Reflections on Ministry

Reflections on Ministry
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20;
2 Kings 5:1-14; Galatians 6:1-10

I know that Luke was said to be a physician, but I think he might be more suited to be a community organizer. When you read his gospel, there is a clear development and expansion of Jesus’ mission. At first on Jesus is the main actor. He does everything. He preaches, he heals, he teaches, he exorcizes. Then he started to call people to follow him. He ended up with twelve who had a variety of family and career backgrounds. Jesus went about the region making stops at towns and villages proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. He was accompanied by the twelve and by a number of women, who apparently helped support his traveling ministry out of their own resources.

When the once demon-possessed and then-restored-to-his-senses Gerasene wanted to go along with Jesus’ entourage, Jesus told him to go to his own home and community and declare how much God had done for him. And that is what he did.

At the beginning of chapter nine Jesus sent out the twelve empowered over demons and diseases to proclaim the kingdom. They were to do it with little baggage, pomp or expectation. If they were rebuffed, they were to move on. I suppose it was like a ministry in context education experience in seminary, an opportunity to experience the church in its native setting.

At the end of chapter nine, the reading we had last Sunday, some of the twelve had already been to the Samaritan town and they had not been received, so Jesus bypassed that place. Along the way, people asked to follow him and he asked others to follow. Jesus made it clear that this was no Sunday School picnic that was passing through the region. He had announced the probable outcome of the journey previously – Jerusalem and death. A great many excuses were given by potential followers.

But now, at the beginning of chapter ten, Jesus sends seventy others to go ahead of him to the places he intended to go, advance teams to get the word out about Jesus. If this were a political campaign, they would be knocking on doors and handing out fliers or staffing phone banks and robo-calling the locals to get them to come to the rally which was scheduled the day after tomorrow.

This continual growth in the numbers of those drawn into Jesus’ mission sets the scene for Luke’s second volume, the Acts of the Apostles, and the handing off of the responsibility for mission from Jesus to those who received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and beyond. Jesus did not do everything for the disciples when he was with them in the flesh. Nor does he do everything for followers in the succeeding generations. Rather, he does what they, what we, cannot do. Christ empowered the first laborers for the harvest for the work which he set before them, just as Christ empowers today’s mission workers – you and me – to accomplish the work which he still sets before us.

Jesus does not give us a step-by-step flow chart of how to do mission. But he does point us to areas which will hold benefit for us to reflect on.

Right from the start, Jesus tell us that the harvest is plentiful. He does not say that the harvest will magically march up to us and drop at our feet. We will have to work at it. We will have to alter the way we see the world in order to see the harvest. This is because Jesus sees abundance where most of us see scarcity. Jesus does not have a Pollyanna outlook on the world. He is not an optimist. Jesus knows the world inside out. He is a realist. And the reality that Jesus deals with is an all-encompassing faith in the “Lord of the harvest.”

Too often we think that we have to prepare the harvest. That is not the case. Preparation is God’s responsibility. Jesus commissions us to gather the harvest in and pray that other laborers will join us in this important work. God is responsible for the growth that results in the harvest. As laborers for the harvest we have to be ready for that growth. We have to plan for it, whether it is planning to have a new disciple class when there are no new disciples yet visible, or whether it is making sure there are enough bulletins and chairs, and someone to sit with a guest and explain how we do worship and maybe something about why we do certain things in worship. Everything we do has to anticipate rather than impede the growth that God is doing. And we have to pray and invite others to join us in gathering the harvest that God provides.

Another area of reflection on ministry deals with a different reality. That reality is that we live in an unfriendly, perhaps even hostile world. The world as a whole no longer eagerly wants what the church has to offer. When we say that the church offers fellowship or community or learning, the world will say, “I can get that elsewhere. Why should I bother with the church?” Yes, the world may be able to offer bits and pieces of what the church offers, but only the church, when it is faithful to its Lord, can offer the whole package.

Jesus did not arm the seventy for battle. They go out as lambs, somewhat naively and certainly very vulnerable. They are to bless being received, but are not to curse being rejected. God’s peace will rest naturally upon any household or individual that values and cultivates peace, but will not remain with those that do not. The vulnerability of disciples is seen in the fact that they are to depend on the hospitality of those that receive them and to whom they are ministering. We are so used to offering aid and at times giving aid, that we forget what it is to receive it. Ministering to the world is not done in strength and largess, but in weakness and in need.

So the harvest is not something that we do so much as we prepare to receive it, and we are more recipients than givers of the grace of God’s peace. That’s very humbling. We always thought we had to do something more than just show up. What that tells us is that the responsibility does not rest on any one pair of shoulders. We will have successes. They may seem puny, but when taken in aggregate, they amount to a lot. Jesus declares that they portend the downfall of Satan and the inauguration of a new age. The net effect of what we do as harvest laborers for God’s kingdom far exceeds what we can see. When we attend faithfully to our Lord’s mission and accomplish acts of mercy in Jesus’ name, we are announcing the coming of God’s kingdom and God’s promise and offering a challenge to the reign of evil. The kingdom of God has come near and our privilege in ministry is like that of the Gerasene: declare how much God has done for us.

An ultimate reflection on ministry is that regardless of the little triumphs we might experience, what is more significant is that our names are written in heaven. The eternal relationship with God that we enjoy far outweighs the spiritual successes we might participate in. No matter what, we can experience the fullness of grace lavished by God’s Spirit. We are at one and the same time recipients of and heralds to the grace and mercy embodied in Christ.

The disciples physically with Christ as he traveled to Jerusalem and death, and after death resurrection, were afterwards called on to witness what that meant to them, why it changed their lives. Our lives have been changed, some slowly and steadily, some suddenly and significantly. Because of Christ we are not who we might have been. This table is a reminder of what we have experienced in our own lives. It refuels our witness that Christ is the bread of life and the cup of blessing. We have been gathered, welcomed in hospitable peace, connected to an ongoing vision far greater than any we could dream up, and embedded in the realm of God’s eternal glory through Christ’s grace and mercy.

May we become more fully prepared to for God’s successful harvest. Amen.

Copyright 2013 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Used by permission.