Living as a "Sent" People

Devotional Reflection, Friday, July 16, 2021

Proper 10, the week of the seventh Sunday after Pentecost

The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.

Key phrase for reflection from today’s reading:

13 He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. 14And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, 15and to have authority to cast out demons.

Today we celebrate the Feast of “The Righteous Gentiles.” (See below.)

Daily Office Lectionary readings

AM Psalm 37:1-18; PM Psalm 37:19-42

1 Samuel 20:24-42; Acts 13:1-12; Mark 2:23-3:6

Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, Book of Common Prayer

Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer

Compline (Night Prayer), Page 127, Book of Common Prayer

Daily Office Gospel, Mark 3:7-19

7 Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; 8hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. 9He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; 10for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. 11Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, ‘You are the Son of God!’ 12But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.

13 He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. 14And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, 15and to have authority to cast out demons. 16So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); 18and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, 19and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

David's Reflections

Jesus called twelve to follow him. Rabbis usually were sedentary, setting up rabbinic schools to which disciples applied for study. Jesus broke that mold as a peripatetic teacher who initiated contacts with his disciples. These twelve became the foundation of the earliest church with their witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The number twelve signifies a new covenant community, modeled on the number of the tribes of Israel. Judas was replaced by Mathias (Acts 1). The tradition these twelve and the other eyewitnesses passed on lies at the foundation of the four Gospels and the epistles (many of which were written before the first of the Gospels). They were called apostles, which means ones sent on a mission. Their number seems to have be set with the calling of Paul and Jesus’ brother, James (See 1 Cor. 9:1-1; 15:1-10).

Note the reasons for their call. First, they were to be with Jesus. Second, they were to proclaim the message. Third, they were to heal those oppressed by evil spirits by freeing them The Twelve were ordinary people. They were fishers, tax gatherers, merchants--not the aristocracy of their culture. They were something of an odd mix as well. Simon was a Cananean, probably a technical term for an assassin who took out Roman officials. And, Matthew was just such an official, a tax collector. I can imagine some quite interesting interchanges among this rather varied bunch. Ideological conformity was not the organizing principle of that band.

But, Jesus molded this diverse and rather ordinary group into a cohesive and committed community able to take the impact of his brief ministry, his life, his death, his resurrection and to become, under the transforming touch of the Spirit, the foundation of the church universal. They and their successors were able to overcome Roman persecution and paganism and within three hundred years to make Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire.

What a microcosm of what the church is to be. We are to include all types of people, even people with rather widely diverse cultural, theological, and political perspectives. We are called to be with Jesus, to share in his risen life, to keep company with him and with those who love him. We are to carry on the work of proclaiming, of witnessing to our experience of God's saving love, and we are to seek the healing, wholeness, and freedom of those in the grip of evil and suffering and those being oppressed. We are to live and function as an apostolic community, sent out by the risen Christ.

God gathers all sorts of people into a community, folks who had no common bond before other than their faith and some who had no faith before finding the community. A commonly held theology is not central to our sense of unity; rather, our sharing in the Holy Table and our sharing a vision of mission and ministry lie at the heart of our community life. My prayer is that we will find ourselves so under the sway of the Spirit of Jesus that we will experience ongoing transformed into an apostolic community on mission to those with no faith or with faith shattered and wounded.

Something Scott Peck once said about community comes to mind.

"When I am with a group of human beings committed to hanging in there through both the agony and the joy of community, I have a dim sense that I am participating in a phenomenon for which there is only one word. I almost hesitate to use it. The word is 'glory.'" *

*M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, (New York: Touchstone, 1988), p. 106

Collect of the Day, Proper 10, the seventh Sunday after Pentecost

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 231)

Today we celebrate the Feast of the “Righteous Gentiles.”

http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/righteous_gentiles.htm

Collect of the Feast of the “Righteous Gentiles”

Lord of the Exodus, who delivers your people with a strong hand and a mighty arm: Strengthen your Church with the examples of the Righteous Gentiles of World War II to defy oppression for the rescue of the innocent; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

A Collect for Fridays

Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death: Grant to us your servants so to follow in faith where you have led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness; for your tender mercies' sake. Amen. (BCP, 123)

In the Evening

O Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in thy mercy, grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last. Amen. (BCP, 833)

A Collect for Mission

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP, 280)