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 Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: July 13, 2003


TEXT: Mark 6:7-13 – He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.

ISSUE: Jesus sends out his disciples on a mission. They are unequipped with gear, but alive in the power and the spirit of Christ. They take the Good News that God’s Kingdom is coming and life can be radically different. They bestow healing. The passage is a real challenge to the church’s people (disciples) today to infiltrate the world, our communities, of today with the spiritual healing and hope that comes from the teaching and spirit of Jesus Christ.
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What a truly wonderful passage this is from the Gospel account of Mark! It just offers a wonderful richness of what Jesus calls his disciples to be and to do. In this passage they are sent out in two’s to proclaim the Good News and to bring healing to their various communities. Remember that last week I talked about how sometimes it was difficult for Jesus to proclaim the Good News in his own hometown among family and friends. The prophet Jesus was not welcomed in his own hometown; there was little real faith in him. Thus, he accomplished very little. The church folk today who become too familiar and comfortable with Jesus have a tendency in their complacency, and being lackadaisical, to that fails to radiate, to spread in our world the spirit and teaching of Jesus Christ. Notice the non-resistant energy that appears in this Gospel reading this morning. The disciples in response to the sending mission cast out many demons and anoint many who were sick and cure them.
What’s going on here? There’s a lot of meaning and rich background to this story. In the life and ministry of religious leadership, discipleship or followers have always been important. Turning back the pages of Scripture to the time of Moses, Moses selects 70 men from the Hebrews to assist him (Num. 11:4-29). They give Moses a hand in the midst of a lot of wandering folk who are afraid for their future in the wilderness. There is real precedence for the practice of selecting discipleship. Jesus, himself, would not have had much success with his own ministry if it were not for his own disciples. It made a significant group of followers that added significance and clout to his movement. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus actually sends out, like Moses, seventy disciples to begin teaching and healing in surrounding villages. (Luke 10:1-12) (Some accounts say 72 disciples.) In Mark’s Gospel account, Jesus sends out the famous twelve disciples, each one being a symbol of the Twelve Tribes of Israel carrying on the mission to the nations of the world. We are pretty sure by this time that Jesus had more than just twelve disciples.
Jesus sends these disciples out to be wanderers or passersby in the many surrounding villages. In the recently discovered Gospel of Thomas (Thom 42) there is one of the shortest of all the sayings attributed to Jesus, which says: “Become wanderers.” In your bulletin this morning, I have enclosed information about the Gospel of Thomas, which was discovered in 1945. (Please don’t read it now.) According to Mark, the disciples are to become wanderers finding their ways to surrounding villages, and settling for a period of time where they are welcomed to heal and to teach concerning the coming Kingdom, or Realm of God.
What is also particularly interesting is that they are not to have any gear with them. They are to carry no food, no extra clothes, or money; just wear sandals for the rough terrain. They are to be totally and completely unencumbered. They only carry with them the teachings and the spirit of healing that has been bestowed upon them. They were to settle where they were welcomed and treated with hospitality, and at the right time move on. If they were rejected, then they were to simply dust off their feet as a testimony against them, and move on. Dusting off one’s feet is what Jews did when crossing the border from pagan territory. It was a sign of retaining the purity of Israel, and in the case of the disciples then, a sign of retaining their integrity to carry on their mission in places where it would be more likely to be received. People in this period were actually expected to provide appropriate hospitality to strangers, for the purpose of protection, which was also considered to be honorable. It was likely then, in most instances that Jesus’ disciple would find hospitality. They were to be totally dependent and homeless, without being encumbered in anyway to begin their work.
Here’s still another important aspect of this mission, important for us to understand as well. Recall there was the belief in the hierarchy of beings: God at the top followed by the sons of God and archangels, followed by spirits evil and good, followed by human beings, and finally the animal world. What Jesus is doing here is elevating his disciples above the realm of evil spirits to the realm of sons and daughters of God with him. At the very least they are given the power over the evil spirits and the evil spiritedness of the world to cast out demons or evil spiritedness, to heal or restore the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised, the expendable people and peasantry to an honorable status in the sight of God and the Christ. The spirit of love, forgiveness, and acceptance is bestowed upon them. They are fully participating in the ministry of Jesus Christ. While they are likely to experience rejection, they will also participate in his glory.
Please understand what this means. When we participate in Holy Baptism, we receive the Holy Spirit of God to participate in the ministry of Jesus Christ:
v “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.” (BCP, p.308)
v Continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.
v Proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
v Seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor.
v Strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.

We are called with Christ and all of his saints and baptized folk of the church down through the centuries to understand the venerable position to which we are called. We are to infiltrate the world with the spirit of love, forgiveness, and justice. To do this you don’t need stuff: food, money, and finery. All you need is the spirit of God within you, which comes from the church, the sacraments, the absorbed teachings of Jesus, and a clear understand of your (and mine) commissioning by virtue of your baptism and your relationship with Jesus Christ as your Lord, AND OF COURSE, A BUDDY!
Jesus sent his disciples out two by two. I’m not sure that we have to take this literally, but what it means is that we need community. If someone were to ask, “Can you be a Christian without attending a church.” I would have to answer that as not really. We can have Christian values, Christian principles, virtues, and even a spiritual prayer life. But Jesus always worked and lived in a community. We need the church and one another to keep ourselves in check, to remember our humility, to be refreshed and to keep fresh in the teachings of our Lord and what the proclamation of the Good News is. Consider the work of those who put on the Bible School. I’m not absolutely sure the kids learn a whole lot of Bible verses, and scholastic knowledge. But they do learn and see co-operation among the staff of people working together to give the kids a loving atmosphere in the spirit of God. It becomes a forgiving loving community. You know, you don’t remember much about the facilities of your childhood schools. But you sure do remember what the teachers were like, and who the good ones were, and how they related to you.
Basically we give ourselves as part of a wonderful community. Granted we do give things, and as an institutional community we do get encumbered. We do all have our bad days, and our prejudices, but at the heart of us we must keep in tact the loving relationship we bring to friends, loved ones, and strangers. For first, Christ loved us, and our love and investment in others is what really counts as we proclaim a way of life that belongs to the Kingdom of God..
Notice how little the disciples have in this story: the clothes on their back, a staff and sandals. But they are lifted to the realm of God, with power over evil spiritedness, and are part of a community proclaiming wherever they go that God is loving, God is restoring, God is accepting, that there is coming and is near the Kingdom and Realm of God, into which all are welcome. “Hear that his most beloved voice saying, “Come, ye blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.” (Matt. 25:34)