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: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 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 the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.
“See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”
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For the past couple months, I’ve been participating in online trivia through the Courtyard and Cellar on Thursday nights, as part of a team of clergy friends here in Decorah. We call ourselves the Masters of Divinity, which really just refers to the degree we all needed to become pastors, but makes us sound super-cool, like a specialized branch of the Jedi order or something.
Anyway.
One of the categories this past Thursdays was “Historic Protests.”
We traced protests through the generations, everything from Martin Luther and the Reformation in the 1500s and the Boston Tea Party in the 1700s to events closer to our generations, like the Salt March and the Stonewall Riots and Tiananmen Square and Black Lives Matter.
I was struck by how consistently, over many centuries, human beings have made it a practice to band together when met with injustice, and to commit themselves, even at great peril to their lives, to resist the forces and institutions that are doing harm, whether that be a greedy mother church, or an oppressive colonizing nation, or brutality against LGBTQIA persons, or the systemic injustice of racism in American society as a whole, and right now, especially in police practices.
In all of these historic protests, those who resist are met with resistance. Because change is hard, whether you are changing a system or changing a heart. Nobody likes to be called out for their role in injustice or oppression. It’s hard to look in the mirror and see where we have failed our neighbors and our enemies alike.
And so no matter how just, how honorable, how God-given the values that drive some of these rebellions and protests, resistance is met with resistance. The fight is always hard work.
Jesus minces no words about this in today’s gospel. He looks around, has compassion on the harassed and helpless crowds, people under the thumb of Rome, and he calls together disciples, commissioning them to go forth and do the work of the kingdom: casting out evil, healing the sick, lifting the dead and despised to new life, proclaiming God’s kingdom, speaking out for peace….and this all is really good stuff, right? It’s good news.
And yet… Jesus makes it clear to the disciples that the work they do in his name will be met with resistance, it might be perilous, they might suffer for it.
He says, “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me…and you will be hated by all because of my name.”
A friend of mine from seminary moved to a new state and neighborhood a few years ago. Without knowing too much about his neighbors or neighborhood, he put a Black Lives Matter sign in his front yard, which was promptly stolen, and its disappearance was met with hostile glee by one of my friend’s neighbors. Recently, the Minneapolis protests sparked another round of antagonism by this neighbor toward Black Lives Matter, resulting in a conversation he initiated where he asked my friend, “How does it feel to know that everyone on the block despises you?”
“You will be hated by all because of my name,” indeed.
We who are people of faith are given a script, all the way back in the Hebrew scriptures, for how we are called to live in the world.
The prophet Micah sets it out for us:
What is good and what does the Lord require of us?
To do justice.
To love mercy.
To walk humbly with God.
And what this really means is that we are called:
To do justice when the world wants to preserve the oppressive status quo
To love mercy when the world wants to condemn
And to walk humbly, doing this work not for our own gain, but for the sake of the world.
Jesus carries this calling to its end, being the very presence of God who is willing to live and to die for this work. He will do justice, love mercy, walk humbly, and die as the innocent, whose death is a sham of justice. He will die at the hands of those who cannot handle being resisted. He will die at the hands of those for whom the twin values of justice and mercy are treated as offensive and threatening to their own understandings of power and self-preservation.
Jesus’s death is itself an act of rebellion and resistance that questions the world’s understanding of the value of human life. Jesus’s death challenges us to grieve the deaths of our neighbors and enemies whose lives are counted as disposable or convenient. Jesus’s death challenges us to resist the idea that death and justice are the same thing.
Dear ones, if we really take to heart the scriptures that we claim, the Jesus whom we follow, the God whom we serve, the Spirit whom we celebrate, then it becomes obvious - painfully obvious, even - that the life of faith is always a life of risk and always a life of rebellion.
Our faith calls us to forgive when the world wants to condemn. Our faith calls us to cry out for justice when the world wants to oppress or ignore the cries of the oppressed. Our faith calls us to care for our neighbors instead of only for ourselves. Our faith call us to care for our enemies and not just for our friends. Our faith calls us to seek good for others and for creation, and not simply to tend to our own interests. Our faith calls us to seek the common good over our individual gain. Our faith frees us to serve instead of freeing us to indulge.
Our faith calls us to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves, discerning when we are being called to speak out and when we are being called to listen; discerning when we must proclaim hard truths and when we must show unprecedented compassion; discerning when we should push for reconciliation and when we should seek reparation.
I suspect some of you are sitting out there right now, looking for little good news in all of this.
So let’s find it.
First and foremost, the good news in all of this is, quite literally, that the work to which Jesus calls us is itself the work of creating good news in the world. All of the love that Jesus pours into us and through us into the world is love that transforms greed and hate and oppression into the kingdom of God for which we pray.
But if we’re looking for some good news for our own hearts, we who are the ones resisting and suffering and discerning, we find that good news in our gospel today, too.
First, the good news that when Jesus calls us, Jesus calls us by name. He knows the names of his disciples and he knows your name, and it is because Jesus knows you and loves you and cares about you that he sends you out as his body into the world. Jesus claims you and values you and you are not disposable; you are not unknown or forgotten.
Second, Jesus gives us what we need to live faithfully in this world. He sends the disciples out without fully-stocked day packs, not simply to encourage them to humbly receive the hospitality of others, but as a sign that Jesus gives them all that they need. Just like a little later, when he tells the disciples not to worry about preparing speeches or defenses in advance, but trusting the Spirit to give them the right words to say when they face resistance or antagonism. Friends, you don’t need special equipment to be Christ’s ambassadors in the world; you don’t need special skills, specialized training, or an advanced degree to live and share your faith. You are enough. Jesus has chosen you and sent you. And Jesus will continue to give you what you need.
Which leads to the third piece of good news in our gospel. You do not go out to do this work alone. Jesus goes with you, yes, but you also have the blessing of community. There are twelve disciples here that Jesus sends out, not just one or two. And there will be the commissioning of seventy other disciples in addition to these twelve. And other gospel writers, telling their version of this story, will include the detail that Jesus explicitly sends the disciples out in pairs. Your faith is not a solo act. Your voice is not just one voice shouting into the wind. You have a community. The community of faith is at once your sounding board and your place of discernment; it is your strength in numbers, your gut check, your place to ask for forgiveness and to receive it; your place to learn and to grow, to process and to question.
We are all figuring this out together.
All of those famous protests that we mentioned at the beginning?
Not one of them was a solo act.
Because the work of faith, the work of resistance, the work of standing up for good and for justice and for love: this work belongs to the community. We do it together.
And not that any one of us should seek suffering as a badge of honor, or glorify suffering for the abused or oppressed, but Paul in Romans also gives us a word of reassurance for when we, together, meet the challenges of this world head-on:
Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Things are tough out there, these days, my friends.
And Jesus knows it.
And Jesus loves you through it.
So whether you have only the energy right now to faithfully “resist” by wearing a mask outside as a symbol of care for your neighbor, or whether you have all the energy right now to run supplies up to ministries in Minneapolis caring for protesters and justice workers and justice seekers, know that the struggle is not the end of the story, and that the struggle is not yours to bear alone.
You are known by name. You are blessed to do God’s work. You are a beacon of hope for the world, a sign of good news for those who are feeling helpless and hopeless.
Your faith makes you a rebel….with a very, very good cause. So blessings to you this day, both for a restless heart to send you out into the world, and for the peace of Christ to renew your heart at the end of the day.
You might be a sheep in the midst of wolves.
But you are led by shepherd who is and will always remain faithfully by your side.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.