The One Thing They Took With Them

July 3, 2022

Hope Lutheran Church

Luke 10:1-11, 16-21

The One Thing They Took with Them

Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Today we hear the story of Jesus sending 70 followers out on a mission. Before they head out, Jesus gives them instructions. It will not be an easy journey. “I’m sending you out like lambs in the midst of wolves,” Jesus warns.

It’s a depiction of vulnerability. Being a disciple of Jesus doesn’t come with a super hero’s cape. They won’t be endowed with a protective, heavenly aura. The same holds true for us. When we’re baptized, we’re sealed by the Holy Spirit. But we don’t receive a protective force field around us, keeping us secure from all earthly harm. Following our mission in Christ’s name, we maintain a critical vulnerability. This susceptibility helps us, actually. We grow in compassion to others who are poor and sick and marginalized. There are many wolves out there. And also many lambs.

Secondly, Jesus tells them to travel light. REALLY light. He says, “Don’t take a money purse with you. Don’t pack a bag. Don’t even take an extra pair of shoes.” Again, it creates a very vulnerable atmosphere. He’s sending them into the midst of a hostile world with no means of self-support. Instead, into whichever town they enter, Jesus wants them to trust – trust in the care that will come to them. Enter the first house that opens its doors.

“Take nothing with you,” Jesus instructed. But we’ll see that there was one thing they took with them.

I’ve been reading a book that’s captured my thoughts. The book is entitled "All that She Carried" by Tiya Miles. The book describes the history of a very old cotton sack dating to the time of slavery in South Carolina. The sack turned up at a flea market in the early 2000’s. A message was embroidered in the worn and stained sack. The woman discovered it there realized that the sack traced a remarkable family legacy from the days of slavery.

The sack has come to be identified as Ashley’s Sack. It records what happened when a nine-year-old girl named Ashley was sold and the final gift her mother gave her. This story was hand embroidered onto the sack by Ashley’s granddaughter, Ruth Middleton in 1921. She stitched this story:

My great grandmother Rose

mother of Ashley gave her this sack when

she was sold at age 9 in South Carolina

it held a tattered dress 3 handfulls [sic] of

pecans a braid of Roses hair. Told her

It be filled with my Love always

she never saw her again

Ashley is my grandmother

Ruth Middleton

1921

Ashley’s Sack tells a story of a mother’s love. Rose was powerless to prevent the sale of her nine-year-old daughter. Ashley was going to be sent out like a lamb in the midst of hostile wolves, and there was nothing Rose could do. Very quickly, in the few remaining moments they had together in this earthly life, Rose assembled a care package. It contained practical items as well as an emotional connection to the mother who loved her. The tattered dress would cover and protect Ashley. The pecans were a portable and relatively non-perishable food to provide her with nourishment. The hair braid was something Rose’s frightened and lonely daughter could keep close to remember and feel her mother.

When the sack was discovered in the flea market, the dress, the pecans, and the braid of Rose’s hair were no longer within it. But one thing remained. The bag will forever be filled with Rose’s love. Ashley’s Sack is a legacy of a family’s love and resilience through the unimaginably cruel and terrible trial of American slavery. After the pecans had been consumed and the fibers of the tattered dress were exhausted, the invisible strands of love from her mother continued to sustain Ashley. The sack is what she kept. She kept it and passed it down as her most treasured heirloom. “It be filled with my love always.” That was the legacy. That love passed down through the generations all the way to her granddaughter, Ruth. The love in the sack had not diminished.

Jesus directed his apostles not to take a purse or a bag or a pair of sandals. But there was one thing the 70 apostles took with them. It never diminished in quantity, even when they gave it away. That one item was the peace of Christ. Jesus’ peace went with them. Like Rose’s love in Ashley’s sack, the invisible peace of Jesus went with them and it never abandoned them.

What is this peace of Christ? On the night of Jesus’ birth, the heavenly angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, PEACE among people.” And on the night of his arrest, Jesus said to his disciples, “PEACE I leave with you; my PEACE I give to you. I do not give you as the world gives.” After Jesus rose from the dead, the first words from his mouth when he met his disciples were, “PEACE be with you.”