When I went to college, I dreaded having a roommate my freshman year. My junior and senior years in high school were the first years that I had a room to myself at home, and I enjoyed the experience immensely. I didn't have to share anything with anyone!
Upon arriving at my freshman dorm, I found I had not one roommate, but two! The three of us couldn't have been more different, and we had to share a single room most of the time. As is the case with many freshman year roommates, those are the people I know the best from college.
When it was time to expand his ministry beyond himself, Jesus did not send his disciples out "one by one." Instead he sent them in pairs. Is this because he did not trust them to adhere to their mission and to his teaching if they were on their own? Or was it because they could draw strength from one another, especially if they were not accepted by the communities they entered?
Maybe Jesus sent his disciples out in pairs so that they would have to learn to share their time, money and talents in order to accomplish their mission, and be forced to get to know each other far better than they would continuing to follow Jesus as a group.
We learn from the book of Genesis that "it is not good for man to be alone." Although this phrase is usually applied to marriage, it is a reminder that it is not good for any of us to be alone, at least not completely. While we may resist depending on another person at work, at home, or in social settings, it is often when we have been forced to rely on someone else, and when someone else has been forced to rely on us, that we find our deepest relationships and most satisfying accomplishments.
Jesus calls us to follow him, but he also calls us to committed relationships with fellow human beings. We may not initially like who we are paired with, or we may find that someone we originally liked is more difficult to get along with than we thought.
We may also, of course, find that we are more difficult to get along with than we thought! But today's Gospel is telling me that this is part of what being fully Christian and fully human is all about --- letting ourselves be fully known, and loved and appreciated just as we are.
It is tempting, of course, to want to "go it alone" in just about every area of life. None of us likes to be inconvenienced by the needs, experience (or lack of it) and biases of another. And few of us enjoy being challenged by others who think they may have a better way of accomplishing an important task. Most of us don't even like to ask for directions when we are lost, let alone ask for help in our spiritual lives.
Yet Jesus seems to suggest that the best way to follow him is two by two, at least. This implies that we are most fully faithful when we are in some kind of committed community. It may be harder at first, but it may be the key to the greatest relationships and accomplishments of our lives. Bill Peatman writes from Napa. |