‘Wise
as serpents,
innocent
as doves’
Jesus gives his 12 hand-picked
learner-drivers the rules of the road, a kind of job description for
apprentices who have been hired to join in the mission of God. Notice, from the
off, this work is never done solo. It is a joint enterprise.
The call of Jesus is full of paradox: You,
together, are proclaiming love, but you may receive hate. You, together, are to
live generously, but travel light. You, together, will be like sheep, but in
the company of wolves. You, together, are to be as wise as snakes, but innocent
as doves. You, together, are to stand up for God and God will stand up for you.
You, together, will discover as you lose yourselves in this that you will find
yourselves – and the one who has planned the route. It is a big work, so start
small, together. It is a big world, so start local, together (but don’t forget
the bigger world). Don’t pre-prepare your script, but be prepared to speak the
words supplied by the script-writer: God’s Spirit.
Bold preacher and assassinated civil rights
leader Martin Luther King, in a small and wonderful collection of sermons,
reflects on the paradox of snakes and doves. He comes up with another pithy
saying: what the world needs is tough-minded followers of Jesus with
soft-hearts, not soft-minded followers with hard-hearts. Wherever the Kingdom
of God is growing there you will find people banded together with tough minds
and soft hearts at work in service of others.
The reality is that this world of ours
is broken, wrecked by greed and violence (last night we heard that 14 million
people in the hidden civil-war afflicting Yemen are at risk of starvation –
many of them children and the elderly). The people of Yemen need tough-minded
intervention from people with soft-hearts (the BBC reporter Fergal Keane might
be an example).
The people of Aleppo and Mosul and Raqqa
need the same.
The survivors of historic sexual abuse
need lawyers with tough minds and soft-hearts (Oh, that the panel which has
been wrecked by so many resignations would be revived with a fresh sense of
fortitude and courage and purpose).
Women suffering from abusive cultural
structures in this country and across the world need tough-minded advocates
with soft-hearts to stand up for justice (Dame Louise Casey may be one of those
advocates – but who else will join in the work). Is this not all Kingdom Work? And is this not all happening in a million places in unsung ways and out of the eye of the media?
Jesus’ rigorous and compassionate list
of instructions starts out from the understanding that the Kingdom of God takes
root whenever courageous acts of liberty are achieved. The hallmarks of this
kingdom are astounding – wholeness where no health seemed possible, life where
death ruled, liberty from addiction and freedom from possession, tender touch
for the rejected. And the kingdom as it grows opens up the way for the King.
It is not money and resources that
are necessarily needed for this work (though we know this sometimes helps). The
instructions are quite clear. Eugene Petersen puts it this way in this paraphrase
of vs 9-10: ‘Don’t think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you
start. You don’t need a lot of equipment. You
are the equipment, and all you need to keep going is three meals a day.
Travel light.’
You and I, stripped back, cunning and
kind, and ready for action… together.
I have been wondering where the cross is in Matthew's long list of healings we have been reading, and today, in chapter 10, the cross is mentioned for the first time (although please correct if I'm wrong).
ReplyDelete"Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me" (v.38)
From the outset of the disciples' calling and being sent out on their mission Jesus holds the cross before them. Discipleship is not easy. It is the narrow way. It is costly and sacrificial. We cannot be a Christian without the cross. So on my walk today I found myself singing the hymn: "I have decided to follow Jesus. The world behind me, the cross before. No turning back, no turning back".
But how often we long for an easy life, free from suffering. Thank God for others who join me on the way and share the journey, looking to the cross and on to resurrection.
v.8 took me by surprise as I couldn't remember Jesus speaking about not receiving payment, as I'm more familiar with Mark's version of the Mission of the Twelve. It's strange how some jobs and roles in the Church's mission attract financial value, and pay is given, whereas others don't. What makes one Kingdom work worth more than another? Is money the only way we value the work people do?
However, I wonder if the quality of education in this country would improve if teachers were paid more? I've heard it said, although I'm not sure I agree, that a higher salary would attract better teachers.
And what about doctors and nurses in the NHS. The significant impact and responsibility of their work surely demands appropriate pay. Their work of compassion and healing is surely Kingdom work too.
I have to stop and remind myself time and time again that these twelve men came from all walks of life and might have been all different ages.
ReplyDeleteWe have:
1 tax collector
4 Fishermen
1 Zealot.
The treasurer.
And 6 disciples with no given trades.
After Judas committed suicide Matthias was chosen to replace him.
I try and imagine this band of brothers going around together and can’t help but think there must have been some leg pulling and tomfoolery, there must have been laughter.
But then here is one of my concerns on the matter, what happened to Simon Peter’s wife? When Jesus arrived at Peter's house, Peter's mother-in-law was sick in bed with a high fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve them.
Did Peter walk out on his wife? He ends up in Rome and is later made head of what becomes the Catholic Church. Some notes I’ve read have him down as Bishop. Giant steps from a lowly fisherman indeed.
The power to heal.
How would I feel if suddenly I could perform miracles, quite a scary prospect, I might want to be let loose in Sandwell Hospital, gosh there are so many sick people about, I would want to heal everybody. That thought is frightening, just imagine having that kind of power at your fingertips. How did those disciples control the power that was given them? Could we control it? What a thought.
In chapter 10 we reach the second of the five discourses or sermons to be found in Matthew. This time it is delivered to the disciples as Jesus sends them out for the first time to carry the Good News to the people in the area around. Not even Jesus could get round all the villages and towns of Palestine, so another six pairs of missionaries was invaluable. Jesus must have had trust in the twelve he had chosen and trained, and felt that they were ready after a few months to start the work of spreading the kingdom themselves. He had taught them privately (no ‘tele’ in those days so plenty of time in the evenings) and they had observed him at work and his compassionate attitude to all those he met (in the traditional Black Country way of learning a new job, ‘standing by Nellie’ – watch and learn from what I do and how I do it).
ReplyDeleteAt this point Matthew gives us the names of the twelve disciples; we have met five of them before, but now the rest are no longer anonymous, although we still know nothing of the background of the other seven. Except possibly Simon the Zealot, who sounds like a real firebrand who had been part of a group ready to oppose the Romans by violence; it must have been quite a conversion for him to become a follower of Jesus. So the pairs are sent out with Jesus’ authority to heal the sick and a message to preach, ‘The kingdom of heaven is near’.
As you read chapter 10, you realise that he is sending them out with a less than comforting rallying cry, ‘take nothing that will distract you from the job in hand’. They were stripped of all the comforting things for a journey – no money, no spare clothes, no staff, no booking ahead of hotels. Rely on the hospitality of strangers, a stronger tradition in those days than it is now in our society, but still uncertain. Stay in Israel, don’t go to the Samaritans or Gentiles. Don’t expect a warm welcome everywhere, and, by the way, you are likely to be arrested or your life threatened. Don’t be afraid of those who might kill your body, but cannot kill your soul. What you preach will not be accepted by all, and it will turn people against each other and against you. Perhaps they wondered, ‘Is this what it really means to be fishers of men?’ (4, 19)
How long they spent on this mission is not recorded, and we are not told how they got on. What sort of reception did they get? Did people refuse to open the door and pretend they weren’t in, as people do when they see pairs of Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses in the street? (Or, for that matter, Christian Aid collectors!) Perhaps their reception was better since news of Jesus had spread far and wide by then; I hope it was.
If we are meant to see this as a pattern for our mission in spreading the gospel, then we have to admit that it’s rather daunting. Jesus suggests that we can expect opposition, people disagreeing with the gospel, rejection, hatred, and forces ganged up against us. Look around, and you will see all of this somewhere in the world. But there is one sentence (v32) which makes it all worthwhile, ‘Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him (or her) before my Father in heaven’. So carry your cross with pride! (v38) – pride, that is, in Christ and the Gospel, not pride in yourself!
1Cor9:5 appears to imply Peter's wife travelled with him.
ReplyDeleteDo not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul...
ReplyDeleteHow do I respond to the terminally ill person who tells me they are afraid of dying. I didn't know what to say, so I kept quiet, and just listened. I sheepishly asked a palliative care nurse how she would have responded. Sheepishly, because I thought I should have known how to respond.
" Ask them what they are afraid of : pain, being alone, finances ...They can have medication for pain, we can be there if they are lonely, we can direct them to appropriate people for finances.."
Ah... That's how I should have responded", I thought.
But what if they are just afraid of the process of dying, of not existing anymore, or the fear of the unknown. What if they have no faith. How would I respond then?