May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.”
Jesus sent out seventy of his disciples/followers to go into the towns and villages near Jerusalem to proclaim that “the kingdom of God has come near to you.” The seventy people that the Lord sent out were ordinary people who had followed him, listened to his teachings, and observed, first hand, the miracles that he’d performed. They had been “disciples,” that is, “learners,” but then Jesus called them to be “apostles,” that is “sent-out ones.” The same is true of us today, we are both disciples/learners and apostles/sent-out ones. We are 21st century apostles for Jesus.
Going from a “learner” to a “sent-out one” is the natural progression of our Christian walk, which is more like a circular journey rather than a straight line. We are continually going from learner to sent-out one to learner to sent-out one throughout our lifetime. A life-giving faith requires both learning and going out. Someone once likened our journey as Christians to the phenomenon of the Dead Sea by commenting that “all inflow with no outflow produces death.” Water only flowed into the Dead Sea but not out of it. Thus, a faith that is alive and vital requires the inflow from disciplined learning and the outflow of being sent out into the world with the message of the Gospel. Discipleship (learning) without apostleship (being sent out) leads to stagnation, like the Dead Sea—all inflow and no outflow. On the other hand, apostleship (being sent out) without discipleship (learning) leads to missed opportunities, mistakes, and even burnout; the two must be held in balance—learning and being sent-out, discipleship and aspostleship.
Jesus’ purpose in sending out the seventy seems to have been to prepare the people who hadn’t yet heard of him for his upcoming appearances in their towns and villages. The sent-out ones were Jesus’ messengers, his apostles, his missionaries who were to tell people that “the kingdom of God has come near to you.” They were to alert everyone to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God, the one who was bringing God’s kingdom to earth and that he was in their very midst, teaching, healing, and traveling throughout Judea on his way to Jerusalem.
Jesus promised a plentiful harvest to his followers then and to us today; so, how do we go about being a laborer in that plentiful harvest? The answers are found in the gospel text itself and could be entitled, “The Ten Principles of Mission.” For these ideas I’m indebted to the biblical scholar, Alan Culpepper, and his commentary on Luke.
Mission principle #1: The world needs the church’s mission; the church alone provides people with the opportunity to worship and to hear the good news of God’s redeeming love for the world through Jesus’ life-giving passion and death. By his words Jesus makes it clear that, “The harvest is plentiful.” In other words the world needs what the church has to offer. There is more work to do than laborers to do it. There are untold numbers of people who have never heard the good news of Jesus Christ, have never heard of God’s love for the world, and for them, nor of the forgiveness of sin that is available to all because of Christ’s death and resurrection.
Many of those persons live right here in the United States—a church-growth specialist has stated that the United States is the third-largest mission field in the world, right behind India and China. That’s a pretty shocking and sobering statement. Right here in Kentucky, one in three adults are un-churched; that equates to almost one million people. Another 650,000 Kentuckians do not view themselves as committed to the church they attend. This, my friends, provides us with an exciting opportunity to become harvesters in the Lord’s fields in our very backyards. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”
The second principle of mission: Prayer is absolutely necessary to the church’s mission. “Ask the Lord of the harvest, Jesus said.” That’s why we pray for the Holy Spirit to guide us in our outreach ministry and give us vision regarding new ways of reaching people with the good news of Jesus Christ. Our role as mission workers—harvesters— is to constantly pray to determine what it is that God is up to in our congregation and community and then to decide what our role is as God’s partners, remembering that we, as the Church, are an arrow pointing to God’s reign.
When Jesus sent out the seventy he told them to “carry no purse, no bag, no sandals,” because God would provide everything needed to accomplish the work of the harvest. That means that we will be given the words that others need to hear, as well as the courage and boldness to willingly share our own God-stories and the Gospel with others. “Ask the Lord of the harvest.”
The third principle of mission: Harvesting requires the active participation of every disciple of Christ. Jesus commanded those he sent out, “Go on your way.” The mission of the church is not merely the calling of a select few, of only pastors, Associates in Ministry or trained evangelists. Rather, we are all a royal priesthood according to 1 Peter 2:9, You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” All believers can contribute in their own way, according to the gifts that they’ve been given and in the context of their individual spiritual journeys.
The fourth principle of mission warns us that mission work has its risks. Jesus warned of the dangers that his apostles, his sent-out ones would face: “I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.” By talking of lambs and wolves, Jesus seems to be saying that innocence, sincerity, vulnerability, and non-resistance will be the best means of turning aside resistance, anger, and danger. But, Christ is also saying that we need to be aware of those risks and prepared to meet their challenges.
Principle #5 of mission is: Mission work must be focused. Jesus’ admonition, “Greet no one on the road,” emphasizes the fact that our focus on mission is to be very concentrated. We are not to become distracted or enticed by the things and goals of the world.
The sixth principle of the mission commands that: We tell others what God is doing in the world. Jesus sent out his followers telling them, “Say, ‘Peace to this house’ and ‘the kingdom of God has come near to you.’” In other words, God’s sent-out ones are to tell others what God is doing in the world—healing, uplifting and reaching out to the outsiders, forgiving, and restoring the broken relationship with all God’s children, and bringing God’s peace to whomever will receive it.
The seventh principle of mission dictates that Jesus’ apostles, his sent-out ones be open to all whom they encounter. Jesus commanded his followers to “Eat what is set before you.” Why is this important? It’s critically important because as those sent out to do the mission work of the church we are not to impose our own cultural background on others, but instead are to remain open to the ways of others, those to whom we’re reaching out. Such actions demonstrate a vulnerability and willingness to share and learn as equals; in other words, we are not the experts with all the answers but rather must be open and eager to learn from others. This kind of humility opens the door for those hearing the gospel for the first time to be much more receptive to it.
Mission principle #8: Sometimes mission work fails. By his words, “[When] they do not welcome you…” Jesus was acknowledging that the disciples would not always succeed. When we’re acting in the role of missionaries or evangelists, it’s inevitable that we’ll meet resistance and rejection because Jesus himself did. The resistance and rejection, however, do not change the truth of the gospel message, nor our need to proclaim it. We are called to be faithful, not worrying about success, because the harvest is the Lord’s.
The ninth principle of mission work: Requires us to persevere. “Shake the dust from your feet,” Jesus said. I’ve seen this principle demonstrated time and again by the two young Mormon men who live in this area and are out faithfully proselytizing every day regardless of how many times people reject or disagree with them. All of us should be that committed to sharing the true gospel of Jesus Christ.
And finally, mission principle #10: We must believe that the kingdom of heaven has already come. We have Jesus’ words regarding the fulfillment of God’s redemptive mission: “Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.” It came near in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and it is near to us through the work of the Holy Spirit.
These ten principles serve as a guide for us today as Jesus’ apostles—those he’s called and sent out—to share the good news of God’s saving love for the world. The context, means, and form of the message continually change, but its basis in God’s redemptive love remains forever constant.
So the task of St. Paul Lutheran Church is to continue to pray for wisdom and discernment in determining the ways that we can faithfully work as harvesters in the Lord’s harvest. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest [and] go on your way….”
Pastor Shirley Ross-Jones
July 4, 2010