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A Good Word For Jesus "Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two" Mark 6:7 Topic: Evangelism Keywords: Worship,Name of Jesus,Joy Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time(B) Mark 6:7-13 "The most creative thing we can do" "In this, our act of community worship, God has gathered us together to experience the immediacy of His presence. This means drawing closer to God, as a Church-as a People. This is our great gift from the Lord Jesus. Because we are Jesus' followers we can enter into deep communion with God in this unique, life-enriching way. But this "gathering together" is not the total experience. There is a second part to it, without which the first part loses its meaning. The same God who gathers us together to experience His presence, scatters us into the world to witness to His love. The same God who reveals Himself to us here, reveals Himself to the world through us. The same God who makes it possible for us to breathe in-to receive-the Holy Spirit, requires us to breathe the Holy Spirit out. If we only breathe in and never breathe out, in this sense, the Holy Spirit has no real meaning in our lives. Spiritually, we are dead. "Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two" (Mk.6:7) The Gospel clearly tells us, over and over again, that the God who loves us so much and has given us so much through Jesus, sends us out to share this Jesus with the world. To the whole creation, to all nations, everywhere, we go out and speak the Name of Jesus. In the New Testament this is very important. For us, a name is just a tag. But in New Testament times it was regarded as a symbol of the innermost being of a person. The New Testament Christians whom Jesus sent out "two by two" understood that they were to do more than offer encouragement to people. It was of the utmost importance to their mission that they, literally, name the Name of Jesus. And that is where we back off, many of us. The quality of the spirit in which we go out into the world is the secret of making it possible for us to name the Name of Jesus before others. (The spirit of love, for example.) This is where many people encounter some real problems. I am talking about "Evangelism" without wanting to say the word, really, because it has come to be identified with aggressive arrogance and with manipulation of other people, and with unbecoming self-righteousness. There are "Evangelists" who seem terribly preoccupied with measuring "success" in terms of scalp-counts of their instant "conversions." This kind of "Evangelism" reminds one of the Army colonel in the famous Musical, "South Pacific." You may remember the scene when he reports for duty as Military Governor of a little island, saying, "I'm going to teach these natives Democracy if I have to kill every damn one of them." There has been that spirit in Christian witness in many places. What we are talking about is an Evangelistic spreading out of the love of Jesus Christ-the love that flows out to people like a great wave of compassion. Because He loves them so much, we feel the love flowing through us, and we realize that what we have to give in our families and neighborhoods and places of work is the most priceless gift available to mankind. Because we do this out of love, there is no room in our Evangelistic spirit for aggressive arrogance or manipulation of people or self-righteousness or self-serving head counts. Along with this spirit of love goes the spirit of joy. God's love loses its meaning when it is dull, unenthusiastic, joyless. In naming the Name of Jesus we should be giving a sign that God's love is in us and is making a difference in our lives. The New Testament Christians were so filled with enthusiasm and joy over the difference it made in their lives that they literally could not contain it within themselves. Wherever they went the joy spilled over and people suddenly paid attention. A man whose wife was sick decided that he would do the cooking. He did quite well at it until one day he became very ambitious. He thought he would bake some bread. As often happens the first time around, he misread the recipe and he put two pounds of yeast into the dough. After faithfully following all the other instructions, he put the dough near the heat and waited. Some time later his wife called down from her upstairs bedroom: "Have you put the dough in the oven yet, dear?" Frantically, he replied, "Put it in the oven? I can't even keep it in the kitchen!" That's the New Testament: the leaven of the Word of God; the Name of Jesus; you "can't even keep it in the kitchen." You can't even keep it in the Church. It just expands into the world. In many ways, this is the most critical problem we face in the Church today when we talk about "Church Renewal." A preacher can talk about "a more meaningful worship experience" or "the need for more Bible reading and Bible study," and have some reasonable expectation that the congregation and he are on the same wave-length. But when he begins to talk about proclaiming the Name of Jesus and about how this had top priority in the Early Church, he may as well be speaking in a "tongue." It is like a foreign language. It isn't being done. It isn't being thought about. It isn't being understood. Yet, we as Church, we who have received the gift of Jesus Christ, are given the clear mandate in the Gospels to share that gift, to speak, to name the Name. Let us think of the Church as the community of people who love Christ. Let us think of the Church as a People who have come together to worship God and to experience His presence. Let us rejoice in this experience of God giving Himself to us in this immediate, direct way. Let us rejoice in the life enrichment that comes to us as we celebrate the great Mystery of God's presence in the Church. But, in so doing, let us not forget the other side, the "flip" side of this arrangement. Let us realize that He who gathers us together also scatters us into the world. Let us realize that our continuing mission is to spill out of this Church and into the world and, wherever we go, to be witnesses for Jesus Christ. Wherever we go, we tell others about this great thing in our lives that makes all the difference; we name the Name of Jesus as the Source of our joy. When we open the windows of our life on the world in this way, we can feel God's power surging through us, bringing wholeness of life and peace. In his little book, "Beside the Briar Bunny Bush," Ian McClaren tells of a young Scotch clergyman, recently ordained, who had come to the little Church of his youth to preach his first sermon. The congregation received him very warmly. Their enthusiasm told him that they were expecting much from his sermon that coming Sunday. Consequently, he labored over the sermon for days until he was confident that it amply reflected his superior scholarship (in which he took great pride) and that it was theologically solid. He was staying with an elderly aunt, an uneducated woman, but a woman wise in the ways of life. She was extremely proud of her young nephew whom she had dearly loved since his birth. It was Saturday night and he had come down from his room to put a few finishing touches on the sermon. After dotting the last "I" and crossing the final "T," he began to discuss the sermon with his aunt. She said to him, "You'll say what is right. No doubt of that. And the Body will be pleased with you. But, oh laddie, when you stand up to preach, be sure and say a good word for Jesus." And he realized that in spite of the theological solidity of the sermon, he hadn't done that. He retired quickly to his room, tore up the sermon and stayed up all night writing a new one. And, as he wrote, he came upon a whole new understanding of this Christian reality: that one of the most fulfilling and one of the most creative things we will ever do is to say a good word-for Jesus." ____________________________________________________________________________ Sunday Sermons, and SermonWarehouse, Copyright ©2005, Voicings Publications. All rights reserved. The material contained herein is intended for oral expression only. Except for the exclusive, personal use by user in sermon preparation, this material may not be copied or otherwise duplicated, nor may it be distributed by the user in print or electronic form by any method including, but not limited to, transmission via FACSIMILE, computer modem, Internet, E-Mail, Newsgroups, Mailing lists or electronic forums. Any such unauthorized distribution is a violation of law.