A Mission for Today

Matthew 9:35-10:8

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.

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No city was too big, no village too small, no sickness too strong. Jesus makes it look and sound all so easy. It makes me wonder, did he ever get tired? When he laid down at night, did his feet hurt and blister from all the walking? Was his throat hoarse from all the teaching and talking? So far in Matthew Jesus has been hard at work: healing, teaching, setting people free from demons, but we don’t get to hear details about what he was thinking or feeling. Afterall, it is kinda hard to get that when someone else is telling the story.

Yet, today we get a little insight! From town to town and city to city, a crowd of people followed Jesus, waiting to hear the teachings, to see the healings, hoping they themselves might be on the receiving end. And as Jesus went to more towns, did more miracles, taught in more synagogues, the crowd grew larger and larger. 

Jesus turned, saw the crowd and we’re told: “he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless”. That word compassion literally means “to be moved in one’s bowels”, to be stirred up in one’s insides. Jesus saw their hurt, he likely smelled the stench of their struggle, heard the desperation in their cries. The sight, the sound, the scent; it was gut wrenching for Jesus. He felt the pressure to do something about it all and so he instructed his disciples to pray…”the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. So ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers”.

It’s nothing new to hear Jesus give instructions on how to pray or what to say, but what I love about this prayer is that immediately Jesus gathered his disciples to send them out into the harvest. 

Jesus prays and then answers his own prayer. As Pope Francis says, “Pray for the hungry. And then you go feed them. That’s how prayer works.” And that is exactly what Jesus did. Once gathered, Jesus equipped the disciples with authority and instructed them to do all the things they have seen him do: proclaim the good news, cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons; all works of healing and setting free. 

We often say that the church began at Pentecost, but there is a pretty strong case to be made that when Jesus calls, equips, and sends out these disciples to continue his ministry, that’s when the church began. 

It is curious though that the disciples are not permitted to go to Gentile or Samaritan areas. Are they not worth healing or setting free? No, quite the opposite in fact. The last words Jesus says in Matthew are “go therefore, making disciples of all nations”, expanding and overriding the limitations he set here. It’s as if Jesus is saying “start with where and with whom you know best. Soon your call will be to the ends of the earth, but not yet.” And so with clear instructions and well equipped, the disciples set out to heal and to set free. 

This story confronts us with many questions: What sights and sounds and sensations fill you with compassion? Who are the harassed and helpless of today? Would you agree with Jesus that still today the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few?

Perhaps most of all, this story made me ask the question, if Jesus were to summon us today, call us by name, gather us into one place, and then send us out: what would be our mission? 

What authority have we been given? At first, I wanted to say that it would have to be a mission different from that of the disciples, I mean we aren’t really tasked with casting out unclean spirits or curing every disease and every sickness. We leave the latter up to nurses and doctors and as for “unclean spirits”, that sounds a bit like religious fanaticism or crazy talk.

Yet, are there not unclean spirits that harass and oppress in the world still today? Is not racism or poverty or homophobia still at work, hurting our neighbors? Absolutely they are. I just read a report on the rise of violent and hateful acts toward LGBTQ people and communities including armed protest, online harassment, and bomb threats. Poverty in Central Indiana has been on the rise since 1970, especially in black and brown neighborhoods. And while this is anecdotal, our phones have been ringing off the hook with people asking for groceries or gas cards, many for the first time.

As for racism, there is too much that could be said. Last week, I attended the Interrupting Racism Workshop that Pastor Mark set up as a part of his sabbatical. 10 P.I.M will be going over the course of the summer. It was an intense two days that showed the historical and current damage and divisions caused by racism. In Francia’s class on “How the Word is Passed”, we’ve begun learning just how whitewashed our history has been, revealing that the unclean spirit of racism still dwells in our societal systems, our cities, and even ourselves.

For that reason, I largely agree with Washington Gladden who said the most important mission of the church to society is “the reconciliation of races. [what] must be done is to take this chaotic mass of dissimilar, discordant, suspicious, antipathetic racial elements and blend them into unity. The first Christians had a task of this nature on their hands; bring[ing] together in one fellowship Jews and Gentiles. But that was a pastime compared with the herculean labor entrusted to us,--the bringing together of whites and blacks. It is the task of the nation; but the church of Jesus Christ is charged with the business of furnishing the sentiments and ideas by which it may be accomplished.”

Washington Gladden is known as the father of the social gospel movement and the author of the hymn we sing next. He wrote that quote in 1908, more than 100 years ago, and yet here we are.

We have been doing work around racism for a while now. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed or to feel like we’ve talked about it enough. After all, what’s the point? If New Pal is 97-98% white, then the chance or likelihood of Cross of Grace being a racially diverse place is rather low. This is true. But New Pal and Hancock County are growing. Census data says this area has grown 20% in the last 10 years, and all the construction and development I pass on my way here each day tells me that this trend will only increase. 

So as this area grows and does diversify, hopefully we will be a place well equipped to welcome and support our black and brown neighbors. Yet I wonder if even more than that, what if the point of all this talk on racism, our proximity to it, learning the history, reading the books, attending the workshops etc, is not to gather in all folks of color into our fold, but rather to be sent out as missionaries, as apostles of Jesus to cast out the unclean spirit of racism in the places we know best: ourselves, our homes, our families, our work, our neighborhoods, our schools, our communities, our town.

When we do that, we are proclaiming the good news that God’s kingdom of justice and mercy has come near. Such a mission is difficult no doubt. You may feel like you don’t know where to begin or what to say or do. Which means, one of the missions of this place is to equip one another for this work. 

That’s why we do the workshops, book studies, adult forums, and occasionally even sermons. Because Christ has chosen us as his co-workers: gathered, equipped, and sent to cast out unclean spirits, wherever they are at work, but especially in the places and among the people we know best. 

Yet as Jesus said, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. So ask the Lord to send out laborers, and then go cast out those unclean spirits. Amen

Dying, We Live

Romans 6:1-11

“What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. “

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Once upon a time, all humanity was trapped under the power of Sin. And by Sin, I mean a literal cosmic power that governs the entire world. This is Sin with a capital S. Sin is the chief power among the principalities and powers, and it has one goal: to work its way into our very bodies, making it impossible for us to live according to God’s ways.

Later in his letter to the Romans, Paul describes the predicament like this: I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. … I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. … When I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand (Romans 7:14-21).

This is a problem. The power of Sin is so all-encompassing that we cannot break free from it by our own strength. Now, thankfully, there is a solution to this problem. Paul explains, “Whoever has died is freed from sin.” Easy, right? Not so much. Thanks to Sin’s buddy, Death, when humans die, they stay dead. Whatever freedom we might find on the other side of death is not a freedom we could live into. And so this was the story Sin was writing for the world. Humans live, they struggle, and they die. The end.

But then, a child was born. That child grew up, became a man, and lived – just like all of us – in a world under the power of Sin. He lived a life so full that if its fullness were written down, “the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:24). In the end, his life was too much for a world where Sin reigns supreme. And so Sin did what it always does; it snuffed out life. It marshaled the full strength of the Roman imperial regime and put this man to death. But he did not stay dead. And remember: “Whoever has died is freed from sin.”

Christ’s resurrection changed everything. It made a way where there was no way. And Christ is the way. Through Christ, it became possible for us weak and finite humans to become recipients of eternal life – the kind of life that Sin could never conquer. But there’s still just one problem. Christ is risen – but we are not. We have not died. Sin and death still have dominion over us.

So how do we tap into what Christ has done for us? Do we just wait until we die and hope for the best? No, Paul says. We don’t have to wait at all. Freedom from Sin is not simply waiting for us on the other side of death; freedom is present to us right now. We can die right now, even while we are living. All we need is a little water.

As best we can tell, the earliest Christian communities practiced baptism by immersion – that is, your entire body would be submerged underwater, and then you would come back up. Going underneath the water and then coming back up was meant to physically reenact Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.

But Paul does not view baptism as mere theater. He believes that when we are baptized, we are actually uniting with Christ, mystically participating in his death and resurrection through the power of the Holy Spirit. We really do die with Christ, and we really will rise again with Christ.

As a result, what is true for Christ becomes true for us. Remember: “Whoever has died is freed from sin.” Even though we live in a world governed by Sin, we are no longer governed by it. It no longer has the authority to write our story. That authority belongs to the risen Christ, who invites all who die with him to walk in newness of life. This is the story Paul tells in Romans.

Why tell this story? After all, the idea of Sin with a capital S feels like a relic of a bygone era. Invisible cosmic powers controlling our lives? inhabiting our bodies? Seems a bit outlandish. And yet, this is exactly how the world works. Paul did not know us, but the story he tells is about us. Our lives are – in so many ways – defined by forces beyond our control. Patriarchy. Capitalism. Racism. The list goes on and on.

These sinful, death-dealing powers are doing exactly what Paul says Sin does; working their way into our bodies, making it impossible for us to live according to God’s ways. Patriarchy constrains our concepts of gender and sexuality. Capitalism tells us our worth is determined by what we produce. Racism decides for us which bodies are worth protecting and prevents us from living in solidarity with one another.

No one is immune to these powers. They are constantly pushing and pulling us toward alienation and disintegration. And whether we blame “the system” or sin with a capital S, I am convinced that what Paul says is true: We can will what is right, but we cannot do it. … When we want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. But there is good news, friends. God cares enough about our living that God is not content to leave us as mere victims to the powers of this world.

In Christ, God has made a way for us to walk in newness of life. Even in the midst of a world where Sin still reigns, freedom is possible. Justice is possible. Life is possible. We just need to die.

Baptism is indeed the sacramental means of our death. Through the waters of baptism, we die with Christ and through the power of the Spirit are set free from the reign of Sin.

But in v. 12, right after Paul celebrates what baptism does for us, he says this: Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Thanks to our baptism, Sin no longer reigns over us. It no longer defines us. But it can still affect us, influence us, even control us. Baptism is not merely a sacramental death. It is not merely a means of grace. It is an invitation to become instruments of righteousness, to actively resist the work of Sin in our bodies and in the world around us. It is an initiation into death as a way of life.

We die to all of the ways Sin tries to exercise its power within us. We die to our need for control; our fear of vulnerability; our reluctance to rest. We die to patriarchy’s scripts for gender and sexuality; to the productivity mindset that defines life under capitalism; to the internalized racism which distorts our social and political imaginations. As we live out these deaths, we become – in the words of the theologian Brian Bantum – “burning bushes and tongues of fire, bodies set ablaze with the Spirit.” (Redeeming Mulatto, pg. 163) We become beacons of the coming kingdom of God, a world where Sin has lost its power and Death has lost its sting.

Thankfully, we do not have to do this work alone. As Jesus told his disciples in John 17, God has sent God’s Spirit to be with us and to guide us into truth and life (John 17:4-15). God is literally with us, each and every day, as we die to ourselves. Indeed, it is God’s Spirit at work within us who transforms these deaths into life for us and for the world. And the Spirit is not all that God gives us. God also gives us one another, the body of Christ. And when that body is composed of people who are following Christ into death, it is like single, quiet notes combining into a resounding symphony of abundant life.

God even gives us creation, where life is sustained by death and decay. Through creation, God reminds us that death is beautiful, holy, and – most of all – necessary. This is hard work. It is a lifetime’s worth of work. But it is work sustained by God’s free gift of grace. And this means that it is work which is not too much for us. The late German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “When Christ calls a [person], he calls [them] to come and die.”

Today, friends, Christ is calling to us from the waters of our baptism. Can you hear him? He is calling us to join him, to take up our cross and follow him (Luke 9:23). He is calling us to leave behind the reign of sin and present ourselves to God as members of righteousness. He is calling us to a life of resisting the sinful, death-dealing forces at work in the world and in ourselves. He is calling us to die.

May we embrace the call to death. And in the dying, may we find life, and life everlasting.

Amen.