As always, Jesus doesn’t make any “sense” here.  Telling his emissaries to go out into the world without any resources or backup.  Without protection.  Without even a few coins to buy a bit of bread.  They need to rely only on others’ hospitality.  And then they need to count on being abused and...

The writer Anthony de Mello offers a simple story: A man who took great pride in his lawn found himself with a large crop of dandelions.  He tried every method he knew to get rid of them.  Still, they plagued him.  Finally he wrote to the Department of Agriculture.  He enumerated all the things he...

Jesus, it turns out, was probably an embarrassment to his family.  They’ve heard that Jesus “has gone out of his mind,” so they have come to “restrain him,” according to earlier information in Mark.  Perhaps the family has been listening to folks like the Pharisees who speculate that Jesus is...