Mark 6:7-13  

This week's gospel is a commissioning of the disciples to spread the ministry of Jesus – teaching, healing and casting out demons. It seems rather harsh conditions under which Jesus sends out his disciples. They are to carry nothing but a staff – a walking stick – and to trust completely to the hospitality that they will encounter. For the disciples going out on their mission, it is a challenge to their faith and their trust that God will provide for them. The act of sending out the disciples can also be seen as a challenge to the towns and people that the disciples visited. A challenge for them to fulfil their duty of hospitality – of welcoming the stranger and caring for those in need. By travelling without a ‘fallback position’ the disciples are utterly at the mercy of those they encounter but there is an implicit demand on the other to extend hospitality to the one who seeks it.

How would the disciples be greeted in our world today if they arrived in a country or town with no food, no possessions and calling on the hospitality of the place in which they had arrived? Does this sound familiar? There are refugees and asylum seekers who arrive on our borders and seek the hospitality of our country. They are fleeing inhospitality – often starvation, war, persecution, poverty – and they ask for welcome and hospitality. Unfortunately, in the culture of fear and intolerance that has developed, they are not met with welcome and hospitality; they are met with obstacles, rejection and ill treatment.

The gospel passage challenges us to continue the mission Jesus entrusted to the twelve ….. how can we make a difference in the lives of others?