Ezra 9:5-9 /Luke 9:1-6
Whenever we have to leave home to go somewhere, we would at least make sure that we will bring along whatever we need.
Whether going to the workplace, or for a social outing or to visit someone, we would have done a mental check-list. And of course the further we go, the longer the check-list would be and the more things we would bring along.
When Jesus sent His disciples out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal, He told them to take nothing for the journey.
If we were in their shoes, what would we be thinking about? Maybe nothing at all, because we would be too stunned to think at all. How can we go out on a mission without bringing anything for the journey?
But when we come to think about it, whenever we go off somewhere, what we lack we can make up for it somehow.
More so when it is for a journey on a mission for God. It was for the disciples to have the faith in God that He will provide for them in whatever they lack.
In the 1st reading, Ezra admitted that the crimes of the people have increased until they are higher than their heads and their sin has piled up to heaven.
It seemed that the people had thought about everything they wanted for themselves but left out God in their lives.
When we have too much of everything, God is reduced to almost nothing. But when we don't have anything, then God becomes everything.