Proper 6 - Sent out

Jesus feels sorry when he sees all the people that need help. He first asks his disciples to pray and then sends them out. Praying is always the first things that we should do
Even if we are listening to Gods call to send us. The Gospel tells us that after he asks them to pray he sends them out. "Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. And these are the names of the twelve apostles..."  If you look carefully at that verse in the Gospel you notice a change. It goes so fast that you might have missed it. In the first sentence it says "disciples." Then it suddenly changes to "apostles." What's the difference? It are just interchangeable names for the twelve right? Let's compare it with ourselves. When we are in the last stage of being a student. We all made or make the same kind of transition. One minute you are a student, still  in training to learn to do the job. Then comes the moment of graduation. They are no longer students but graduates, ready to go out into the world to practice what they've been learning for so many years. The word disciples means a person who believes in the ideas and principles of someone else and tries to live the way that person does or did. Basically a student that is being taught by that person or someone else to follow the principles as laid out. The Greek word apostle refers to somebody that is being send out on a mission. So there is a difference. A Disciple is someone being taught, while a apostle is someone that is going to practice what he learned. It is a important distinction. In a way we are all first disciples of Christ and then, some more then others, become apostles and go into the world on a mission for Christ.
 
And that mission is more then going to church on Sunday, to say that you have Jesus in your heart or you are able to quote scripture verses. NO! It is to put into action what you have heard and experienced from your teacher. It is to go on that mission and love your neighbor all the way. It is to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and cast out demons. And we can see that both in a literal our symbolically way. The world needs these works of mercy above all We have to show that we are followers of Jesus. We need to be Jesus Apostle’s every day again. Things didn’t changed that much. In our world it is still the case that we are first a student and then comes the moment of graduation. We are no longer students but graduates. We go into the world and practice what we have learned in all these years. And what learned is not staying in the books and make it too theoretical…no we have to practice it as the situation requires. But of course with that what we learned in the back of our minds. We are no longer disciples but ready to for the professional world. We are, in effect, "apostles," people being "sent out" into the world to do what we have been taught to do. That is what an "apostle" does. This passage from Matthew shows us the moment of “graduation”. When Jesus decided that they were ready to be sent out to share in his mission. Jesus saw he could not do it alone so he sends his disciples out. He also ask them to pray that God may send more “workers into his harvest”. Jesus needs more workers to spread the message. He needs you and he needs me and we should go wherever he sends us. Unlike graduates in our world they did not had a completed amount of courses or credit hours. Discipleship isn't that easy. It was more a matter of Jesus deciding that they were ready. And he knew that the world needed them. Jesus had been travelling around for a while and noticed that they were "harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd". As he looks at them, he sees the need. Much more then he can reach on his own. And so the time has come to add helpers to his mission. So he "sends out laborers into the Lord's harvest..."

So Jesus called to him his closest followers, and passes on the power to name and overcome evil, the power to heal and reconcile, power granted to him by the holy and living God. And then he sent them out as apostles with some guidelines. Were they perfect in everything they did? Most likely not. The New Testament tells us over and over again of the ways they missed the  dropped the ball and missed the point. They missed the point of what Jesus was telling them.  They slept when they should stay awake,  deserted him, barely recognized him as the risen Christ and had no clue  what to do when he ascended into heaven. One of them even sold him to the enemy authorities. But still…but still.... There is a church in the world today that witnesses to every nation about the Gospel of Christ. Are we perfect? Most certainly not. But still we go out and try to do our best to be faithful witnesses of Christ. Just like the Apostles, imperfect as they were, answered the call of Jesus to be sent out to proclaim the good news. Sometimes we're tempted to see the church as an end in itself. We're happy to gather within our buildings and our communities (again). Just to be in the presence of the Lord. We are content to gather and shut the world out. But that is not what Jesus asked us to do or to be. Being an apostle is a risk. It means we have to step outside the walls of the Church and go into a world of people. A world that is caught in suffering, fear and illusions. God knows that this world needs the Gospel of Christ more then ever. It takes courage to be an apostle. The disciples that gathered around Jesus weren't much different. They most likely didn’t want to go out there, outside the comfort of the close circle. No they needed to go out where they had to be "wise as serpents" and "innocent as doves." But Jesus saw the world, grieving and wounded, and knew they needed his message desperately, then and know. He sent out his first apostles to bear the power of God into the struggle with evil, to heal the sick, to bring the reconciliation of love. And he sends us still, to do the same. As apostles of Christ, we are called to that difficult mission. To bring healing, reconciliation, and love to the world, in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are called to different places and different cultures but we are called to go wherever there are people hurting and looking for salvation. Our world is still full of people who are "harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd."
 
Like the first apostles, we won't be perfect. We will make mistakes, miss opportunities, miss the point and betray our Lord. But our God is a God of Mercy. And he keeps sending us back out into the world, to be his apostles. The first apostles are our forebears on the journey of faith. They turned the world upside down, in the power of the Spirit. And we should do the same. We are called to go out to the world we live in and don’t stay behind the closed doors of “the upper room”. We are called to go out a call out the evil and injustice we see. We need to disclose these practices and try to change them in the Spirit of the Gospel. We need to touch the sicknesses of the world -- fear, exclusion, racism, violence, hopelessness, despair, pain and heal it. Say to the world, "The Kingdom of God has come near." And don't worry or be afraid. God knows how to accomplish it.  God’s Spirit will be moving through you. God’s purpose will be accomplished in the power of the Holy Spirit.  This is the mission we are called to and so we go. Amen.