Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Luke (9: 1-6) in which Jesus sends the Twelve out to proclaim the kingdom of God, giving them power and authority, telling them to take nothing for the journey.

Fr Paul says the Gospel tells us the apostles are to take no unnecessary things, not even a staff like Mark’s Gospel allowed them to do. They are to stay in any house which they enter and there is no mention like in Matthew’s Gospel that the labourer deserves his keep.

These stark instructions are an expression of their entire dependence on God in doing the work of God. The seriousness of their mission is marked also by the dire symbolic gesture of shaking the dust from their feet if they are rejected or turned away. The instruction that they should take no silver (Mark and Matthew have ‘copper’) is perhaps a hint that Luke is writing for a richer audience, which explains his regular warnings of the dangers of wealth.

Luke also in this Gospel twice mentions here their task of healing, which some understand as strengthening the possibility that the author of the Gospel is the physician, Luke.

Today, Fr Paul says, we might ask ourselves… Do I depend on God to do the work of God?