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Sermon for Proper 6A

June 16, 2002

The message of the Good News in the Gospel for us today is all about risk and promise. The Gospel today tells us that God in Christ sends us out in ministry, and that being sent out carries some risk. Being sent by God means going where you never expected to go, and leaving behind resources you never expected to leave behind, and doing things you never expected you would be called on to do. Being sent by God means taking some risks. But the good news is that when we take God’s risks, we also discover God’s promise—we discover that Christ is there where we never expected to find him, and he gives us resources we never expected to have, and he empowers us to do things we never expected we would be able to do. It’s those two things together—the risk and the promise—that make the Good News for us today.

All of that comes across in this story of Jesus calling and sending his twelve apostles. When Jesus sends his apostles—and that’s what the title “apostle” means: “someone who is sent”—Jesus gives them very specific traveling instructions. “Take no gold or silver or copper,” Jesus says, “take no baggage, no extra clothing, no sandals or staff.” Now, on the face of it, those seem like pretty strange traveling instructions. All those things Jesus mentions—money, luggage, proper footware—they are all things an intelligent and prudent traveler ought to have. Travel in Galilee in Jesus’ time was no easy matter—you couldn’t just call a cab or reserve an airline ticket on the internet. For most of the populace, and certainly for itinerant preachers with no fixed occupation like Jesus and his apostles, the only way to get around was to walk—and walking on those roads required good heavy-duty sandals to keep your feet in good shape, and a staff to help you walk and to use as a weapon against thieves and bandits, and money to buy food and lodging along the way, because you knew it would take you more than just a couple of days to cover any appreciable distance. Travel was difficult and dangerous, and for Jesus to send his apostles out without the proper equipment seems, well, counterproductive.

And if Jesus’ traveling instructions seem difficult, then his instructions for what the apostles are to do when they arrive aren’t any easier. “When you enter a town,” Jesus says, “find out who is worthy, and stay with them until you leave.” Now that sounds easy enough—but keep in mind what “worthy” means in this context. “Worthy” here doesn’t mean “wealthy” or “respectable” or “righteous”; “worthy” means “ready to receive the Gospel.” Remember our Gospel from last week, when Jesus told the Pharisees that those who are well don’t need a physician, but those who are sick, that he came to call not the righteous but sinners. Those who are “worthy” of the Gospel aren’t the righteous and the perfect, but the wounded and the sinners. When Jesus tells the apostles to find out who is worthy, it’s as much as saying, “Find the most difficult, the most challenging, the most lost house in town, and stay there.” And when they find a place to stay, what they’re supposed to do next is even more difficult: Jesus says, “Proclaim ‘the kingdom of heaven has come near,’ cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” All of those things are things that Jesus himself has been doing—but he’s Jesus, he’s Immanuel, “God with us,” the human one who is the embodiment of God’s will and power and love. Of course he does miracles, that’s who he is—but the apostles, they’re just people, they’re just ordinary guys, they couldn’t possibly do the sorts of things that Jesus does. And yet that is exactly what Jesus sends them out to do: to be for people the representation of Jesus, just as Jesus is the representation of God.

At every stage of the way—in their traveling, in their arrival, in their ministry—Jesus gives the apostles instructions that emphasize the risk, that emphasize how they must go beyond the limits they think they have and the resources they think they need, that emphasize that they cannot depend entirely on themselves, but must depend most on the grace and the presence and the healing love of God. Going on the road without proper travel arrangements, staying in the houses of openly notorious sinners, doing miracles that are clearly beyond their ability to do—all of these are things that call into question the apostles’ self-sufficiency, they are things that require the apostles to give up their sense of being in control and trust in the leading and the guidance and the direction of God. And the good news is that when the apostles do go out in faith, when they do take the risk and give up their illusion of control, then God does do wonderful things through them, then they can preach good news, and heal the sick, and cleanse the lepers, and reveal new life where before they had only been able to see death. The paradox of the good news of the Gospel for the apostles is that they must be willing to take the risk before they can experience the promise, they must risk giving up the illusion of being in control before they can know the reality of grace that takes them beyond the limits they thought they had.

That’s what the apostles discovered when they were sent out in ministry; and that is what we discover when we go forth in ministry as well. For us, too, the reality of the promise of God’s guiding grace becomes most real when we can most give up the illusion of being in control. We have to take the risk before we can realize the promise.

I think someone who is a living testimony to that blessed paradox in our own nearby community is the Rev. Judy Hoover. Most of you know that, just a couple of months ago, Judy’s husband, Bob, died unexpectedly while they were on vacation; and just a few days after that, her church, St Edward the Confessor, burned to the ground in what was later discovered to be a case of arson. It has been an exceedingly difficult time for Judy—yet, in all these two months, she has gone about her ministry, she’s gotten up in the morning and she’s done the things she has to do, she has continued to bear witness to the love and grace of God in the midst of terrible sadness. At a recent gathering of clergy, Judy spoke about how someone asked her how she keeps on going, and she said that her answer was, “What choice do I have?” On one level , of course, she’s right: there really is no choice. But on another level, I think there is a very profound choice that Judy has made. She could choose to be angry about what’s happened; she could choose to refuse to accept it; she could choose to be bitter and resentful, to shut down emotionally and not engage the difficult realities around her. She could choose to insist on holding on to the illusion of control, and to think that if she just nailed down a few of her own responses, then everything would be fine.

But that’s not the choice that Judy has made. She has chosen to face this reality, to feel her feelings deeply and express her feelings honestly, and at the same time to keep on looking for the love and grace of God made manifest in the most surprising and unexpected ways. And God’s love has been made manifest: in the outpouring of support from congregations all around, including St George’s; in the hospitality of Wayzata Community Church that has given a temporary home to the congregation of St Edward’s; in the personal support that has come from her fellow clergy and her family and friends. Because Judy and the people of St Edward’s have accepted the mission that God has given them, because they have been willing to give up the illusion of being in control and go forth on the journey even when they don’t know what the travel arrangements will be—because of that, they are witnessing the fulfillment of God’s promise of grace, where those who are hurting are being healed, and that which was broken down is being built up, that which appeared to be merely dead is coming forth with the promise of new life. Like the apostles in the story, Judy Hoover and the people of St Edward’s are taking the risk, and therefore they are receiving the promise.

And that is what we can do, too. In our life together as a parish, in our individual journeys as disciples and apostles of Christ, in the life of Emma Louise, who is being baptized into this mysterious grace of God today, and in the lives of Jasyn and Julie her parents, who will find that Emma surprises them on more than one occasion—in all our lives, Jesus calls us to be willing to step out in faith, where we never expected to be able to go, and to find God there, leading us, guiding us, empowering us to proclaim and to heal and to raise up life in new and unexpected gracious ways. That is the paradox of the Gospel: that if we take the risk, we will certainly find the promise; that if we give up the illusion of control, we will certainly find the reality of grace. All we have to do is take that first, risky, faithful step.

In the Name of God: the Holy One, the Holy Word, the Holy Spirit. Amen.