Sent Out for Others

Sermon for July 4, 2010 - 6th Lord's Day After Pentecost
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

         First, a quick recap: today is the fourth week of our five-week series focusing on the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations by Bishop Robert Schnase.  Many of you have been reading, praying, and pondering the practices as we’ve gone along, and we’ve had very interesting and exciting congregational conversations after each worship service – today we have a special guest to lead us, Lisa Maupin from United Methodist Ministries in Omaha.  On the first week we focused on Radical Hospitality and extending God’s invitation of relationship to others in ways that stretch us.  Next, we focused on Passionate Worship and how worship is a time, place, and way of life through which God meets us to satisfy our thirst for relationship with God.  Last week we focused on the practice of Intentional Faith Development – how we seek to follow Christ, to learn from him, and to be like him through small groups.  Next week we’ll focus on Extravagant Generosity.  And today, we turn our attention to the way Jesus modeled and sends us out in Risk-Taking Mission and Service for others.

         As we turn our attention to Risk-Taking Mission and Service, let us think back to the Children’s Sermon and our theme song for these five weeks: “Follow You” by Leeland Mooring – the lyrics are in your bulletins.  This is a song about being characterized by the practice of Risk-Taking Mission and Service, a practice that each and every follower of Christ is called to.  

       In Leeland’s song, we see first that the call to Risk-Taking Mission and Service is not something we Christians do just because there are people in need.  Followers of Christ engage in Risk-Taking Mission and Service because that’s how Jesus lived everyday – “among…the weary and weak” – and to follow Jesus is to be like him and live like him.  As the song says, to turn away from those in need is a tragedy.  To practice Risk-Taking Mission and Service is a calling of every follower of Christ to live the words of the chorus: to follow Jesus “into the homes of the broken,” “into the world,” and “to meet the needs of the poor and needy.”

         As we think and pray about, and engage in Risk-Taking Mission and Service, Leeland is absolutely right to start with the life and witness of Jesus.  Today, in our celebration of the sacrament of Communion we have a powerful reminder of God’s heart for Risk-Taking Mission and Service.  For when we celebrate communion, we praise God for taking a huge risk in becoming human in Jesus Christ – a risk because it cost Jesus his life without even knowing if people would love him for it.  He gave himself fully for the mission of God in and for the world, which we remember when we pray, “On the night he gave himself up for us…” in the Great Thanksgiving.  And in Communion, we also have a reminder that God will constantly nourish and sustain us for similar Risk-Taking Mission and Service, for when we receive the bread and juice, we receive the very power and being of God – food for the journey, that we might be for the world the body of Christ.

         God empowers and nourishes God’s people for the journey of discipleship, mission, and service, which we see especially well in today’s reading from the Gospel According to Luke.  In it, Jesus sends out seventy of his followers to be in mission and service.  He sends them out to prepare others to receive God in Christ – to offer peace, heal the sick, and proclaim that the “kingdom of God has come near.”

         Jesus sends out the seventy in what is certainly Risk-Taking Mission and Service.  He tells them that the fields are ripe with a bountiful harvest (there are many people who are thirsting to connect with God) but that there are few workers for the job.  Essentially, he’s telling them they’ve got their work cut out for them, and they need more help in bringing the kingdom of God.  If that’s not risk-taking enough, Jesus tells them, “I’m sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves” (v.3).  Proclaiming a new world order, a new kingdom, a new way of life will be a costly endeavor.  They will have to, in the words of our song, give all of themselves to God and to others.  Then, to add even more to the risk-taking nature of the mission of God, Jesus tells them, “Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals…” (v.4).  They’re sent out as sheep in the midst of wolves without provisions or extra things to slow them down.  Jesus’ mission for them is urgent, so urgent that they cannot be weighed down with packs of supplies.  What’s more, by instructing them to go out without supplies, Jesus emphasizes that the mission of God will be accomplished by the grace of God, not by the work or toil of humans alone.  They cannot succeed by themselves, but must rely on the grace of God shown in the hospitality of others. 

         Jesus sends out the seventy in Risk-Taking Mission and Service to offer God’s peace, heal the sick, and proclaim that God’s kingdom had come, and I’m absolutely sure that in the back of their minds, they’re filled with questions and fears.  Will they receive us?  How will we eat?  How can we heal all the people’s wounds and illnesses?  Who are the wolves Jesus spoke of?  With these and other questions, the seventy nonetheless set out, two-by-two (because Jesus knew that the life of faith requires the community of others – small groups).  And, lo and behold! they find that they are received by others, they are empowered to bring healing to others and share Christ’s peace, and “even the demons submit” to them (v.17).  God empowered them to be witnesses of Christ and the kingdom of God.

         But the message of scripture is that Jesus didn’t just send out the seventy or the twelve; Jesus sends us out for others.  In Acts 1:8, Jesus challenges his disciples of every age to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth.  Likewise, in what we call the “Great Commission,” Jesus sends out all disciples to go and make disciples of all people (Mt.28:19).  Now, lots of times, we might think of the Great Commission and the charge of being Christ’s witnesses to be a matter of evangelism, as though Jesus sends us out just to talk and preach to others.  But we must remember Jesus’ sending out of the seventy when we think of Jesus sending us out.  Jesus sends each and every one of us out to others to offer peace, to work healing, to serve others, and to be the kingdom of God in the world.  Jesus sends us to Mission and Service every bit as Risk-Taking as that of the seventy.

         Jesus sending out the seventy offers us a great challenge to the life of faith as we might have known it.  In it, we see clearly that Jesus didn’t live, die, and rise again just for us – for you and me – and that the way of Jesus isn’t primarily a personal thing.  Jesus came to proclaim release to the captive, recovering of sight to the blind, and the set at liberty those who are oppressed.  Jesus isn’t our personal buddy-God who makes our lives hunky-dory.  Jesus is a gift for the world, the very presence and power of God bringing wholeness and salvation to all, bringing the very kingdom of God to life in the world.

         And so, when we come to faith in Christ, when we’re baptized and confirmed, or when we proclaim faith in Christ as our own in membership vows, Jesus incorporates us into his mission – a risk-taking mission to the world, and specifically to the downtrodden and oppressed of the world.  To ignore this is, indeed, a tragedy and a failure to be who Christ calls us to be.  In his sending of the seventy as sheep among the wolves, Jesus sends each and every one of his followers to engage in Risk-Taking Mission and Service for others, and that to which Jesus calls us, Jesus also empowers us. 

         In light of Jesus sending us out for Risk-Taking Mission and Service, we can praise God that there are many ways many in this congregation are heeding Christ’s call.  There are people who visit and pray with those in the hospital or nursing homes; there is the communion steward ministry in which people take communion to those absent from worship.  These are great ministries that certainly take great time and energy, but they are also directed solely to church members. What about the others in our community God is reaching out to?  To reach out further, this church recently sent a crew of people to work on Habitat For Humanity’s All Church Build, and the Faith Sowers make quilts for every Habitat House.  What’s more, this church has covenant relationships with two missionaries: Phyllis Crouse at Red Bird Mission in Kentucky and Hyung Ran Song in Mombasa, Kenya.  This covenant means we promise to support these missionaries with $1200, as well as our prayers.  Finally, this congregation is involved in the great risk-taking mission of providing for Spanish-Language ministry in Grand Island through Ministerio de Fe.  In all of these things, we praise God for leading us into Risk-Taking Mission and Service.  For God both sends and empowers us for Risk-Taking Mission and Service for others.

         Yet, these steps are only first steps.  Many of them ask very little of the congregation as a whole.  The challenge of Jesus sending us out for others is that we must always ask ourselves, “What’s my passion?” and “How can we turn our focus ever more fully toward others?”  Jesus sends us each out for others and empowers us for Risk-Taking Mission and Service.  The question is, to whom is God sending you?