Mission and Blessing
It’s apparently a correct fact that 97% of the world adult population has heard of coca-cola, 72% of the world has seen a can of coca-cola and 51% of the world has tasted a can of coca-cola. Bearing in mind that the drink has only been around for less than 100 years, I wonder if God had given the task of world evangelization to the Coke company it would all be done by now.
It is a remarkable success story, but it has taken a lot of planning, a lot of money, a lot of jobs, and no doubt had to overcome many problems. Tonight’s reading from the Gospel of Luke (9:1-6) is a short account of Jesus sending out his 12 disciples, giving them power an authority to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.
This was mission 2000 years ago – go, take nothing for the journey, but rely on the hospitality of those you visit. If you don’t find hospitality, move on to somewhere else. It’s not a very well planned mission we might think. Today, we would probably phone ahead and find accommodation, get in touch with some nice members of a Church somewhere to make sure all our needs would be sorted out at our destination point. There would probably have been some training for the trip, maybe even some kind of exam or test.
But Jesus simply said ‘Go’ and told them to take nothing with them. But of course ‘Simply’ is a rather misleading word there ! As Jesus told them to go he was also telling them, without using words, a whole host of other things.
Firstly He was telling them to be confident in his care. Like any good teacher or friend, Jesus was not about to send them out on an impossible mission. It wouldn’t be easy, and there would be setbacks along the way, but one thing the disciples had learnt from Jesus was that he could be trusted. This section in Luke’s gospel comes well into the ministry of Jesus – the disciples have watched him heal people, they have watched him calming a storm – they knew his power, and they trusted him to stay alongside them.
And for that reason they could be courageous. Going around as a missionary can be very dangerous at times today. In some parts of the world many are still attacked for their faith. Perhaps in the West we could be criticised for not being very courageous in our faith – that is an inevitable consequence of practising a faith which is, in all honesty, a comfortable faith in our country today.
So the disciples were told to be confident and courageous, and they were also to be decisive. Many people plug away at things that seem to be getting nowhere. We are fortunate that there are such people at times, because God’s timing doesn’t always work at quite the same pace as we would like it to. But there is also a time to walk away, to recognise that something is not working.
Efforts and resources put into some projects could be far more profitably used when put into something different, and we must prayerfully seek out God’s will so that we know when it’s time to stop something that really isn’t working. Jesus told his disciples that if they were not going to receive a suitable welcome and hospitality, then they should move on. In other words they were released to move on to places where their work would be more successful.
And this gives us the sense of urgency with which Jesus is speaking. He hadn’t used the might of an organisation like coca-cola to do his marketing work. He had chosen a small number of people with all kinds of different backgrounds and educations and abilities.
And he had told them to go, go with courage, go with confidence, and go with an urgent determination to reach as many people as they possibly could.
As I suggested earlier if Jesus had chosen the professionals to do the work, perhaps they would have done it very differently, but any suggestion that he ever might have done such a thing would be a rejection of the gospel message.
Because Jesus came not to appeal just to the intellectuals, or to the well off, or to the lonely or poor or sick, he came to appeal to the hearts of everyone, and hearts can only ever be touched by people or events that are real to them.
Many people spend a lot of time doing great theological work, studying the Bible, studying the history and the different meanings of passages, they look for things that point them to ways in which Jesus lived in his time on earth, and much of this work is useful, because it does help to give a much clearer picture sometimes, but the most important response to the words and life of Jesus comes from the heart. It comes from a feeling inside that helps us know that Jesus came to offer something to everyone, and that that something has changed and is continuing to change us.
As Churches we are called to be mission centres for the communities we serve, and that is a great privilege, but with privilege comes responsibility as well, but it is not a responsibility we need to be afraid of. Just like his early followers Jesus gives us the confidence if we will trust him, he gives us the courage and the wisdom to speak his words, he gives us the power to make decisions as to where best we can serve him. He also gives us a sense of urgency which we so often lack.
One of the messages of this season of the Church year is that opportunities come and opportunities go, and we don’t know the time and the place where things will happen – we must be ready, and we must encourage others not to put off until tomorrow something that really belongs to today.
And the final verse of this short gospel reading that we heard tells us that the disciples went off and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere. In other words the work of these disciples was truly blessed …
One morning R.C. Chapman, a devout Christian, was asked how he was feeling. "I'm burdened this morning!" was his reply. But he seemed so happy that the questioner asked in surprise, "Are you really burdened, Mr. Chapman?" "Yes, but it's a wonderful burden - it's an overabundance of blessings for which I cannot find enough time or words to express my gratitude!"
Living in the knowledge that we are blessed by God is something that will change our personalities, it will change our behaviour, and it will inevitably bring the blessings we share on those around us. AMEN
It is a remarkable success story, but it has taken a lot of planning, a lot of money, a lot of jobs, and no doubt had to overcome many problems. Tonight’s reading from the Gospel of Luke (9:1-6) is a short account of Jesus sending out his 12 disciples, giving them power an authority to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.
This was mission 2000 years ago – go, take nothing for the journey, but rely on the hospitality of those you visit. If you don’t find hospitality, move on to somewhere else. It’s not a very well planned mission we might think. Today, we would probably phone ahead and find accommodation, get in touch with some nice members of a Church somewhere to make sure all our needs would be sorted out at our destination point. There would probably have been some training for the trip, maybe even some kind of exam or test.
But Jesus simply said ‘Go’ and told them to take nothing with them. But of course ‘Simply’ is a rather misleading word there ! As Jesus told them to go he was also telling them, without using words, a whole host of other things.
Firstly He was telling them to be confident in his care. Like any good teacher or friend, Jesus was not about to send them out on an impossible mission. It wouldn’t be easy, and there would be setbacks along the way, but one thing the disciples had learnt from Jesus was that he could be trusted. This section in Luke’s gospel comes well into the ministry of Jesus – the disciples have watched him heal people, they have watched him calming a storm – they knew his power, and they trusted him to stay alongside them.
And for that reason they could be courageous. Going around as a missionary can be very dangerous at times today. In some parts of the world many are still attacked for their faith. Perhaps in the West we could be criticised for not being very courageous in our faith – that is an inevitable consequence of practising a faith which is, in all honesty, a comfortable faith in our country today.
So the disciples were told to be confident and courageous, and they were also to be decisive. Many people plug away at things that seem to be getting nowhere. We are fortunate that there are such people at times, because God’s timing doesn’t always work at quite the same pace as we would like it to. But there is also a time to walk away, to recognise that something is not working.
Efforts and resources put into some projects could be far more profitably used when put into something different, and we must prayerfully seek out God’s will so that we know when it’s time to stop something that really isn’t working. Jesus told his disciples that if they were not going to receive a suitable welcome and hospitality, then they should move on. In other words they were released to move on to places where their work would be more successful.
And this gives us the sense of urgency with which Jesus is speaking. He hadn’t used the might of an organisation like coca-cola to do his marketing work. He had chosen a small number of people with all kinds of different backgrounds and educations and abilities.
And he had told them to go, go with courage, go with confidence, and go with an urgent determination to reach as many people as they possibly could.
As I suggested earlier if Jesus had chosen the professionals to do the work, perhaps they would have done it very differently, but any suggestion that he ever might have done such a thing would be a rejection of the gospel message.
Because Jesus came not to appeal just to the intellectuals, or to the well off, or to the lonely or poor or sick, he came to appeal to the hearts of everyone, and hearts can only ever be touched by people or events that are real to them.
Many people spend a lot of time doing great theological work, studying the Bible, studying the history and the different meanings of passages, they look for things that point them to ways in which Jesus lived in his time on earth, and much of this work is useful, because it does help to give a much clearer picture sometimes, but the most important response to the words and life of Jesus comes from the heart. It comes from a feeling inside that helps us know that Jesus came to offer something to everyone, and that that something has changed and is continuing to change us.
As Churches we are called to be mission centres for the communities we serve, and that is a great privilege, but with privilege comes responsibility as well, but it is not a responsibility we need to be afraid of. Just like his early followers Jesus gives us the confidence if we will trust him, he gives us the courage and the wisdom to speak his words, he gives us the power to make decisions as to where best we can serve him. He also gives us a sense of urgency which we so often lack.
One of the messages of this season of the Church year is that opportunities come and opportunities go, and we don’t know the time and the place where things will happen – we must be ready, and we must encourage others not to put off until tomorrow something that really belongs to today.
And the final verse of this short gospel reading that we heard tells us that the disciples went off and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere. In other words the work of these disciples was truly blessed …
One morning R.C. Chapman, a devout Christian, was asked how he was feeling. "I'm burdened this morning!" was his reply. But he seemed so happy that the questioner asked in surprise, "Are you really burdened, Mr. Chapman?" "Yes, but it's a wonderful burden - it's an overabundance of blessings for which I cannot find enough time or words to express my gratitude!"
Living in the knowledge that we are blessed by God is something that will change our personalities, it will change our behaviour, and it will inevitably bring the blessings we share on those around us. AMEN
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