In our gospel reading this morning, Luke recounts the early days of the ministry of Jesus and the inner circle of twelve disciples. I’d like to take a few moments with you, to enter that intimate space, face to face with Jesus.
Imagine yourself in that
group of twelve, given the power to go to the surrounding towns and villages to
bring the gift of healing, and to proclaim a new realm founded on God’s own
principles of equity, justice and hope. Envision
yourself, with Jesus, this charismatic young man, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee,
a body of water not unlike our familiar lakes of the Okanagan valley. And in that space 2000 years ago, we will need
to set aside our mobile phones, and let go of the security of bank accounts,
phone calls, hotel bookings, cars and planes and buses.
In this space with Jesus, we
could only know that those disciples knew.
Last Sunday we heard about Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, and between
then and this morning’s gospel reading, Luke tells us what Jesus was up to.
· He started his ministry as a solitary effort, teaching
in local synagogues, and casting out demons.
Some celebrated this, others resented him and wanted him gone or dead.
· Before long, Jesus called disciples, to create
community and to share the tasks of ministry. He called the fishers Simon
Peter, James and John, the tax collector Levi, then eight more disciples of the
inner circle and many more women and men beyond that.
· In their presence, Jesus healed those previously
thought to be beyond restoration,
· and the gospel writers describe a sense of being saved
from peril, as Jesus stilled the waves on a stormy sea.
· And Jesus taught, using parables, and he preached. Oh,
how he preached. In the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus outlined a vision of the
Kingdom or Kin-dom of God, in which society gets turned upside down. He spoke
of love, not just for friends but for enemies; he spoke of generosity of person
and generosity of spirit.
Having seen and heard all
that, you have been well prepared by Jesus, and he is ready to send you out,
two by two. He trusts you, in his name and by his power, to bring healing to those
who are ill and all who experience brokenness.
He trusts you to bring his vision of a world where the distribution of
wealth is inverted, to towns who had not yet heard this good news. And Jesus calls you, in turn, to trust the
townsfolk to look after you: for you are told to bring nothing with you other
than your good heart, and good news, and the power to heal. If such a welcome
is not received, you are to shake the dust off your sandals, figure out where
in the world you are going to spend the night, and move on to the next town.
For one more brief moment, we
imagine ourselves back then and over there with Jesus … and then we take those
feelings of intimacy with him and his mission, and bring them into the present
day. In these deeply unsettling days of 2025, you and me, all of us together –
are called and commissioned to bring healing in Jesus’ name, and to engage the
world around us with his message of profound, over-the-top, gracious, endless
love.
The task of discipleship in
our time and place is complex, but for this morning I am going to stay with the
gospel framework. As disciples, here and
now, we are to bring healing, and to open hearts and minds to Christ’s teaching
of a new Kin-dom.
There are many ways to
understand the healing ministry of Jesus. In his time and place, there were many herbal
remedies that would have been quite effective – willow bark, the precursor of
aspirin, has been used as a painkiller for thousands of years - but much of the
work took the shape of casting out demons, and performing healing prayers in
the name of God almighty. While we have
the amazing gifts in 2025 of vaccination and sophisticated medicines and
surgical interventions, there has also been in a number of United Church
congregations a reclaiming of the ministry of healing prayer, and the ancient
practice of laying on of hands, grounded in God’s own loving intention for each
person’s life. Starting in Naramata in 1992,
the Healing Pathway has given one way for people and congregations to carry out
Christ’s ministry of healing. And beyond
something that brings comfort and wellness to the physical body, we are called
to bring healing and wholeness to all places of spiritual and emotional
woundedness: broken hearts, broken relationships, broken souls. We are called, in these unsettling days, to
hear the concerns, the worries. And in
the midst of all that, Jesus calls and empowers us to be a people of shalom, that
state of being when all persons have what they need to live fruitful lives,
when all are treated as equally important, when all can live with dignity, when
all of humanity lives in harmony with nature. This may mean that we will need to speak
difficult truths to one another, it will involve speaking truth to power, and
we will always need to be accountable to one another.
As for the second task to
which we are called, sharing the vision and promise of the Kingdom of God,
well, that may take some un-learning before we move forward.
In a book by Tod Bolsinger, Canoeing
the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory, the metaphor of
the early 19th century Lewis & Clark expedition is used to help the
Church shape its engagement of the future. Tod asserts that as they prepared to
cross the continental divide from east to west, Lewis & Clark hunched that what
they would see on the west side of the divide would mirror what they had already
experienced on the east side. That, of course, was not the case, and their
Indigenous guide, Sacagawea, had told them as much. Similarly, Tod asserts, if
we assume that Church life in the 21st century should be just like
the Church life that we grew up with in the 20th century, and that
all we need to do to be successful and faithful in future is to work harder
with the old tools, we are dead wrong. In
order to live and share the good news of Christ Jesus in our current context, we
will need to do so with our eyes and ears and hearts wide open, to learn about the
lives of our neighbours. There is a huge need for the good news of Christ’s
powerful, invitational, non-judgmental love to be shared, by our deeds and
words, and that needs to be shaped by listening to those who have been wounded
by the Church. That includes our Indigenous sisters and brothers and all our
2SLGBTQIA+ children and siblings who did not feel that Church was a safe place
for them, as well as those who equate Christianity with the heavily judgmental
versions that make the headlines. Such
is our calling – our version of being sent out two by two into the world.
As we engage in Christ’s ministry of health and wholeness and his transformative vision of a world made new, we recall the words of our United Church Creed (1968): “We are called to be the Church: to celebrate God’s presence, to live with respect in Creation, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope”. Listen to those verbs: celebrate, proclaim, live with respect, love, serve, seek, resist. That is a powerful calling in the mess that surrounds us, as we remain in a state of alarm at the outrageous things are said and done on an hourly basis by the so-called leader of the free world. At a time when it feels like all we can do is fasten our seat belts and brace for impact, we are still called to bring healing… we are still called to speak the hope of the extraordinary realm to come… we are still called to receive Christ’s love, and share it freely.
Whether it was on the shores of Galilee some two thousand years ago, face to face, hand in hand with our young leader, Jesus, or with the risen Christ in the lands of the south Okanagan, we give thanks for the call to discipleship and all that it implies. We give thanks for those with whom we share the calling, for those we will meet along the way, for the good news we have to share and all that we can learn from our neighbours. And we give thanks for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, whose liberative love brings hope, in this moment and always. Amen.
References cited/consulted:
Bolsinger, Tod. Canoeing
the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory,. Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 2015.
Craddock, Fred. Interpretation: Luke. Louisville, KY:
John Knox Press, 1990.
Naramata Centre: Healing
Pathway. https://www.naramatacentresociety.org/community-life
The United Church of Canada:
A New Creed. https://united-church.ca/community-and-faith/welcome-united-church-canada/faith-statements/new-creed-1968
© 2025 Rev Greg Wooley,
Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge.
No comments:
Post a Comment