PENTECOST 8

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: PENTECOST 8
PROPER: 10B
ST. JOHN’S CHURCH
DATE: JULY 13, 1997

TEXT: Mark 6:7-13 - Jesus called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. . . . . So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

SEE ALSO: Amos 7:7-15 - “See I am setting a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel. . . .

ISSUE: Following Jesus’ rejection in Nazareth, he perhaps anticipates that his rejection in Jerusalem will come as well. In preparation he begins the training and commissioning of his own disciples who are sent out two by two. They are to preach repentance, a turning back to God, and to offer healing in a world that is dangerous, where people are fallen and subject to evil spiritedness. All who are baptized Christieans share in that ministry of discipleship. We are to call people to God and godliness and be non-anxious healers focused on the mission of Jesus Christ.

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In last week’s Gospel account in Mark, Jesus visited his own home town of Nazareth. He met with great resistance. While the people listened to him in the synagogue they took great offense at him and insulted him. He in turn shook the dust off his feet saying, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own hometown.” where these people did not know a good thing when they saw it.
Today the story continues. Jesus is well aware of his rejection in Nazareth, and he may well expect and anticipate the rejection he will be met with in Jerusalem and the Temple there. While carrying on his ministry and continuing to move on from Nazareth, Jesus now commissions his disciples, and begins their training as apostles, men sent to the towns and villages to carry on the work of his ministry. He actually shares his powers with them to be able to cast out evil spirits and to have a healing ministry.
Jesus gives the disciples some very specific instructions. They are not to carry any excess baggage. They are not to wear two tunics. They are to take no bread, nor carry any money in their belts. You get the distinct impression that the ministry they are about to accept is urgent. Little time for packing up, and they are to be as unencumbered as possible. They are to be very basic and in keeping with a ministry that will be appealing to the poor, for they themselves will be poor.
The disciples are directed, according to Mark, to carry a staff and to wear sandles. The staff according to some biblical scholars hints at their having a pastoral image, the shepherding image. But the staff carried and the wearing of sandles may also be in preparation for the fact that they will be facing some rough terrain.
The disciples are sent out two by two. People in Jesus’ time rarely traveled alone. It was much too dangerous. Bandits were lurking everywhere. In fact most people traveled in larger groups than two by two. Caravans were the safer way to travel. Remember the story of the Good Samaritan. The man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho alone is attacked by bandits and left for dead along the side of the road. Being in community was extraordinaryily important
When the disciples arrive at their destination, they are directed to settle in the place where they are welcomed. Hospitality was important in these days. It was honorable to take in travelers and sojourners and provide hospitatity. You might be traveling someday yourself. While the stranger was welcomed you hoped they would depart as friends. The disciples were dependent upon this rule of hospitality. However, if they were not welcomed they were to shake the dust off their feet. This custom of shaking the dust off the feet was done by Jews who had traveled into Gentile territory. On returning home they would shake the dust of alien territory off their feet before re-entering Israel so as not to bring in pagan impurity. Thus, Jesus uses this familiar custom. If the disciples meet with inhospitality in a particular place, they are simply to shake the dust off their feet as a warning - not a curse - and move on to more hospitable territory.
And so following these directions the disciples, two by two, unencumber and moving with urgency go off at the command of Jesus to proclaim the Kingdom of God. They preach repentance, that is the call to change or a turning back to to God. With the authority of Jesus they cast out evil spirits and cure the sick.
The tradition in Judaism and Christianity of people feeling and beinging called or commissioned to carry a Godly proclamation of some kind is very deeply rooted. In the Hebrew Scriptures reading from Amos there is again the commissioning of a very simple person. In the account, Amos receives a vision of God holding up a plumbline against the nation of Israel. What that image reveals is a nation that is out of plumb. God’s nation is crooked and warped. And Amos the dresser of sycamore trees is commissioned to be a prophet to speak out against this proud and presently affluent nation’s corruption and injustice. Amos is sent inspite of the great opposition of government officials, namely Amaziah the priest of Bethel, to call the nation back to God. They are to be warned that if they do not change the nation will fall. Amos feeling dreadfully unequipped and hardly thinking of himself as a prophet is sent forth anyway: “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”
These stories of commissioning are indeed a part of the the Judaic-Christian tradition. When we baptize a person or child they are marked as Christ’s own. We welcome them saying: “We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection and share with us in his eternal priesthood.” These are the words of calling the person into the shared ministry of which we are all a part. It is the lay persons ordination and commisssioning if you will.
What we as Christians need to be aware of and wonder about is just how out of plumb our nation and culture is today. It is a troubled world with many evil spirits that attract people to drugs, violence, the inability to be committed to lasting relationships, attracted to pornography and child abuse, the insidious racial prejudices that resist change. The culture knows many evil spirit that play havoc in people’s lives. The terrain is rough, very rough. But the mission is truly an urgent one. And we by virtue of our baptism are called to go and call people back to Godliness, to relationship with God, and to be healers. Perhaps that seems such a high calling when we think of ourselves as unprepared and ill equipped. But strangely enough, the disciples went and by the grace of God accomplished what Jesus had told them to do.
This past week I saw a film called “Eulee’s Gold.” It was about a man who was a bee keeper by trade. The great torment in Eulee’s life, however, was his family. He had a son who got mixed up with a bad crowd and landed in jail for a stupid robbery. His daughter-in-law had become severely addicted to drugs, and Eulee had to care for his grandchildren, one of whom was a rebelious teen-ager. In the midst of all this family tension, Eulee had to maintain his bee keeping business. He was constantly threatened with being stung. But Eulee maintained that you simply had to keep calm around the bees. They sensed you fears and anxieties and would become stirred up and sting. What Eulee had was a deep sense of calm and a moral and faithful commitment to what he believed to be right. Through Eulee and a loving friend, which he actually resisted at first but finally accedes to accept, there is a healing that takes place and the evil spirits are eventually cast out. Together the family carries on.
We live in a world where we are all by our human nature are fallen and subject to the evil spirits of the world. We are at risk everywhere of being stung and we get stung. We are tempted and succumb. We rage and complain. We often feel unequipped and unprepared for being ambassadors for anything much less than being the ambassadors of Christ in the world. Yet God persists in calling simple people: shepherds, dressers of sycamore trees, fishermen, and tax collectors. Those simple men and women of faith proclaim a faith of hope and resurrection that causes people to take note of Godliness.
It is important that we embrace Christ and that we stay in community with one another for support. It is important that we embrace the faith of God revealed in Christ and see the quiet determined calm of Jesus Christ, who perseveres in the midst of rejection and rebellion, but who carries on faithfully and lovingly. The terrain of life is often rough. We get bogged down in many encumbering distractions. We let our feelings be easily hurt. We complain of being ill-equipped and unprepared. Yet Christ still calls and sends his people. He bears witness to unencumbered life that is focused. It’s a rough road but it is manageable. There is rebellion and rejection. Just shake off the dust from your feet and move on. But to those who responded, who trusted God in Christ, and humbly walked with God - to them he gave the power and authority to be the people of God who in their fallenness were themselves raised and they turned others toward God and healed the sick and cured them.