Transcription
He’s fulfilling particular roles as he goes. He’s teaching, he’s preaching, and he’s healing. It’s like he’s on his own little tour, so to speak.
Now, when I think of these roles or offices, they’re fairly common to us. When we think of Jesus teaching, healing, and preaching, this is Jesus at his normal. This isn’t weird or him doing something that’s strange, but he’s doing the necessary groundwork, the everyday trucking along, doing what God has sent him to do.
Now, there’s a particular label which gets used that really applies to what he’s doing about proclaiming. He’s heralding. Now, those of us in Hurley will think, oh, I know what a herald is. It’s like the town crier. Used to walk around with a bell, with announcements, telling people what’s happening, when, that Mrs. Jones just had a cow born, and if you want a piece of that cow, there will be an opportunity further down. It’s one of those, but this job for Jesus, this proclamation he’s making, is about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the Father.
Now, not to denigrate the town crier and the important role that the town crier had, but I’d like to think that Jesus’ role is a little bit more important than whether or not Mrs. Jones had a fire in her barn last week. Now, Jesus goes forth, but there’s an issue, because he is only one man, and yes, he’s the Son of God, but he can only be in one place at a time, and verse 36 points out that problem. The people are coming in crowds. Jesus is teaching, preaching, heralding, and healing all of this again and again and again and again, and if you think he’s tired, you haven’t even scratched the surface. He is publicly helping and healing people. He is listening to their pain, their hurt. He is seeing the face of disease every day. If you don’t think this is grinding on him, like sandpaper, a little bit every day, and so what does he do? He makes a decision that God makes all the time. He partners with someone.
When we look at that scripture in the Old Testament, where God chooses Abraham, when God picks him, God commits to Abraham and Sarah, I am going to partner with you. I am going to choose to be with you along this journey of life. Jesus is choosing the disciples to partner with him in proclaiming the good news, in teaching about what God is requiring, and in healing and the casting out of demons. He is, yes, the Son of God, and yes, he could have kept on going and kept on going and kept on going. He has the power, but Jesus makes an earth-shattering decision to partner with humanity, to choose to work with humans. Now, this is nothing new. Like I said, God partners with the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all throughout scripture. There is the partnership of the judges and God. There’s the prophets and God. God works with us. God chooses to work with us. And that’s not a strategic decision as much as it is a decision that ignores the knowledge God has of humanity. Because we know how flawed we are. We know how imperfect we are. And if we know it, God knows it so much more. And yet God, in God’s infinite wisdom, in God’s greatness, God chooses to work with us, individually and together. And yes, there’s this element where God ignores the flaws and partners anyway. God chooses.
So if you’ve ever been to a register at any store, and all of a sudden you’re sitting there and sitting there, and you’re waiting for a while, could the person who’s running the register do it all on their ones for the whole day? I’m sure they could. But what do they do, usually, if the line gets too big? They ask for help. Now, God isn’t asking for help. God is asking for partners. God is asking humanity to come with me. Join me in this ministry. He gives the disciples, that is, Jesus gives the disciples, authority over unclean spirits, the ability to cast them out, the ability to cure diseases, sickness, and then sends them into the world. He gives them power and authority to go into the community and do what he was doing, to help those crowds without a shepherd. He gives them a guidebook for how they’re supposed to do this, how they’re supposed to be, how they’re supposed to help.
Now, before we get our hackles up about the whole statement about Samaritans and the Gentiles, Jesus knows the endgame, knows that Paul is going to take care of that part, knows that that will take care of itself. But the immediate mission, the immediate moment, is the lost sheep of Israel. He goes and tells his disciples to use what they were given, to use the power and authority that God had given them. And Jesus even deals with the temptations that they’ll face, the temptation to take payment, the temptation to selfishly use this authority that they’ve been given. Now, I get it. When we look at this moment, there is a lot of authority and a lot of trust being put on the disciples. And if you paid attention to them up to this point, you’re kind of waiting for them to be, well, the disciples. They’re going to find a way to kind of mess things up a little bit, kind of do things a little wrong. I’m waiting for Peter to say something to Jesus about, well, I thought about doing this and tried doing it, but it didn’t work, so I quit and walked away. You know, Peter or the other disciples, but they embrace this. They go out, they put their trust in their Lord. Even Judas is empowered and sent. And even Judas, and we know how his story ends, goes out and does this. The disciples here are partners in ministry with Jesus. They’re not cogs in a machine. They have doubts. They have questions. They have worries, obviously, but they have also a willingness to go and do.
If Peter was going to ask a question and get nervous, wouldn’t he say something? This is the guy who, when Jesus was talking about how the Son of God must die, grabs Jesus and says, Jesus, no offense to you, Son of God and all that, but you’re wrong. You think he’s not going to tell Jesus that he’s uncomfortable with this? That he doesn’t know what he’s going to do or how he’s going to do it? The disciples are not shrinking violets and yet here they are going off to preach, teach, and proclaim the good news. This is beautiful. They show this extraordinary amount of courage and willingness to follow.
I remember when I was 13 years old and I was called on to take part in something that was requiring a lot of courage on my part. I had to fly from Grand Rapids, Michigan, all on my own, to Washington, DC, and I had to go through Detroit to do it. That’s the really scary part, by the way. Now, I’d never been on a plane on my own before. I was terrified. I’m sitting there asking my parents every single possible question I could. How do I know what gate it’s at? How do I find my Concord? Mom and dad are firing back the answers and I am still terrified even as I got on the plane and arrived in Washington and I realized that there wasn’t anything to really be scared about other than my aunts driving on the Capitol Beltway. But if we’re scared about things like that, aren’t we also scared about when God calls us to do, to serve, to be?
God chooses us as partners. We’re not chosen to go off on our own. We’re called to go off and work with God. We are called to work together to serve the kingdom. The disciples obviously are working together as they go out. I mean, do you think Peter and Andrew go to the same exact city and do their work? No. They have to coordinate. They have to work as partners, both with Jesus as well as one another. And we are called to partner with God as well, to partner with God and serve others, to serve our community. And guess what? God knows how messy we are. God knows how imperfect we are and yet God still chooses us. God chooses us and knows that, yes, we’re gonna argue. We’re gonna argue about how fast somebody’s filling up the Coles Law at the dinner. We’re gonna argue about other things that, in the end of everything, it’s not gonna matter. And God knows that we are gonna do our best and not do as good as we could. But you know what? God is still going to call us and partner with us.
When God calls us, the best we can do in any of this is to answer, to listen, to willingly go and do. However God is calling us, be it to serve on consistory, teach Sunday school, run Zoom, love your neighbor, light the candles before worship. I could keep on going. The reality is, when God calls us, it’s gonna be scary. But we need to have the courage to understand that God is not calling us to do it on our own. God is calling us to partner with Him in whatever way we are being called.
It’s funny because after I wrote this, I was sitting there yesterday and I got a text from my sister. Guess what? People are trying to get me to run for vice president of General Synod and I don’t want it. What do you think I texted back. Sometimes what we want, what God wants, aren’t in line. I got told to shut up and a few other things. But the reality is, we don’t know how God is going to call us. All we can do is trust that God is going to be with us when God calls us. All we can do is willingly listen and say, I don’t feel comfortable in this God. I am terrified, but I’m gonna go because you called.
And so whatever we do, brothers and sisters, however God has called us, may we have the courage but also the comfort of knowing. When God calls us, it is as a partner for the journey ahead. So partners, let us go and serve Him.
Amen.