Pentecost 5

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

SEASON: Pentecost 5
PROPER: 10B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: July 16, 2000


TEXT: Mark 6:7-13 - Mission of the Disciples
“He 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.”

ISSUE: - Jesus the itinerant beggar sends out his disciples after leaving Nazareth behind. Their specific mission is to go to the people, unlike the present effort of the church to get people to come to us. It is a venture in permeating the villages with the hope that the Kingdom or Empire of God has come. They cast out demons, healing, and restoring the lost, the least, and the last. They come to the sinners, i.e. the disenfranchised to give them hope that God is come among them, and they are loved. The story calls the church today to a mission beyond itself to being in relationship with others in the world, bearing witness to hope and love.
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The passage from Mark follows Jesus’ rejection by his own community in Nazareth. Rejected by his own and saying, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own and by his own relatives and his family,” Jesus continues his ministry with his disciples undaunted. He simply move on to other villages to do his work of preaching the message that the Kingdom, Realm, or Empire of God is imminent. In Mark’s account for this morning, he now sends his disciples out to the world with a specific mission that continues the mission of proclamation that the Empire of God is happening. The preaching and the healing are sure signs of that hope. It is one of the first accounts of the evangelistic efforts of the early Christian community, and is somewhat different from the evangelistic effort of the church today. Today we sort of reach out, the familiar evangelistic term is “outreach.” Jesus’ brand of evangelism wasn’t reaching out, but a more specific going out to be with those in need.
Jesus sends his disciples out two by two, and they are ordered not to take with them any food, bags, or money. According to Mark they may wear sandals and carry a staff. They are to go where they are welcomed and assured hospitality. They are to stay there for a period. If they are not welcomed, they are to promptly move on shaking the dust of that unwelcoming place off of their feet. Where they do settle, they are to preach repentance, that is preparation for change, and taking on a new life. They are to heal and annoint with oil. They have been given authority to cast out, to eliminate demons.
It appears that Jesus is sending out his disciples, The Twelve, thought maybe to be a code word for the church by Mark, to begin the reign of God. It is a deliberate effort to proclaim that the Realm of God or Empire of God has begun. The disciples are sent two by two. This arrangement was primarily for safety reasons. Traveling in this time was extremely dangerous. Bandits were prevalent on lonely roads as the Parable of the Good Samaritan bears witness. In the missionary endeavor it also gave needed companionship in the effort.
Sending the disciples out without bags, food, or money gives a real impression of the urgency of the mission. Whether this urgency comes from Jesus or the Mark’s early church we can’t be too sure, but the belief that the Kingdom, Realm, Empire of God was a hand was a significant belief of the time. They were to have sandal and a staff would also imply that they were sent out over some very rough and dangerous terrain.
What is of unique significance is the fact that the disciples are given authority over demonic forces and unclean spirits. In the Greek community demonic forces could be disease or evil spirits. In the more Jewish communities, the demons were things that made a person impure or unclean. The giving of the disciples power and authority over unclean and demonic spirits was a very special authority. We need to understand the hierarchical structure in the beliefs of the period. In that structure there was God at the top. Then, other gods, archangels, sons of God. At the third level were angels, spirits, good and bad demons. Humans were at the fourth level, and below that creatures lower than humans. Thus, to have power and authority over the spirit and demon world, you had to be a being from a higher realm. Mark and the early church believed Jesus to be a Son of God, and therefore had the ability to heal and to cast out demons. The disciples in this passage are having their status elevated to share in with the authority of Jesus over the demons, unclean spirits. Their status, according to Mark, is a significantly elevated status. That’s fascinating.
The disciples are sent out to the surrounding villages, as if they themselves are sons of God, to bring healing and hope to peasant peoples with a power over the fact that they are sinners, sick, and demon possessed with unclean spirits. Where they are welcomed they have power and authority. Where they are rejected, they simply move on, shaking the dust off of their feet. Whenever a journeying Jew returned from Gentile, pagan, territory and re-entered the Holy Land they would shake the dust, that is the impurities of pagan territory, off of their feet so as not to pollute Palestine. The disciples in this story are to shake dust off their sandals when they are rejected and move on. Where the disciples were received, they were to accept the hospitality, which was expected and a part of the culture of this period.
Notice what is going on in this passage. It’s really fascinating, and eye opening. You have Jesus portrayed as little more than a mendicant homeless beggar proclaiming that the Reign of God is coming. People need to change (repent) to be prepared to receive it. He sends out his disciples two by two, also as homeless beggars, to infiltrate the villages and the homes of the surrounding territory with the same message, and with an authority to heal and cast out evil spirits. Get the picture, these men are going to peasants, who are marginalized, expendable, no accounts. They are going to a people who are shamed, without honor, hungry, lonely, and often people who are defiled. They are sent to sinners. Mind you, sinners were not necessarily bad, evil, or even immoral people. Sinners were simply the poor, and those who could not keep all the purity rules of the many Jewish laws. They were the sick, the lame, the blind, the deaf and dumb. They were the lepers and disenfranchised. They were the unclean and the impure. They were the retarded, the mentally disturbed, and the impoverished, the landless. They disciples are sent to mingle, to eat with, and make a home with, to create an “at-home-ness” with the least, the last, and the lost. They were to assure them that the Realm of God was with them, be prepared to accept it. They cast out the sense that these people are unworthy, unclean, unacceptable in the sight of a loving, forgiving embracing God who calls them into his bosom.
The disciples, The Twelve, the early church (?), is seen as in partnership with the homeless wandering beggar like Jesus, who is Christ, and Son of God. They share in also being sons of God, sent to an alienate forlorn folk to bring them hope, love, forgiveness, and a raising up, a resurrection experience. The disciples live with them, eat with them, share with them, the bring a a cleansing, a hope, a love, a presence of God who will be their salvation. They are giving meaning and purpose, an honor, and a sense of salvation from worthlessness, from uselessness, from being expendable and unimportant. The sons of God bring the very God to the lost, the least, the last. That was their mission.
It is interesting that the disciples are sent out. They, like Jesus are wanderers. They are those who passersby who have an incredible sense of calling as sons of God, related and in relationship with God, to establish relationship with others that raises them up into the presence of God’s Realm. In the 1940’s an ancient manuscript was found that was called The Gospel of Thomas. It contains a number of sayings, and parables that were attributed to Jesus. In The Gospel of Thomas, Jesus’ shortest saying is “Be a wanderer.” Fascinating! The earliest mission was that of Jesus and the Twelve as “wanderers” in a world that was perceived as polluted and unclean. Where the band wanders, cleansing, healing, hope, love, forgiveness, honor, is given. That was the mission of the early church community.
When we think of mission today or the calling of the church it is often seen in terms of sending money and resources to some far off land. I remember the excitement as a child in our Sunday School of putting coins in our Lenten Mite Boxes, to send money to Bishop Gordon of Alaska so that he could buy an airplane to travel to distant Alaskan villages to proclaim the Gospel to the poor native Americans. They church was big into sending help to Africa. Times have changed. The African nations and churches are quite strong today, and really have a thing to two to assist and advise the American Church. Today our mission is little closer as we think of the poor and disenfranchised in our own cities. But notice that we still seem to distance ourselves from the need. The mission is often perceived as somewhere else. We talk about mission as “outreach.” The image I have of outreach is often a kind of handout ministry. We sit in our own comfortable cars and homes, and reach out to the poor, the needy, the disenfranchised, and then move on. We are more often than not in a position of keeping our distance from the impoverished or needy, the polluted, sick, infirm.
The other side or aspect of how we often perceive of mission is in getting the people we are trying to reach to come to us. In discussions of the church’s mission, it is often seen as an all out attempt to get the other person, the sinner, to come to church. “LET’S MEET AT GOD’S HOUSE THIS SUNDAY,” as the proverbial church sign says. Lots and lots of energy goes into programs designed to get people to come to church, primarily the “Boomers,” the “Xer’s,” and “Gen NeXt.” These movements aren’t all bad I suppose. I sure know that a full church says more to the community and world, than an empty one does. Yet note well that the mission of the Twelve was not to get people to go to synagogue so far as we know. Jesus sure used the synagogue as a place to teach; he did get run off a time or two. Yet when Jesus teaches the crowds, it is often done as a wanderer. He goes to the broken and the lost. He eats with them, and enters into their space. He comes into their proximity.
Do we need the church, the temple, the synagogue? Sure we do. It’s our place of worship, and our place of instruction and learning. It’s our contact place with God. It’s a place very different from and unlike the other service organizations of the world and community. But the God who loves and teaches us, and makes us Sons and Daughters sends us out not as distanced “reachers-outers,” but as sent, wanderers, passersby. We are sent to the sinner, that is, people different from ourselves and who don’t share our lifestyles. We are sent to have relationship and to eat with those different from ourselves. We are sent to gays and lesbians, to Blacks, Jews, Hindus, Hispanics, to the poverty stricken, to the depressed, to the lonely in the nursing home, to the AIDs victims, to the divorced, to the orphaned, to the relative we find hard to take and just accept them. We are sent like disciples with a minimal baggage, with just ourselves and the love of God in us to wonder in a crooked world that is irrevocably warped and can’t stand up straight to the plumb line and be in all of our own brokenness, the sons and daughters of a loving caring, merciful, and compassionate God.
Do we really know the poor, the sinner, the disenfranchised of our time? Do we dare to shed all that protects us to have and enter into relationships with others different from ourselves with the shear purpose of loving and accepting, and daring to wipe away what for us seems polluting and unclean? Do we dare to sit at the table with them and feast in simple love? This love right here in our midst is the first step in enter the Realm of our compassionate God.