Take nothing for the journey: Sunday Readings 15 B (Y-not question the Sunday Readings)

by Sue, Sydney, Friday, July 13, 2012, 23:42 (309 days ago) @ Ynot

Tony, I too have been wondering about this question you raise,

Beyond the image, what is the point of going out with minimal clothing and no provisions, not even a few coins to buy a meal? For the Greeks it was a way of showing that one could live free of excess baggage. The Hebrew prophets seem to have used it as a way of drawing attention to the radical demands of God's justice. For the apostles of Jesus, I think, it would have been primarily a test of their metanoia: a time for them to discover whether or not they had taken on a new way of seeing, whether or not they believed in the power of the spirit which Jesus endowed them with. Just as they are totally dependent for life on what is given to them, so for the fruit of their mission they are totally dependent on the spirit to give life to others.

I began with looking at my own experience of a year with very little, then began thinking about this theme of setting out without possessions as it appears in other religions.  I've tried to keep it brief, because the Internet is there for anyone to follow up for themselves the wonderful world of other religions' spiritual practices.  
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Once upon a time, when we were a young family we moved often between construction jobs. One assignment took us to Bougaineville for a year.  We could take nothing but a suitcase of clothes each.  The rest went into a container that was supposed to follow, but in the end was left in storage as there would have been no room for anything more in the tiny house we were assigned.   We were given a survival kit of ill-matched crockery, cutlery, saucepans, towels and bedding.  Other families were in the same situation.

In that year we learned to live with very few possessions.  No telephone, no television, no shops, apart from a supermarket for basic food, and certainly, in our tiny house, no room to put anything else anyway. In that year we learned what a blessing it was to possess so little.  Such a sense of freedom!

So when I read of Jesus' instructions to his disciples to take so little with them for the journey, this seems to be not a sacrifice, but rather a glad abandoning of possessions that would otherwise clutter up their lives and restrict their freedom to move around.  Nevertheless, so little to be taken...?  

To be penniless travellers would have had the consequence of giving no alternative but to go out and meet people and to inspire them with a different vision of how to live life more fully.  Words valued so much that people would want to offer them a bed, want them to stay longer and impart more about the Kingdom of God

 I am reminded of hearing about Buddhist monasteries having to be established near towns because as the monks are not permitted to buy or prepare food for themselves they must go out early every morning on an alms round with one of their few possessions, a food bowl.  Householders happily give portions of food to a passing monk - unless they are displeased with him, in which case they simply turn the proffered bowl upside down.  Back at the monastery with an empty bowl, the monk has to explain to the abbot the reason for his empty bowl!

In Hinduism, when life's duties as a householder have been completed, and grandchildren have begun arriving, a man is permitted, even encouraged, to hand over his house and business to his eldest son, and retire to the forest, with or without his wife, to lead a simple life of meditation, seeking spiritual wisdom.  Then may come a final stage  when even that lifestyle is abandoned.  Reaching his seventies, he may become a sannyasi.  He puts on saffron robes, takes a staff and a begging bowl and begins a wandering life.

As for the Bauls of Bangladesh, these wandering mystics coming from both the Hindu and Muslim Sufi traditions, they too own nothing but their saffron robes and an ektara, a simple one stringed musical instrument.  They wander often in groups, singing of love and friendship, with longing for the one who dwells within and in all.  And whenever they arrive in a village, there is a party!

This is a rather simplified version of what happens in these other traditions, and of course there are many variations, but the essential theme is the same: the move, in the second half of life, to renunciation and homelessness.  The ultimate goal is spiritual wisdom, expressed in such terms as union with God, liberation from suffering, enlightenment.

In the Gospel reading, Jesus iseems to be sending the disciples into that final phase, a life of renunciation and homelessness, but they're also given the task of encouraging others to embark on that search for spiritual wisdom.  Repentance is not so much about sin, remorse and the resolve to try to live a better life, but rather, as metanoia, about a change in focus, a shifting of the gaze towards towards God and the beginning of a search for wisdom.

But what meaning can all this have for us, modern Westerners, who for the most part will live out our lives as householders, rather than retreating to forests or becoming renunciates?

I think it means that in the second half of life we do set out on our own search for spiritual wisdom, and part of that process is giving ourselves time for reflection and study, perhaps doing the occasional retreat, or seeking spiritual guidance when someone's teaching attracts us.

But what of that final renunciation?  Not everyone would come to that unless their search has been particularly intense and focused.  My feeling about that final renunciation is that it is not about a change of lifestyle, it is not about leaving home and family.  It is purely an inner matter.

The final renunciation is the walking away from all religious beliefs, from all images and concepts of God, from all desire for spiritual experience, even from that person regarded as spiritual guide or guru.  It is the entry into the cloud of unknowing, where the inner self stands naked, spiritually impoverished, before the mystery.  What happens there is beyond words, only hinted at by Jesus, when he says,

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven"

And afterwards? What comes to mind is the final picture and verse of Zen's Oxherding Pictures, where the one who has abandoned all, returns to the marketplace with 'bliss-bestowing hands', which fits so well with the idea of the disciples driving out demons and anointing the sick with oil and curing them.  

Sue