Trinity 5

Sermon preached by the Revd Anna Matthews

 What do we need to be faithful disciples of Jesus? It’s not a discipleship course, or a theology degree, or an ecstatic spiritual experience or good connections or a proven track record in converting people. Nor, if we take the gospels seriously, is it a history of understanding Jesus’ teaching, showing impeccable moral character or being steadfast in the face of trouble.

 In today’s Gospel reading we hear about the sending of the Twelve. They’re the ones Jesus sends out in his name, with his authority. They are to preach and heal and cast out demons. These same disciples, whom we honour as the foundation stones of the church, are the same people who will misunderstand Jesus, and forsake him at the end. They show us that to be a disciple is to be fallible. Those Jesus calls to share in his ministry – which is all of us by virtue of our baptism – are called not to depend on their own strength but on his.

 Jesus sends the disciples out to live precariously. He orders them ‘to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.’ That’s it: all they are to carry with them is a staff, the symbol of his authority (think of the staff bishops carry as a similar symbol). They are not to take with them spare supplies, not to carry a back up plan or provisions but to go out with their vulnerability and dependency. They will have to trust themselves to God and their neighbour, to rely on what Jesus has given them, and trust that it is enough.

 And even then, they may not meet with success. ‘If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.’ There is no guarantee that their ministry will be welcomed – just as Jesus had little success preaching in his own town, among his own people.

 Jesus commits his disciples to the way of dependence. And I notice how our society’s view of this affects how I react to what Jesus does. We tend to think of independence as a virtue, and prize not being a burden to others. That this is not altogether healthy can easily be seen in the way benefit claimants are stigmatized, or the elderly or disabled problematized. One thing the pandemic has taught us or reminded us is that we do need each other, and can’t function as little sovereign territories of one. And that shouldn’t surprise us, as Christians: Jesus commits his disciples to interdependence, not independence. We are supposed to be a burden to one another, supposed to support one another and build each other up.

 In going out, relying on Christ’s authority and not their own gifts or reputation or earnings, the disciples discovered the power of God at work through them. They weren’t called because they were already faithful but because Christ called them, flawed and fallible as they were – and would go on being.

 We learn a similar thing from St Paul in the New Testament reading. In a rather peculiar passage Paul talks about a vision in which he was caught up into the third heaven. Jews at the time believed in a plurality of heavens – usually seven but sometimes three, as in this passage. Paul is therefore talking about being caught up into the highest heaven, in some sort of vision. He’s clear that this is entirely down to the action of God: he did not induce it through prayer or fasting, and it’s not something about which he often speaks or writes – perhaps doing so here as a way of responding to rival leaders who taught that those marked out by God must have had special visions or revelations.

 But Paul does not depend on this vision to bolster his authority. Instead he reaches for his weakness, the ‘thorn in the flesh’ which keeps him grounded in the grace of God. We don’t know what this is – whether it’s a physical or mental or spiritual ailment or affliction. And the details don’t really matter. What does matter is what God has taught Paul through it, that ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’

 Paul could very easily have chosen to depend on his visionary experience, on his own personal gifts and charisma, on his standing as a Jew in order to try to fulfil the ministry Christ called him to. But he doesn’t: he chooses to depend on Christ and his grace. It is precisely in the places of our weakness that God is most free to act: the places where we are not confident; where we are broken or vulnerable; where we know we can’t depend on ourselves.

To trust that Christ’s grace is sufficient is to go out unencumbered, like those first disciples, who discovered the power of God at work through them, fickle and fallible as they were. And the call remains the same: to trust that Christ is enough: that he gives us all we need. We may not always feel very well qualified to be Christ’s disciples. But we are in good company. His calling and the gift of his grace are all the qualification we need.