Sermon Notes: Aug 23, 2009

Excerpts from Sermon: “Excess Baggage” (or, “No Excess Baggage”)
August 23, 2009 -- Text: Mark 6: 7-13
(also read Matthew 6: 25-34 to get a sense of God providing)

“We want to carry EXCESS BAGGAGE...
Jesus was sending them out on an important and life changing task and in his telling them what to take and what not to take he was telling them that the mission was the most important thing. He was saying that if they carried “excess baggage", then just as you have to pay extra to carry more on a plane, that if they carried “excess baggage” then they would pay by compromising the mission. It was the mission that would suffer because of their “excess baggage”. The mission must come first.”
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Look at what he told them to take and not to take. Verses 8-9…
It seems he was saying to them go and CREATE the spirit of giving and hospitality – give people the “space” to open their hearts and their homes and give – for that was and is the message that they were to proclaim ----that God’s gift of grace and life is freely given to all.
{How do you create a ‘spirit’ in which hospitality is central?”}
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About the mission, as one paraphrase puts it: "Don't think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment."
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The world “impediment” once meant “baggage”. And that is the point of Jesus’ admonition to the disciples then and to his disciples now.
He is saying don’t have “excess baggage” that will hinder or impede your carrying out the mission of spreading the message of grace and love.
“Excess baggage” is that which hinders or distracts or impedes your ability to move freely and that which causes you to divide your attention.
Obviously, that is different for each person and we must discern what our ‘excess baggage’ may be.
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Ours is a world of “incidentals and accessories”…
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The question of the week that Jesus raises is: What are those impediments to us carrying out the mission of sharing the Good News?
Or,
How is it that we can have “NO Excess Baggage” as we are about the journey of being faithful followers of Christ?
(Or, as the popular commercial says, “What’s in your wallet?”, or in this case, “What’s in your bag?”)
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A possible paraphrase of the Gospel reading:
Jesus called the disciples of 2009 together and sent them out 2 x 2 to be his ambassadors.
And he ordered them:
“Don’t take anything with you on the mission that you don’t need. Don’t take anything that will burden or hinder or distract you from the mission of proclaiming the Good News to which you are sent.
“Pack your bags light, so as not to have a penalty of ‘excess baggage’ charged to the mission, thereby weakening the message.
“Be wary of impediments that burden you. Take that which is essential to be about the mission, mainly that which will get you there – ALL else will be provided, for God provides --- remember the lilies and the birds and remember the manna in the wilderness.
“Travel light that the mission may get the whole of you undivided attention. But most of all travel on the mission.
“My disciples, GO, spread the message that opens hearts. Create space within each person to let love blossom and grow – for it is in sharing and giving of the love of God that you will be provided for and God’s love spread.”
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Prayer: O God, we are charged to travel light but we overburden ourselves. Guide us as we throw away our ‘excess baggage’ and get to the essentials of life….” Amen