“You who are on the road must have a code that you can live by.”
That is the opening line of a 1970 song by Crosby, Stills and Nash. Not that I remember back that far.
It was 20 years later that I heard it and started wondering about a code to live by, what is known as a rule of life.
Now we all have a code to live by, a rule of life. Granted, some are more disciplined, thought out and intentional than others, but we all have a rule, a way we organize our life to get at what we want and long for.
Even if it is just getting up in the morning and going to bed at night, and maybe brushing our teeth some where in between, it says something about what is important to us.
Now Christianity is an ancient and extremely diverse faith tradition, and over two millennia quite a large and eccentric assortment of rules of life have come and gone and developed.
This past week we celebrated the feast of Saint Benedict, he wrote a rule of life for monastic communities in the 6th century. His rule is still practiced and adapted through out the world today, by monks, clergy and laity. Our Prayer Book is heavily influenced by the Benedictine tradition.
My own rule of life has its roots in the Franciscan tradition.
The Gospel lesson today from Mark is one the great passages of scripture upon which all the ancient rules of life based themselves.
Both Matthew and Luke have similar passages, but they do not allow for the ownership of shoes, where as Mark does allow for one pair of sandals.
The great debate in ancient monastic traditions was often over whether shoes could be owned or not. The Cistercians were the Benedictine subgroup who did not wear shoes, thus earning the title of discalced, meaning shoeless, as in Joe Jackson.
That reminds me of a Forest Gump quote, “Never own anything, rent your shoes if you can.”
Now it might seem silly to argue about the owning or not owning of one pair of shoes, but it is not really about shoes. It is about possessions and how possessions can encumber and prevent the journey.
To be discalced, to be shoeless, wasn’t about not having shoes, it was about not having anything, traveling light.
This is where the monastic vow of poverty and the Christian virtue of simplicity find their origin.
Voluntary poverty and intentional simplicity are important not because possessions are evil, they are not.
Poverty and simplicity are important because possessions are a barrier, a wall, which isolates us from one another, they make us become protective rather than proactively generous. Preemptive graciousness is the goal, because God is preemptively gracious. Possessions and possessiveness lead to a very different kind of preemptive.
Holy simplicity is ultimately about a radical unprotectedness, with room to receive and give hospitality, risking the vulnerability that allows for deep wounds, the wounds of the cross.
Traveling light for the journey. Not just any journey, but the apostolic journey of carrying news, the good news of God’s Kingdom coming near in the person of Jesus Christ, and through him their is healing and liberation for a world in need of that medicine, that anointing.
That is why a code to live by is needed, a rule of life that makes room for the apostolic journey.
How will we design our lives to make that apostolic journey our priority, our goal?
Mark’s gospel gives some guidance.
First: We are sent by Jesus; we are his presence extending out into the world; we are the infection of grace, the Jesus germ. That is first and foremost.
Second: We don’t travel alone, not only is God with us, we have each other.
Third: Travel light, be careful of how possessions possess us, we are the message, our lives carry Jesus, how we live is the message. Its not about our stuff, it’s about the Light of Christ shining through us for others to receive.
Fourth: We need other people. We are to be open to and respectful of the hospitality and gifts of others. We carry the gift to give but we also receive the gift from others, the apostolic mission is a two way street. For someone else to receive Jesus from us we also have to receive them into our lives as well, love is like that.
Fifth: Accept rejection and move on, God is the judge, not us, not us.
Sixth: We are to proclaim that we all can turn to God. All of us.
Seventh: We work for the end of all oppression.
And eighth: We care for the sick and bring anointing oil, healing.
That is the broad outline of what the apostolic rule of life looks like.
Be Jesus to the world, bring healing and freedom.
There is another source to draw wisdom from in how we make our rule of life.
It is not a literal book; it is the book of other people.
Who are the people who brought the Gospel into our life?
Imitate them, pass the gift along.
Who are the people who brought anointing, healing into our life? Imitate them, pass the gift along.
Who are the people who have ended oppression in our lives? Imitate them, pass the gift along.
We are that gift.
The Gospel is not a series of words and ideas strung together, the Gospel is a person, and that person of Jesus is passed along and received in relationships. We are the gift that is passed along. Be the gift.
That is the code to live by; that is the rule that is life.