JESUS SENDS HIS APOSTLES

15^th Sunday Eph  1:3-14    Mark 6:7-13

Last Sunday we learned that Jesus was rejected by those who knew him in his own native place. Rejection and the lack of faith of people in one area, even if it is his own native place, do not stop Jesus from continuing the mission that the Father has sent him to accomplish. In the passage of today, Jesus is sending out the Twelve to do what he has been doing up to this point in his ministry. 

What is more important here is how Jesus instructs them to bring nothing with them except the cloth they were wearing. I guess, Jesus wants to stress that the apostle is called to live a simple life detached from material things in order to concentrate on the message. His point is to stress the importance of the word of God; the importance of preaching; the importance of the missionary work in the life of the disciple.

And what was the message? The message was about the Kingdom of God.

1. Proclaiming the Kingdom: "So they went off and preached repentance"
2. Displaying the Kingdom: "The Twelve drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them."

3. Living the Kingdom: walking by faith in God's providence in the midst of chaos: "He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick--no food, no sack, no money in their belts. They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic."

4. Respecting the Kingdom Decision: "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them."

Who are those being sent by Jesus to preach today? It is no longer the Twelve. You know, it is the mission of the Church to preach. All of us are baptized as Christians and are members of this Church called to preach the gospel. None of us is excused. As Vatican II says about the Laity: “Incorporated into Christ’s Mystical Body through baptism and strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit through confirmation, the laity are assigned to the apostolate by the Lord Himself,” (no. 3). So whatever kind of life, or profession or occupation you have now, you are sent out “to preach, teach, heal and witness to the Good news,” in short, you are sent to evangelize.

That is the message of the second reading where Saint Paul shows us that God has already chosen us to his job.

1)      Paul thinks of the fact of God’s choice: Paul never thinks of himself as having chosen to do God’s work He always thought of God as having chosen him.

2)      Paul thinks of the bounty of God’s choice: God chose us to bless us with the blessings which are to be found only in heaven. We can acquire certain skills, achieve certain positions or amass a certain amount of goods. But there are things we cannot have by ourselves.

3)      Paul thinks of the purpose of God’s choice: God chose us that we should be holy and blameless.

We can easily see that a Christian should be identifiable in the world. It must be remembered that this difference on which Christ insists is not one which takes a man out of the world; it makes him different within the world. It should be possible to identify a Christian in the school, in the shop, in the factory, the office, the hospital ward, everywhere. A Christian teacher is out to satisfy not only the regulations of the education authority, but also of Christ and this makes a difference in his relations to students; a Christian doctor will never regard the sick as a case, but as a person.

And all these privileges we have them in Jesus Christ (verses 7-8). In these two verses we find the three elements of Christian faith:

1)      There is deliverance. This word comes from apolutrosis from lutroun which means to ransom. It is the word used for ransoming a man who is of war or a slave. God is our deliverance. It means the deliverance from a situation from which man was powerless to liberate himself.

2)      There is forgiveness. Jesus taught man not of the hate of God but of his love. Because Jesus came in the world, men, even in their sin, discovered God’s love.

3)      There is wisdom and sound sense. It is Paul’s claim that Jesus brought us Sophia, the intellectual knowledge which satisfies the mind, and the phronesis, the practical knowledge that enable us to handle the day to day problems.

But how do we preach? Our preaching has to be credible. People say, “A good example is the best sermon.” Our concrete lives are the best mirrors by which others may see themselves. In today’s gospel, Jesus instructs His disciples that the first thing to do is to detach from our personal interests and even pride and follow what God wants. It is to take nothing on the journey but a walking stick” (v. 8). This does not mean that we modern preachers we should get rid of ourselves of cars, empty our refrigerators and freezers of food, clean our closets and others. But this means that our life must be simple in order that we cannot clutter ourselves of so many material things that make us forget our own dependence on God and harden our hearts for the poor. In other words, if we want to be signs to others as Christians, we must not hoard things.

Jesus continues to send us into the world as his disciples. But like the first disciples, we are not sent alone. Jesus has given us the community of the Church, which strengthens our life of discipleship. The Christian message can only authentically be proclaimed in and through the community of faith that is the Church. In our work with others, we build this community of faith and can invite others to share in it.

The apostles went and preached the gospel. “Going” is an important part of living for God. We need to “go” to our communities,  to go into the society, to “go” to the poor, “go” to those who don't know Jesus. It's not about huddling in the church comfort zone but about taking the gospel of repentance to the people.

And so I will end my sharing with you with this Prayer of St. Francis. This prayer spells out on how we can preach by example the Gospel in our daily lives:

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.

“Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” Amen