Henri Nouwen was a best-selling author and retreat leader. At one point he was invited to spend some time with friends at Toronto’s Daybreak community – a “family” of six mentally challenged individuals and the four adults who lived with them. There he met a resident called Adam, who had a deep impact on him.

He wrote about it: “Adam is a 25-year-old man who can’t speak, can’t dress or undress himself, can’t walk alone, can’t eat without help. He does not cry or laugh. He suffers from severe epilepsy and, despite heavy medication, sees few days without major seizures.”

Initially Henri was afraid of Adam, but he goes on to say: “As my fears gradually lessened, a love emerged in me so full of tender affection that most of my other tasks seemed boring and superficial compared with the hours spent with Adam. Out of his broken body and broken mind emerged a most beautiful human being offering me a greater gift than I would ever offer him.”

“[My career was] so marked by rivalry and competition, so pervaded with compulsion and obsession, so spotted with moments of suspicion, jealousy, resentment and revenge.” But Adam, in his total vulnerability, taught him the gift of simplicity and peace, rooted more in being than in doing and more in the heart than in the mind.

Today’s gospel call to “carry no purse, no haversack, no sandals” is a call to simplicity, to get back to what is really essential.

Adam didn’t have much choice, his life was stripped down to its essentials by circumstance, but in that he was able to find the most important thing of all – a sense of his true worth and the deep peace that that brings.

We run the danger of not finding that, of getting wrapped up in making the right impression, fulfilling other people’s expectations, performing at the right level, measuring up to other people, getting the right things. We can live our lives as if these things define our worth, who we are, and we can forget that our worth ultimately comes from somewhere much deeper. All these things ultimately don’t matter – they are not essential, you are essential.

There is an interesting word that comes up a lot in religious literature – the word “relinquish”. I came across it so often that I looked it up in a footnote in the bible. It said “relinquish – literally to relax one’s grip”. Maybe that’s what we need to do – to relax our grip on all the things that preoccupy us so much, to make room to step back, to find that deeper sense of value that is there before all these things and to find the peace that comes with it.

The Lord’s challenge to us this day is “Unpack your bags and see what you really need for this once-in-a-lifetime journey you’re on.  See what’s slowing you down and wearing you out and keeping you from bringing to completion the good work the Lord has given you.” Get rid of that excess baggage and then get back on the road. The Lord will be with you and will be enough for you.

You will finish your journey well.  And you will make your little piece of the earth bloom!