by Brian Flanagan, Fiat Ventures
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Macaroni and Cheese. Bacon and Eggs. Sausage and Peppers. Peanut Butter and Jelly. Mashed Potatoes and Gravy. Mmmmm I’m so hungry. Sorry, I guess I’d better start writing the blog now.
Photo : John Cope via Flickr
Batman and Robin. Tom and Jerry. Spongebob and Patrick. Ernie and Bert. Mickie and Minnie. Abbot and Costello. Mario and Luigi. (And all those foods I mentioned above). All of these are great on their own, but when they’re paired up with their iconic partners, there’s no stopping them.
In the Gospel this week, we see Jesus sending out the 72 disciples in pairs to go out in ministry. But couldn’t he have covered twice as much ground if he had sent them out individually as Lone Ranger disciples? Wouldn’t more people have been impacted? Probably not.
A while after creating Adam, God says that it is not good for man to be alone, and he creates Eve. Adam and Eve – the first Dynamic Duo. So from the beginning, it’s been built into us to depend on each other.
In addition to having someone to play cards with and for navigational support (no GPS), think about how much more confidence those disciples must have had going out and ministering to people, knowing they had a partner they could rely on. Let’s say a pair of them got to a town and met a high school teen. Partner 1 might start up a conversation about sports, movies, and favorite vacation spots, without being able to make a good connection. Then the teen might mention playing cello first chair in the orchestra at school, and it just so happens that Partner 2 played viola all throughout growing up, so they talk about that for a while and start to form a friendship. Then eventually when that teen is having a tough day, Partner 2 has a chance for a great heart-to-heart conversation and an opportunity to pray with them.
Maybe Partner A from another pair that went out gets really nervous meeting new people, and Partner B loves it. Partner A will make a lot more connections this way than he would have on his own.
Or Partners I and II from another pair. Let’s say Partner II is the most captivating speaker of the whole bunch, he’s met everybody in town and knows their names and life stories by the first weekend, and people can’t get enough of him. But Partner I can hold him accountable and ask, “Hey bud, when’s the last time you took some time just to sit and pray by yourself? You know we can’t give what we don’t have, right?”
