July 9, 2000
Third Sunday after Pentecost

LECTIONARY READINGS
from the Revised Common Lectionary

Ezekiel 2:1-5 and
Psalm 123
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Mark 6:1-13

[ Read the texts at the Vanderbilt Divinity On-Line Library ]
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On Being Sent

Have you ever been sent to do something important for someone else?

***

When I was a small lad, my dad sent me on an errand to pick up the daily paper for him at Joe's lunch.  It was an easy enough mission and I felt rather important that my dad would trust me to bring home the paper he loved to read after dinner.

Should be no problem - right?

Wrong.  Joe's Lunch was a dangerous place.  There was a pinball machine at Joe's Lunch and it happened to be the very first pinball machine in our small mining town in Northern Ontario. All the kids were gathering to see this amazing new toy that promised lots of fun for a nickel.  The newspaper was also a nickel. (You're wondering how long ago the paper was five cents no doubt!)

When I entered the restaurant, hang-out, community center -- there were four or five kids standing around the pinball machine and my friend Jimmy Turner was taking his turn. I squeezed into the group and watched in amazement as the silver ball went this way and that, setting off bells and whistles.  Jimmy was really good at using the flipper to knock the ball all the way back to the top of the game. I had never had a turn at the machine and the nickel I was clutching was beginning to burn a hole in my hand.

Then it happened!

Jimmy's turn was over and he turned to me and asked, "Want to try?"  Jackie Scott didn't like that Jimmy was going to let me play before the others -- but no one would actually stand up to Jimmy. Before I knew it, my nickel was delivered to the hungry mouth of the pinball game. (There were a few adults in town who thought this new fangled game was an instrument of the devil created to lead little children astray and I fear I added to the evidence that day.) 

There were some important lessons learned that day.  The game was actually no fun at all.  I played with anxiety as I pictured going home to my father with no newspaper.  The failure of performing the mission was compounded.  I was late for supper because I wandered around wondering what I would say to my dad.  Then I got the brilliant idea to tell him I lost the nickel.

Big mistake!  He had called the Turner's to see if I was there and Jimmy answered the phone and explained that the last time he saw me, I was playing pinball!

I did not have a pleasant evening in my room completing my dad's assignment to me to, "think about trust."

***

Throughout our lives, all of us will have times when we are sent to accomplish something for someone else.  When we re sent to do something important, we are the recipients of the sender's trust.  The greater the mission, the greater the trust.

That was the greatest lesson -- albeit a hard one -- of the "great pinball debacle."  (As my obnoxious brother Michael likes to call it.) The most difficult part of the whole experience was that horrible feeling inside of having disappointed my father.

***

Today's scripture readings are about being sent.  Not only that, they tell the story of how the Lord has placed an absolutely amazing amount of trust in us!  We know that the trust of God in us is great because we have been sent into a difficult world.  Just as Joe's lunch was a tough place for a little boy to enter with a nickel in his hand - so the world you and I must enter as representatives is a tough place.

As we look at the story of Jesus sending out the disciples in the gospel of Mark, there are three barriers to the mission which they encounter.  We can learn from their experience because we will encounter the very same barriers if we take seriously the commission of Jesus Christ to "...go into all the world."

Two of the barriers are external - things we will face in the world.  The third barrier is an internal one - something we will face within ourselves.

1. The barrier of unbelief

When Jesus went to do ministry in his home town of Nazareth, he encountered an unbelief that amazed even him. Thus the well known quote, "A prophet is not without honor except in his home town and among his own relatives and in his own household." [6:4]

One of the barriers we will face when we enter our world as sent persons is the unbelief of the world.  Even Jesus is amazed at the unbelief of the people in his hometown.

Many of us have been raised in the Christian tradition.  To say that we believe in Jesus Christ "goes with the territory," as they say.  But, in an increasingly unchurched culture, acquaintance with Christ is generally nominal at best.

And there's more...  when we take the essential biblical meaning of believing in Christ, it means much more than simply subscribing to the idea that Jesus is somehow the Son of God.  It is not a passive concept, but an active one.  To believe in Christ means to place our trust in Christ.  It includes the idea of a commitment to be a follower of Christ.

Dare we say it?  Unbelief in the biblical sense seems to have impacted, not just our culture, but our churches as well.  The level of knowledge about the basic stories of the bible took a nose-dive in the twentieth century.  (A century is a rather short period of time in the long history of God's people.)

I remember a student in a confirmation class who illustrates the point.  I asked the class how many remembered the story of Joseph and the coat of many colors.  A third of the class remembered, the rest did not.  The student I'm referring to said, "I've never heard of Joseph!"

The barrier of unbelief is one we will encounter when we take seriously the fact that the Lord wants to send us to bring the good news to our world.

2. The barrier of resistance

There is more than unbelief in our world.  We will also encounter resistance to the whole message of Christ. Jesus' hometown folk not only did not believe, "...they took offense at him."  

It is as though there has been a progression in the Western world particularly with respect to the Christian faith.  We've moved from a culture that was friendly to Christianity, to one that is neutral to Christianity, to a time when much of the culture is unfriendly to Christianity.  Jesus warned his followers from the very beginning that the world would give his followers the same treatment he had received.

"If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world--therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, 'Servants are not greater than their master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. (John 15:18-20)

Have you ever noticed that it is okay to refer to God in our society or even to Buddha or Mohammed - but often, people take offence if the name of Jesus is mentioned. (To be sure, it may be that some of this has been because some who present themselves as followers of Jesus have been particularly obnoxious -- but the fact remains that taking offense at the name of Jesus is not uncommon.

If you take seriously the fact that you are one of the sent ones of Christ, you will encounter resistance.

3. The barrier of temporality 

There is an old gospel song that includes the lines:

This world is not my home, I'm just a passing through,
My treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue,
The angels beckon me, from heaven's open door,
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore."

Jesus warned his disciples, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." [Matt. 8:20]  Now he sends them out without the support of the world.  They are to depend solely upon their trust in him and on the provision of those who receive their message and ministry.

We are limited, temporal beings and the most important things in life are not the fading treasures of this world, but the forever treasures of spiritual things.  When we become the sent ones of Christ, we turn away from the world's standards of success and well being to the standards of Jesus Christ.

We must, in the words of the great German Theologian and pastor, Dieitrich Bonhoeffer, consider The Cost of Discipleship.

***

Ah - but there are also three things that we have been given that empower our "being sent."  These are the things that will overcome the barriers.  We dare not enter this dangerous world on our own apart from the empowering gifts of Christ.

1. We have the authority of Christ

The heart of Jesus' commission to his followers was that he called them, he sent them and most of all - he gave them authority over the barriers they would face.  The true sense of the word authority used here is "power."

Though they went without the provisions of the world, they were given the power of Christ.

2. We have the community of Christ

Here's something absolutely essential to the well being of those who are sent by Christ.  Jesus did not send his disciples out alone.  They went in pairs.  Remember his words, "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."  [Matt. 18:20]

We are not only given the power of Christ, we are given the community of Christ. One of my all time favorite sayings is that, "There is no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian."  We get into trouble when we try to maintain a healthy spirituality on our own.

There is a story of a pastor from many decades ago who went to visit a man who had not been in church for a long time.  The man greeted his pastor with the words, "I suppose you've come to give me a scolding about being away from church."  The pastor said, "No, I've just come to talk."

They went inside and sat in front of the fireplace as they talked baseball and the weather and how the harvest looked good for this year. As they talked, the pastor took the poker from beside the fireplace and pulled one glowing ember away from the fire and continued talking.

As they talked, the ember which had been aflame, then aglow finally turned dark while the rest of the fire continued to burn and glow.  Then the pastor took his leave and went home.

The man was in church the following Sunday.

Without community we, like the lone ember, will loose our glow.

3. We have the fruit of our ministry 

There is wisdom in the old saying, "The proof is in the pudding." It does not rank up there with E=mc² - but it is true.  When all is said and done, the proof of authentic discipleship is in the fruit of ministry.

Those who are sent and empowered by Christ will find themselves casting out demons and bringing health and wholeness where there is sickness. The demons that plague our world with oppression, hatred and bondage will give way when confronted by Christ in the person of his disciples.  Disease and brokenness will give way to healing when ministered to by those who are the sent ones of the Lord.

What a wonderful thing it is to be so valued and so trusted by the Lord of Life that he sends us to a world in need.

***

And God never gives up on us.

I think I learned that in part from my dad.  Just about two or three weeks after the Joe's Lunch Debacle, my dad gave me a five dollar bill and sent me to buy him a box of cigars at Nuggent's Drug Store.

Nothing he ever did brought about a stronger commitment to being worthy of his trust like that one act. I marched past Joe's Lunch, past Jimmy Turner and my friends with a determination that not even the gates of hell would prevent me from faithfully carrying out my father's mission!

Isn't it wonderful to be so valued and trusted by a God so great?

Connections in the Text

The key words for the lessons today are from Ezekiel 2:3 -- "...I am sending you." To know the Lord is to be sent on behalf of the Lord.  Each of the texts deals in one way or another with what it means to be commissioned and sent by the Lord.  The principles that tie the texts together are:  [1]  We are sent in our humanity - God chooses to use us in all our frailty.  [2] We are sent with a message from God - we do not make up our own message.  [3] The message we bear may be received and it may not be received - it may even be resisted strongly.  [4] Our responsibility is to the One who sends and not to the ones who hear.

Ezekiel 2:1-5

Ezekiel's ministry comes to Israel during her darkest days. The glory of the Kingdom under David and Solomon is a memory and the nation is in exile as the last days of Judah's decline are upon the people of God. Ezekiel is a priest who cared for the cultic life of the exiles, but he is called as a prophet, "...to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day."

The passage parallels the gospel text in that there is a sending by the Lord to a people who will resist the message.   Nevertheless, Ezekiel is to bring a message, "Thus says the Lord."  This commissioning has never changed - the representative of God brings a message from God.  The word which Ezekiel brings is God's word, not Ezekiel's word. Ezekiel is the servant of the word, not the source of the word. The point is underscored with the words, "O mortal, stand up on your feet." *  This is the Eternal Word coming to a mortal man who will be empowered by the Spirit of God. "And when he spoke to me a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet..."

The last verse of this text also parallels the gospel.  The people to whom Ezekiel is sent may or may not hear the word - but, "...they shall know a prophet has been among them."  Jesus warns his disciples that they may or may not be "received". In either case the obedient servant delivers the message.  It is only when the servant of the word is faithful and obedient to bring a "thus says the Lord" message to God's people that God's people have opportunity for authentic repentance and restoration.
__________________
* (The translation "son of man" is the more literal translation and important to any discussion of the use of the phrase "son of man" in scripture. In Ezekiel it does point to the limited mortal nature of the human being who stands in the presence of an almighty God.)

Mark 6: 1-13

Jesus and his disciples come to Nazareth after a series of amazing healing miracles. The disciples of Jesus must have been in a state of euphoria. What an amazing tour this was! There was the calming of the sea when they were stunned and exclaimed, "Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?" [Mk.4:41] Then the healing of the Gadarene demoniac, the woman with the hemorrhage and the raising of Jarius' daughter.  They must surely have felt that the kingdom would come swiftly.  How wonderful it was to be on the winning team.

Then came Nazareth.  The townspeople of Nazareth were surprised that this "local lad" was teaching and doing all that he was.  "Why - isn't this Mary's son?  Doesn't he work with his hands just as we do?  He's nobody special."

Jesus is amazed at the response. Interesting statement for Mark to make.  Jesus taught frequently about his ultimate rejection and crucifixion which would come at the hands of his opposition - so how is he "amazed"?  This provides wonderful insight into Jesus' humanity and his identification with us.  There is a sense in which we can know something is going to take place, but when it happens, we are still amazed.  It is not so much that Jesus did not expect the rejection - but it is startling when people who had been a part of his upbringing suddenly take this great offense at him.

The teaching mission goes on and in some ways this event in Nazareth is a "reality check" for the disciples.  Not everyone is going to be thrilled with the ministry of Christ and ultimately with the ministry of Christ's followers.  They are commissioned and sent out into the real world where they must bring the ministry and message of Jesus Christ to everyone.  Some will receive and some will not receive - but all must hear and witness the call of God to repent and believe the good news.

2 Corinthians 12: 2-10

There is a mysterious center to this text.  Paul himself says that the revelations he had received from the Lord were in a realm that can not be told.  His experience is akin to Moses who asked to see the glory of the Lord and was permitted barely a glimpse.  Or Isaiah who exclaimed "woe is me" when he glimpsed the glory of God in a vision.

The context of this heartfelt section of the Corinthian correspondence is the work of Paul's detractors to question his apostolic authority and ministry.  He has received the most incredible revelations and visions from the Lord - whether in body or in spirit, he has experienced an intimacy with the divine that can not even be described and indeed should not be described.

Yet, it is not in these revelations or in personal charisma that his apostolic credibility rests.  It is rather in his humanity - even in his weakness that God is most fully glorified. (There are some very important insights here when contemporary ministry is evaluated.  Reports of fantastic visions and secret insights are to be heard with ac critical eye towards the principles Paul spells out in this text.)

Paul is plagued by some kind of physical ailment which he believes is given to him so that he will remain cognizant of his frail humanity and not get an inflated view of himself because he has received "special revelation." 

Then the heart of the text comes.  "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  The glory of God shines most fully through a frail, surrendered mortal being.  "Whenever I am weak, then I am strong," Paul affirms.

If we could get hold of his last comment, we would gain much in our spiritual lives ... "Therefore I am content with..."   The ability to discover contentment in our circumstances - not matter what the circumstances are - is a sign of the reign of God in our lives.

It is here that the epistle connects with the Ezekiel and Mark passages.  Mortal beings - in partnership with the Eternal Word - are empowered and sent to deliver the message of God for the redemption of the world.

 Worship Helps

A Call To Worship

Leader:   O Lord, our Lord, we look to you for you are our God.
People:  As the flowers below look to the sun above,
Leader:   So our spirits turn to you for life.
People:  Have mercy upon us O Lord,
Leader:   For our lives are empty without you.
People:  Visit us in your glory today for we rejoice in you.

A Prayer of Confession

Lord of all living, we confess that we are too centered on ourselves and too
often turn away from others.  We enjoy the abundance that comes from
your hand and shut our hearts against those whose lives are lived in
desperation.  We pray that your renewing Spirit would shape us more
fully into the persons you would have us be.  Forgive us of our sin and
restore us by your healing grace. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon

Friends, receive the words of scripture, "If we confess our sin, {God} is
faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Those who turn to Christ are forgiven and given a right relationship with God.
 

A Prayer of Thanksgiving

Almighty God we give thanks to you for your gift to us of the church in this place.
Here our children have learned the stories of Jesus and have found their way to
the arms of Jesus.  In this place we have come to know some of the dearest
people in our lives.  We have found comfort in the midst of our sorrows and
courage in the midst of trials.

As we sing the songs of faith, hear the words of holy scripture and meditate upon your word, we find renewal for our spirits and strength for the living of our days.  There is no one like you in all the universe O Lord.  We are blessed beyond all expectation and stand in awe of who you are.

O merciful Lord, be pleased this day to fill us once again with the hope, joy and love that come to those who truly trust you and who give themselves to follow the footsteps of our Savior Jesus Christ.

All the saints in heaven and on earth join in giving all glory, honor and praise to you, both now and forevermore.  Amen

A Prayer of Dedication