices in most denominations over the two decades that followed the Roman convocation. Espousing ecumenism was almost a litmus test to signal you were a post-Edwardian Christian. For me, ecumenism was a practical, not doctrinal matter. In the early 1960’s, at the same time the Roman Cardinals were meeting, I figured out that dating Sacred Heart girls was made easier if their fathers occasionally saw me attending Saturday Mass with their daughters – before retiring to Bruno’s Tavern.
Lay ministry became “a thing.” A renewed call to lay, biblical scholarship gave us the Historical Jesus, DOCC, EFM, The Wounded Healer (Nouwen) and Elizabeth Kubler Ross. I was in college then, in the cocoon of Sewanee. I didn’t like Hootenanny Communion and I wanted the Edwardian Jubilate Deo back.
In the 1970’s, from a distance, I watched my mother searching for a renewed self. She was a divorced empty-nester who had fallen, alone, from the gilded niche of philanthropic socialite into the crucible of Christian becoming at Trinity, New Orleans. It was a transformational time in the pink church on Jackson Avenue. Although I did not understand it then, it was a transformational time for my mother.
Her journey was what it looks like these days when Jesus calls us into His office and says, “My beloved, I want you to go out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.” Marjorie called it “outreach” because that’s what they called field lay-ministry back then.
“Outreach” sounds like we get to sit in our gilded niches and reeeeach out toward them; you know, the broken ones. What it was, what it is, is living the words of Teresa of Avila; “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good…”
Oh, and take nothing for the journey.
Marjorie became the city-wide, interfaith coordinator for lay-hospital visitation. She confessed her true love was the actual visitation. I asked her what she liked about the work. She said, “I love the moment when I’m standing in the hall reading just a name on a door; I pause, then I push open the door and walk into an unknown situation. It could be the threshold of death, it could be family strife. It could be loneliness, hungry for the Holy Spirit…It’s never wrong to be there, and I am always given the words the moment requires. I’m never alone.” This is why we need nothing for the journey. Whatever we need is always on the other side of the door. He knew we were coming.
Musical Reflection - Kreek: Whilst Great is Our Poverty
Lord, steady my hands; make my feet tireless. Clear my eyes; tune my ears for listening. Embolden my voice to sing “Here am I!” when you open blind doors to ministry of your design. Amen.
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