Sermon - July 2, 2023 - The Rev. Emily Collette

I speak in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So today's gospel reading is the tail end

of a long discourse from Jesus, from which we've

been hearing over the last several weeks.

It's in this discourse that Jesus

addresses his disciples, revealing to them

the nature of the ministry that they

are choosing to embark on.

Jesus knows what lies ahead, and he

wants to make sure his disciples know too.

This discourse, though initially addressed

to Jesus' first few followers, still echoes through the years.

And through it, Jesus speaks to those

who would choose to follow him in any time and place,

including us, some 2,000 years later,

still seeking to take our part in the mission and ministry

of Jesus ongoing in the world.

In this 10th chapter of Matthew, the first followers of Jesus

truly begin to come into focus.

What their ministry will be like, who they are,

the chapter begins with a list of their names, all 12 of them,

the apostles of Christ, called such because they

will be the ones sent directly by Jesus into the world.

In Jesus' name, they will heal, they will cleanse,

they will welcome and share and make whole.

They will proclaim the good news of God's love

and care for a wonderful but wayward people.

Theirs will be a ministry of actions.

They will go into the towns.

They will seek the lost.

They will teach.

And they will share the ministry of Jesus

right in the streets and in the cities

and in the homes of the people of Israel.

And they will remind the people that God is always with them.

This is nothing small that they take up the mission

that they are setting out in.

They are commissioned by Jesus to work directly in his name,

to continue loving and healing and reconciling.

But right from the beginning, the disciples

are told exactly what kind of work

they will be taking up, the shape and the character of it.

Physically, theirs will be a trying ministry.

Theirs will be a ministry without security,

without roots or a place to call home.

They will be called to leave their possessions behind,

to take nothing with them, to accept no payment.

They will be called to truly and deeply rely on God's promise

that God always provides.

And moreover, and perhaps even more difficultly,

they will have to rely on the generosity of the people

around them in order to find food and shelter.

Jesus promises them a life of persecution,

of being dragged before kings and governors,

of being rejected by their own people,

even potentially by their own families,

for taking their part in proclaiming the kingdom of God.

But perhaps even more difficult than facing

a hostile foreign government is the process

of undertaking the arduous process

of ordering their own lives.

This chapter has included some difficult teachings from Jesus

about how the disciples and how we ourselves

should live our lives.

Just last week, we heard that whoever would follow God

and take up this ministry cannot do so

unless they learn to let go of the things in this life

that they cherish most.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me

is not worthy of me.

Whoever loves son or daughter more than me

is not worthy of me.

That's a tough thing to hear.

It's an even tougher task to live into.

Of course, God is not asking us to forsake our families

and our friends, our children, or our parents.

Jesus, though, is reminding his disciples in all places

and in all times that the true work of making God known

in the world starts in our own hearts,

when we truly and deeply learn to place God

at the center of our lives, when we seek and center ourselves

on the love of God, when God becomes

the foundation of everything we do,

only then can we truly love God, neighbor, and self

the way that God intended when God created us

and called us good.

The life of a disciple has and continues

to shake many different shapes over the course of history.

We who live comfortably in first world America

almost certainly take for granted

the ease with which we practice and express our faith,

the breadth in which we are allowed to seek and follow

the Holy Spirit and to live into that as individual churches

and individual members within those churches.

And for certain, it has always been

the case for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Many even today must still find the courage and bravery

that those first few followers of Christ

needed in order to say yes to this ministry.

But perhaps to those of us who are comfortable,

Jesus' words speak all the more fiercely.

We who have the luxury and blessing

of living in a country where Christianity remains

the dominant religion.

My friends, we are still called to risk.

We are called to dare.

We are called to venture past the safe and comfortable bounds

of our lives in order to bring the good news of God

into the world around us, in order

to be the still working hands and feet of Christ

in a hurting world.

God calls us to seek and to serve,

to find those in the margins of our own cities and towns,

the people who are unloved, unwanted, and unaccepted.

We are still called to preach freedom

to the captive, love to the loveless,

dignity to those who are forgotten,

and worth to those who are deemed unworthy.

We, like those first apostles, still find ourselves

being sent by Jesus.

The ministry of God from the very beginning

has been one of doing and going and seeking.

God calls us out of ourselves and into the world.

God pulls us from the myth of comfort,

from the lure of complacency and into action,

into loving service of those around us.

We are not promised ease.

We are not promised safety.

But in truth, no disciple ever has been.

What we are promised is true joy and deep peace

that passes all understanding, peace that

allows us to dare when we take up this mission

and head out into the world, looking

for those who are lost and hurting around us.

What we are promised is a home in the Lord,

a place to rest from our ministry with God,

a place to renew and revive before heading back out

into the work that has been ongoing since the fall of Adam

and Eve, and work that will continue

until the coming again of Christ.

And my friends, we are promised love, the knowledge

that God is always with us and always for us,

that we do not do this work alone.

That much we have always been promised.

So trust me, my friends, this discourse from Jesus

to any who would call themselves disciples may be difficult.

And it is as difficult for me as it is for anyone.

The lure of security and comfort and contentment

is just as powerful for me as it has been for anyone.

How easy it would be for me to say yes to my own needs

over and over again.

How easy it would be for me to only do God's work when

it was convenient for me, when it

fit into my tightly packed life.

How easy it would be to only go to the places and the people

in which I feel comfortable.

How easy it would be to drown out all of the voices

and write off all the people who don't agree with me.

And how very easy it would be to only love the people

that I actually like.

But to do that would be to miss the still, small, insistent

voice of God, inviting us to step out of our carefully

crafted comfort zones and into the wide, messy world full

of people who need the gifts that you have to share.

And most importantly, full of people

who need to know the knowledge of God's love

and the story of how it has changed and continues

to change your life.

Disciples of Christ through the centuries

have been blessed and challenged by this very same call.

And now we take our part in going out

into God's beloved creation to change it

and to be changed by it.

Amen.

Amen.