We aren’t just distractible. We focus on the wrong stuff from the start. Making stories of God’s love into opportunities to judge.
Disciples and the Beloved Community
Proper 9C | Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Jesus is literally empowering his disciples. Giving them power. His power. Power to heal and to exorcize demons.
I don’t always feel like we give this enough attention.
It’s probably the fact that we look around our world now and go yeah, but where is it, then? This power that Jesus hands over seems to be nowhere.
Of course, it sometimes seems to show up. In faith healers throwing sick people to the floor and the disabled from wheelchairs. Or maybe image we associate with Jesus’s face is burned into a piece of toast.
So the times we see this happen, it feels so…out of sync. Like a random verse of scripture, these moments of literal power feel out of context.
Like healing that is separate from kin-dom building. Separated from the mission. Or how it even relates to the mission.
The healing in the gospel isn’t to show off the power of God. It shows off God’s love in creation.
The Context
Exactly one chapter ago, Jesus empowered the Twelve in this same way. To heal and exorcize demons. To proclaim the Good News of the Kin-dom.
And that means going out into the world with nothing. Well, not nothing. With just what you have. Nothing more. So no provisions. Or changes of clothes. They are to go out into the world to depend on the world.
To let the world be their neighbors.
So he sent them. And they came back.
It is a profound moment. A true turning point. The disciples took a tremendous leap into the unknown and landed on solid footing.
But what happened when they got back? They got full of themselves. Arguing about greatness. About who the right kind of Jesus followers really are.
And in the midst of all of this, their power failed them. Jesus rebuked them.
Then he sent out the rest of the disciples to do the same.
Why the Twelve turned into jerks is pretty obvious: hubris. They got full of themselves. Jesus gave them the chance to speak for him and they got pretty used to the idea. And the power.
What seems more improbable, given the trajectory of that chapter of the gospel narrative, is that Jesus would repeatedly rebuke the Twelve and then be like, I’m going to expand on this project.
Yeah, it worked, at least in that moment, but it led to a whole lot of bad fallout. Lots of arrogance and stupidity and disappointment. But he keeps going. Takes the project worldwide.
So this project must be bigger than the disciples.
And bigger than a healing superpower.
This a project of finding neighbors.
If we think about it, the Twelve began to fail when they started to think they were all that. That they were Jesus. Rather than the ones bringing Jesus to people.
Or, to think of it another way, when the focus was on the power rather than the Kin-dom, they failed. Because it isn’t just that the Twelve enjoyed having power or developed strong egos because of the power.
It is that Jesus’s power has purpose. And that purpose is to heal, redeem, restore, and transform the lives of people in their suffering. Jesus’s power exists in service to the Kin-dom—the beloved community of God.
So Jesus’s work is transformation, not simply empowerment. It isn’t giving special people special tools to show off. It is eradicating poverty, healing sickness, banishing evil, freeing the captive, and restoring communities broken by arrogance and inequality.
So dudes arguing about who is more awesome…that junk’s not it.
But…going out and finding neighbors, freeing them from what binds them, bringing justice into broken lives…that is the project.
So given that, why wouldn’t Jesus push it further? Recruit more people? Reach out to everybody?
Making it Fit
When we are trying to find our place in this puzzle, we can struggle to make it fit exactly right.
Because part of what we naturally do is take a story like this one and try to apply it to our lives directly. Without context. Pulling the story out of its context and shoving it into our lives without respect to our context.
We think, where are my powers? Or we assume anyone would have powers. Or perhaps we utterly dismiss the possibility of anyone ever having powers. All of this is not only too literal; it verges on the nonsensical.
We don’t read about the donkey who talks to Balaam and expect donkeys to talk. But we also shouldn’t presume that the point has to do with God only using animals. Or that God wouldn’t use unlikely means of communication to get our attention. It is neither a how-to manual nor a story to be dismissed.
We’re called to live the Kin-dom now in our world. And to do that, we need to honor God’s communication with us here. In the gospel. And in our neighbors. Our communities. And all those around us. People who could be neighbors. Longing to be free.
The Kin-dom is the point.
It is so tempting to focus on the power, the healing, the transformation, that we miss that the point is the Kin-dom. All of that is like bright, shiny objects. So tempting. So distracting.
But where should our eyes go?
Well, not to the power. And not to all of the what-ifs. Or what-if-they-don’ts.
And definitely not all the ways we size up God. Tell the world how awesome “he” is (and how awesome we are by standing next to him). Pretending God is a man to be hyped (and then we can steal power and status).
Focusing on what happens to people after we shake the dust from our feet rather than what it means to sit with people and receive their hospitality. To give others the chance to treat you like a human being; with dignity and respect and love. To let these found neighbors share God’s love with us.
That’s the focal point.
We can get so obsessed with being respected. But we can be just as obsessed with the bad stuff. With what happens. With what God will do to punish. As if that’s the part we think matters the most. Not that God so loved the world, but that God so loved half the world and relishes punishing the other half!
We can be such Twelves. Arrogant. Focused on the power.
But we can also be Disciples. Focused on the Kin-dom. On the love of God. Participating in the transformation of the world.
Full of generosity and hope.
And love. Always love.
Starting from love. To deliver love. To those who need love.
Always in the name of Jesus. And always for the grace of the Kin-dom. Here and now.