Luke 9:1-6
Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power
and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to
proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. 3 He said to them, ‘Take nothing for
your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money—not even an extra tunic.
4 Whatever house you enter, stay there, and leave from there. 5 Wherever they
do not welcome you, as you are leaving that town shake the dust off your feet
as a testimony against them.’ 6 They departed and went through the villages,
bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere.
For the first time in Luke's Gospel, Jesus finally calls
upon his disciples to do something. Up until now they have been primarily
observers and hearers. He has taught a hundred crowds in their hearing,
imbedded in their minds his message and methods day after day, week after week,
month after month until they know them by heart. Now it is time to send them
out to learn how to minister.
His instructions seem quite simple, if a little hard in
practice – live off the hospitality of your neighbours, stay wherever you are
welcome… and if they don’t want you, shake the dust off your feet and don’t
look back.
This is the bit where I struggle. I have this picture of
Jesus in my head, loving extravagantly and embracing the outcasts, but here we
see him telling his disciples, on the cusp of their first mission, to reject
those who don’t listen. Now, when it comes to God I’ve been known to be a bit
hard of hearing myself – especially when it is something I don’t want to hear.
So if we are to turn away from those who don’t instantly hear the good news,
who are we going to have left?
I still can’t answer this question entirely, but I have been
able to find a different angle from which to view it. What if the disciples are
being told to shake of the dust not only for the sake of the unbelievers, but
themselves? How much time and effort do we spend with our hearts and minds
caught up in an argument that we can never win? When do we let go, and let God?
It can be easy to forget that in all of our greatness and
cleverness, we are still only human – made in the image of God, but not yet in
perfection. Do any of you have family that are not Christians? Me too. Does
anyone else have moments of guilt that they haven’t managed to bring their
people to God? Oooooh yeah. It’s hard. Our faith is the centre point of our
life, literally the light of our beings, and when we haven’t managed to share
that with our nearest and dearest we really do feel like we have failed. Failed
them, and failed God.
But you know what? I don’t think it’s as bad as all that.
Looking at this passage, it seems that even the disciples - filled with the Holy Spirit, healing the
sick, casting out demons – could not bring every person to faith. This must
have been a crushing disappointment for them, as it is for us. Imagine the
burden of failure they could have carried when the people did not want to hear
the good news. Imagine the recriminations, the accusations, the blame…
Now imagine Jesus standing there with them. Jesus, knowing their
pain and shock at their own failure… “turn away”, he says. “Shake the dust off
your feet. Don’t let the disbelief of these people pull you down. Keep going. Keep
fighting. Keep believing. It’s not all up to you”.
It’s not all up to you.
I am a perfectionist. I admit it. No one is harder on myself
than I am – I have worked consciously and consistently to try and accept
correction without letting it beat down my soul. To say I take my failures to
heart is to put it very mildly. If I really thought I had the sole
responsibility for bring my loved ones to faith, I would be terrified – and
rightly so.
Luckily, it doesn’t work like that.
God’s Spirit does not rely on us to transform people’s
hearts. People are not lost to God because we failed to find the correct
combination of words and action to bring them to faith. God works through us
and in others in ways that we can’t even imagine, let alone see. God’s nature
is of mystery, closer to us than we can know but vaster than we can understand.
When there comes a time when we feel that we have failed, that despite our
living and breathing the Gospel we have not managed to touch someone’s heart,
we need to let go. Brush the dust off our feet. Leave it to God.
Because “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all
manner of thing shall be well.”
In the name of Christ.
Amen
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