Sent

Sent—October 10, 2018

“He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons.” [Mark 3:13-15]

The word means sent.  Apostles, that is.  It means, simply and plainly, “sent ones.” 

And it wasn’t a technical term or bit of religious jargon when Jesus used it.  When Jesus named a dozen of his followers as “apostles,” he wasn’t giving them the key to the First Class Executive Lounge at the airport or officially promoting them to a higher rank with bigger medals and pins and bars.  Jesus was sending them to do what he was already doing, and what he intended to keep doing.  So, the obvious word to describe those dozen guys was “sent people”—in other words, apostles.

Once we get that straight, a good deal of the rest of the life of faith comes into new focus.  You and I are part of long chain of “sent people,” an ongoing relay race of people who have been first sent by Jesus to show and tell people about the Kingdom of God that has come close in Jesus.  As Robert Farrar Capon says, “We are, when all is said and done, only preachers of a word we have received.  When we stand up on Easter morning and say, ‘Christ is risen!’ we are not arguing for the abstract possibility of resurrection; we are simply announcing what was announced to us.  We arrive in our several pulpits not as the bearers of proof but as the latest runners in a long relay race; not as savants with arguments to take away the doubts of the faithful but as breathless messengers who have only recently spoken to Peter himself: The Lord is risen indeed (gasp, gasp) and has appeared (pant, pant, pant) to Simon!”

We are a part of that chain of sent-people because someone else first told us the news, and because we are now a part of the sent ones, directed to go out and bring the news to the people around us, too.  And if you follow the chain far back enough, through all the twists and turns and quirks of history, from the Sunday School teacher of your great-grandfather to the missionary journeys of Paul, you’ll find yourself standing in connection with these first twelve sent-ones, these “apostles.”  You got the message, with more than a few intermediaries and couriers in between along the way, from the likes of Peter and James and John, and they in turn got it because they were sent by Jesus to pass it along.  All of us who follow after Jesus have been brought to faith because someone who was sent was, in fact, sent to us.  And all of us who follow after Jesus are now sent ourselves to somebody else who hasn’t heard the news yet, or to somebody has only heard some consumerized, graceless, vaguely religious deal-making that was wrapped in a cross and tied up with a halo and packaged as the Christian “Good News.”  We are sent, all of us, like those first twelve were, “to proclaim the message” and, dare we say it, “to have authority to cast out demons.” 

Now, before you get hung up on this demon business, I’d say this: start with the first part—the “proclaiming of the message” before you start worrying about scheduling any exorcisms for your friends and neighbors.  Speaking the Good News of God’s extravagant grace in Jesus Christ is hard enough for most of us—so learn to waltz before you start worrying about your flamenco. 

But realize that you, too, are sent.  And if there is something for us to take right now from the “casting out demons” bit, it is that the followers of Jesus are not just sent to talk about the freeing grace of God, but to practice it, to show it, to enact it in a way that is real and that others can participate in.  We are not just storytellers, making up a wonderfully entertaining tale that is pure hogwash.  We are the leading edge, the vanguard, of the Kingdom of God, announcing to others what God is actually bringing about right in our midst.  So don’t just go and tell people that God loves them.  Go and be the love of God for them, so that they will know it is true!  Don’t just tell people about how great forgiveness is, dangling the word in front of them like it’s an exclusive club they cannot belong in, but show them forgiveness by doing some honest-to-God forgiving and by letting it be known that you are a forgiven sinner, too.  In other words, we will not pretend that we are perfect peaches, either, but will own our failings and broken places, and will trust God’s forgiveness of us that lets us start over again day by day.  Let people hear and see the Good News in you, the way people experienced the Good News in those first “sent ones” as they headed down the mountain with Jesus.

Whether it is near or far, we have been sent, too.  So today, instead of getting hung up on the titles for it, let us begin by putting one foot in front of the other and praying along the way to know to whom we are being sent.  Who in your day today is Jesus sending you to?  And how will you know? Ask as you go.

Lord God, show us today the people and moments to whom we have been sent, and let us go.