Walking Stick Faith

Sermon for July 13, 2009 Proper 10 Text:  Mark 6:7-13 Title:  Walking Stick Faith A.  During WWII General McArthur asked an engineer how long it would take to build a bridge across a certain river. "About three days," was the response.  The engineer was told to go ahead and draw up the plans. Three days later McArthur asked for the plans. The engineer seemed surprised. "Oh, the bridge is ready. You can cross it now. If you wants plans, you'll have to wait a little longer, we haven't finished those yet." Leadership development has been an important part of my ministry for a long time.  For a number of years, I consulted with congregations, laity, and church pastors on the value of having a plan for ministry.  I helped local churches draw up one-year, three-year, and five-year plans.  I preached the old adage that you'll never get where you want to go unless you know where you want to get.  I analyzed demographic surveys, identified spiritual gifts, and formed focus groups, all with the goal of developing a plan. Now don't get me wrong – there's nothing wrong with all this!  Indeed, it's still essential!  But at least in the passage of Scripture we just read, Jesus was not nearly into strategic planning as much as He was into go and do!!  Rather than a plan, He gave them a walking stick! B.  Let's take a look at it.  It's safe to say that Jesus channeled his ministry in two different directions.  One direction led away from his disciples, towards the crowds, where he performed all manner of healings, feedings, parable-tellings, and other miracles. His other avenue of ministry traveled inward, focusing on those faithful few whom he had chosen. For them Jesus held special seminars on the meaning of discipleship, where he revealed glimpses of His true nature. In this week's Gospel text, these two roads merge into one path as Jesus sent his frail contingent of followers out to minister to the villages of the land. Nowhere do we see him sitting down with the twelve and a map, or a snakebite kit, or a store of provisions, or a feasibility study, or a specific set of goals, strategies, and objectives. Jesus gave the disciples  only what they needed most:  a job and the authority to carry it out.  The preparation He gave them before sending them out was not secret knowledge nor a strategic plan.   He didn't give them the promise of divine protection. What Jesus gave them was "authority", specifically, power over any unclean spirits they may encounter.  Armed with His authority, Jesus' small community was sufficiently well prepared to face the outside world.   That Jesus chooses this particular moment to usher his disciples forth into their first solo missions is somewhat surprising. They had evidenced no great new insight into Jesus and his mission. They were still stumbling along, bumbling about two steps behind each punch line in his parables, about three steps behind in recognizing the meaning of his miracles.  Indeed, the disciples don't really seem to get who Jesus was and what He was about until after the Crucifixion, when they could see the true meaning of His life through the lens of the Cross.  Yet, flawed as they were, Jesus sent them out, trusting them to spread his work.  In fact, Jesus spent more time stripping the disciples of presumed traveling necessities than he did outfitting them for their expedition.  His instructions appear foolhardy: take "no bread, no bag, no money," not even an extra tunic for warmth or sturdy shoes "just in case." The only equipment Jesus advised them to take along is a staff, an item designed to facilitate movement, not slow them down.   Jesus' additional instructions further focus his emissaries' energies on the task at hand, the active aspect of their mission.  They are to go out "two by two", demonstrating that they are part of a community of faith.  He told them to travel light, in view of the urgency of the mission and as a sign of their reliance on God.  Instead of wasting time looking for comforting accommodations, Jesus urged the disciples to accept the first offer of hospitality they receive.  With the Kingdom of God at hand there simply was no time to squander their attentions on social niceties.  If, instead of an open door, the disciples got the door slammed in their faces, Jesus advised His missionaries to cajole and convince reluctant listeners, but to shake the dust of a rejecting household off their feet as they leave (an image Jesus knew would be burned in the brains of those inhospitable households).  In Jesus' day, when faithful Jews had to visit non-Jewish territory, for whatever reason, they "shook the dust off their feet," before coming back home, to symbolically disassociate themselves from anything worldly.  This practice had a powerful connotation of rejection of anything ungodly, and would stick in the minds of all who saw it practiced.  It was also a warning that decisions have consequences, and by rejecting God's disciples one might be incurring the wrath of God.   Somewhat uncharacteristically, we are not treated to a long argument from the disciples. For once they apparently took Jesus at his word and obeyed His instructions to the letter. Until now it has not been made clear what the disciples were to do out on their missions. Claiming only the authority of Jesus' name, the disciples boldly preach the same message of repentance that the Master did. The mission of those first disciples gives us a glimpse of what the Church can and should be doing today:  preaching, teaching, leading others to Christ, anointing with oil and healing the infirm simply through the power of Jesus' name.  And those first disciples were successful:  "So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.  They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them."   C.  There are at least a couple of things that should catch our attention in this passage:   1.      God can use us despite ourselves!  It is an amazing concept that the Creator and Sustainer of the whole Universe has decided to use us to help bring in the Kingdom!!  God loves us so much that not only is He as close as our very breathing, but He has given real meaning to our lives by giving us a job to do!  God has given each one of us gifts and abilities.  He has made each one of us unique and special.  He matches our talents with the need He has for us to fill.  And He places us in just the right place where we can be most useful.  The disciples who followed Jesus misunderstood Him, didn't understand Him, and failed to get what He was trying to say and what God was doing through Him.  It was only through the lens of the Cross and the Resurrection that they were fully able to understand.  Still, Jesus sent them out, and they accomplished great things.  We have that lens firmly in place; imagine what we can accomplish.  God magnifies our small efforts into big results!   In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory space probe Pioneer 10.   The space craft's primary mission was to reach Jupiter, photograph the planet and its moons, and beam data to earth about Jupiter's magnetic field, radiation belts, and atmosphere. Scientists regarded this as a bold plan, for at that time no space ship had ever gone beyond Mars, and they feared the asteroid belt would destroy the satellite before it could reach its target. But Pioneer 10 accomplished its mission and much, much more. Swinging past the giant planet in November 1973, Jupiter's immense gravity hurled Pioneer 10 at a higher rate of speed toward the edge of the solar system. At one billion miles from the sun, Pioneer 10 passed Saturn. At some two billion miles, it hurtled past Uranus; Neptune at nearly three billion miles; Pluto at almost four billion miles. By 1997, twenty-five years after its launch, Pioneer 10 was more than six billion miles from the sun. And despite that immense distance, Pioneer 10 continued to beam back radio signals to scientists on Earth from an 8-watt transmitter, which radiates about as much power as a bedroom night light, and takes more than nine hours to reach Earth.   So it is when we offer ourselves to serve the Lord.  God can work through us even when we think we have just 8-watt abilities.    2.      The second thing we should notice in this passage goes along closely with the first:  When God uses us, and we put our trust in Him to fill the gap between our efforts and final success, He will, because He's in charge.  We agree that the disciples were hardly doctors of theology or accomplished orators.  They were ordinary people, who sometimes succeeded and sometimes didn't, just like you and me.  But they went out with the Authority that Jesus had given them, and that was all that was required.  They trusted God with the results, and they witnessed amazing healings and miracles because they did.  There were times when their faith was not so firm, and the results of their efforts were less than sterling.  But in this passage, they believed the authority of God, and the Kingdom entered the world wherever they traveled with transformational power.   Rabbi Kushner, Jewish scholar and author, once wrote:  "Atlas was condemned to carry the weight of the entire world on his  shoulders. That was as harsh a punishment as the ancient Greek mind could conjure up. Today, it seems, we have volunteered to play the role of Atlas. We have not offended God, we have dismissed him, told him we were grown up enough not to need his help any more, and offered to carry the weight of the entire world on our shoulders. The question is, when it gets too heavy for us, when there are questions too hard for human knowledge to answer and problems that take more time to solve than any of us have, will we be too proud to admit that we have made a mistake in wanting to carry this world alone? "   When we trust God, amazing things can happy.  Mountains can be moved, miracles can happen, and the unexpected can become the routine.  This Church has a mission to carry out, and we can if we trust in the Authority of God to empower our efforts.  And in our everyday lives, when we trust the results of our particular situation to God, even the painful, the desperate, and the tragic can work out in the end.  Amen.       Keith Almond P.O. Box 4388 Leesburg, VA  20177 703-344-3569 almond_keith@yahoo.com