Healing Hands: Go Forth
Mark 6:6-13
Text: Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. 7 Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits.8 These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. 9 Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. 10 Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. 11 And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” 12 They went out and preached that people should repent. 13 They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.
Notes:
- One of three places people often find themselves: Distraught, Distracted, Disturbed; “Dis” = Apart, utterly
- Distraught: Pulled completely apart; “Complexity management crisis” (J. Petersen); Anxiety & depression; Individuals, families, and societies crumbling
- Distracted: Pulled in different directions; Preoccupied with diversions; Entertainment; drugs; making money; keeping busy
- Disturbed: Utter tumult, turbulence; Contemplating violence to others or self
- What all of these states of being have in common is that the person who is distraught, distracted or disturbed is lacking a cohesive center, something holding life together.
- Last week, said this cohesive force binding our individual psyches/souls together, as well as our families and communities is religion, which literally means binding again.
- Paul in Colossians says, “Christ holds all things together.” Without Christ the whole project falls apart, our lives fall apart, relationships, marriages, families, societies
- That is what we are experiencing in our culture today, a serious pulling apart, crumbling into a million painful pieces. So many have broken the bond with this Christ who holds all things together and their lives have gone spinning into chaos. Perhaps that is you.
- Yet, Christ is with us. Or as Wesley uttered as his last words, “The best of it all is, God is with us.” God has not abandoned us as orphans. He has come looking for us. He has left the 99 behind and come searching for us, yes, even you. To save you. To snatch you out of the grip of chaos and return your mind, soul, life and relationships to order, to the Logos, the ordering Word.
- Our Orthodox Christian brothers and sisters have a liturgical phrase that describes this reality. They profess that God is “everywhere present and fillest all things.” He desires to keep our lives in a loving bond with the Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – so that we might experience His ordering love and grace.
- I say all of this as a preliminary to our reading from Mark 6:6-13, because we need to understand that the Christian life is not a past-time, something we do in addition to more urgent and important things. Christ holds all things together, so we must keep our hearts, minds and souls in a place where we keep Christ at the center. The Apostles in Acts said it is in Christ in whom we “live, move and have our being.” Our very being!
- Is your Christian walk an afterthought? Are you distraught this morning? Distracted? Or perhaps even disturbed? Then we need to truly listen, have ears to hear, what Jesus is instructing his disciples.
- At the center of Jesus’ project for his disciples is the preaching of metanoia, usually translated as repentance. Metanoia is the Greek word we translate into repentance, but what it literally means is to change one’s mind, to have a different worldview.
- Why is a change of mind necessary? Because the current worldview of most people is destructive to self, to others, to the creation. Paul describes our condition when we live according to the worldview of the old self. “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath” (Eph. 2:1-3).
- But God is working something new for our lives through this Christ who holds all things together. Paul goes on to write in verse 4, “4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”
- Jesus tells his disciples to go out and preach metanoia; teach people to change their minds, their worldviews, to turn from a central preoccupation with wealth-building, consuming, maintaining your image, desiring power and control. Instead, choose life, pursue the abundant life in Christ.
- Our passage from Mark shows what our metanoia mission looks like and can be adapted for our Christian missional life today.
- Motion: Rhythm of the Church can be described as gathering>going>gathering>going. Get up! Talitha Koum! Do not forsake assembling, but also…Fear not, but go!
- 2×2 – Christian life is not for atomistic individuals but for community, serving Christ in community. Wesley called this “social holiness,” engaging in mission alongside others; More fruitful, accountable, encouragement. Biblical examples: Josha/Caleb, Moses/Aaron, Paul and Silas. Find a partner in ministry for more effective ministry!
- Single-minded – Leaving behind unnecessary things, commitments, things weighing us down and hindering our mission and witness. Illustration: Like going camping with the conveniences of home; Not really camping, is it? Glamping – Australia, $750 per night, cabin with hand-crafted bed, deluxe linens, private deck.
- Preaching Metanoia: Change your mind and take on a new worldview. What is this worldview? It is incarnational. It understands and has faith that Christ is in the world and by grace through faith saves us.
- Result of living the incarnational life, that is guided and led by the Way of Jesus and the indwelling Holy Spirit.
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