Text: Mark 6:7-13
Date: July 18, 2021
Event: The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B
Mark 6:7-13 (EHV)
Jesus called the Twelve and began to send them out two by two. He gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8He instructed them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their money belts. 9They were to put on sandals but not to wear two coats. 10He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that area. 11Any place that will not receive you or listen to you, as you leave there, shake off the dust that is under your feet as a testimony against them.”
12They went out and preached that people should repent. 13They also drove out many demons. They anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.
Turn Trust into Telling
How much you trust something is going to dictate your actions, right? Earlier this week, Karen noticed that one of the kitchen table chairs was loose and needed to be tightened. As I sat down to write the sermon about 36 hours later and started thinking through this very introduction, it dawned on me that I hadn’t done anything about that. So, I went and fixed it. But before I did, if you knew that chair had a wobbly leg, how would you treat it? You probably wouldn’t just throw yourself down on it like a rag doll. You almost certainly wouldn’t have used it to boost yourself to hang a picture high on the wall. You’d use if very cautiously, if you would use it at all. Why? Because it wasn’t trustworthy. It was partially broken and needed repair or maintenance. Until that happened, it was likely that it would fail and you, to one degree or another, would get hurt.
The same is true for people, right? If you’ve been burned by someone’s irresponsibility, or selfishness, or lies, you might have a lot of trouble depending on that person. And it really doesn’t matter how many words they use to defend themselves or assure things are different, right? If in your heart you’re thinking this person can’t be trusted, that will affect your actions and interactions with them.
So, your trust in something or someone will change your behavior. Maybe you’ll put your wellbeing squarely on that person or thing, or you’ll avoid them completely, or likely somewhere in the middle.
So, what about Jesus? How does your trust in him look? And how does that trust direct your actions around and concerning him? Let’s look at Jesus’ narrowly-focused mission for his disciples during his ministry and compare it to our lives this morning.
Our Gospel for this morning comes hot on the heels of Jesus’ frustrating time in Nazareth that we looked at last week. Mark’s Gospel is very brief; he doesn’t use a lot ink to indicate transitions in his account, so it’s not super clear how long after the event in Nazareth our Gospel took place, but it seems likely it was not a very long time.
The time has come for the disciples to take a test drive in what their roles would be after Jesus’ ascension. Jesus is sending them out two-by-two to preach the gospel in the towns and villages around them. After all, six teams could cover more ground than one man. Jesus even gives them the ability to work signs and wonders that will underscore the validity of the message they are sharing: He gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
But this trip isn’t about relishing divinely-gifted power over the forces of the spiritual realm. For the disciples, this is going to be a training exercise. Jesus is calling on them to demonstrate an immense amount of trust in a couple of very notable ways.
First, they are to express their trust in physical terms. He instructed them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their money belts. They were to put on sandals but not to wear two coats. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that area.” Why does Jesus give them this instruction? They were not going to be providing for themselves. They are learning and exercising trust in God to provide. And how is God going to provide for the people he has called to share the good news? “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that area.” God will provide through the generosity and hospitality of his people, which is really no different than it is today when God’s people take care of their called workers, or when our needs are tended to by family, Christian friends, or even people we’ve never met. God often meets our needs through the hands of other people.
But there’s another place Jesus is calling them to trust him, and that’s in the realm of the message they are going to proclaim. This message would not be well received by everyone. They would meet opposition. They would find it necessary to shake off the dirt of a town as a testimony against them and their rejection of the message. Matthew provides more detail of Jesus’ commissioning directions in his Gospel: “Be on guard against people. They will hand you over to councils, and they will whip you in their synagogues. You will be brought into the presence of governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles” (Matthew 10:17-18). This proclamation of the gospel is not always going to go well and at times it will cause clear problems in the lives of those sharing it. Not everyone will believe, and some will even react very aggressively against it.
And we saw an example of that with Jesus himself last week, right? When he preached in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth, he shared tremendous good news with them and was met with unbelief that amazed even Jesus! If Jesus did not have a perfect track record in sharing God’s truths, should the disciples expect that they would?
But still there is a promise to trust! Matthew’s Gospel continues to provide extra detail: Whenever they hand you over, do not be worried about how you will respond or what you will say, because what you say will be given to you in that hour. In fact you will not be the ones speaking, but the Spirit of your Father will be speaking through you (Matthew 10:19-20).
The message of God’s Word will be met with rejection, apathy, and animosity. People won’t want to hear or think about sin, death, and hell. They won’t want to hear that there’s nothing they can do to save themselves. And, perhaps counterintuitively, they won’t want to hear that Jesus provides full forgiveness freely, without any work on their part. But the message is not shared because everyone wants to hear it; the message is shared because everyone needs to hear it. And God will make sure it goes out. He promised to give the disciples the words to speak even in the most extreme circumstances. And that promise remains for you and me.
Do you trust these promises? Do you trust that Jesus lived and died to set you free from sin? Does that affect your actions? I think the honest answer to these questions is often, “Yes, but…” Of course, Jesus is my Savior! I know he rescued me from sin, death, and hell! But do I always live confidently in those truths? Does my life always show unwavering trust and focus on the promises and eternal blessings from God? For me I can assure you that, no, it certainly does not. And if I had to guess, I would say your life does not always trust and display that trust either.
Sin causes all sorts of problems. It doubts what God has said he’ll do. It rearranges priorities to make what I want more important than what others need and what God expects of me. It’s like if I were one of the disciples, I would have responded to Jesus call by saying “Yeah, um, I’m going to bring a pretty big suitcase full of supplies and things I like because I don’t trust you to provide. Oh, and I’m going to be spending a lot of time doing what I want to do rather than what you’ve called me to do.”
God forgive us for this lack of trust! And he does. That’s what Jesus came to solve, after all. But still, the Christian life can feel frustratingly cyclical, can’t it? Sin to guilt to repentance to forgiveness and then before we know it sin is back again and the cycle starts anew. But a cycle doesn’t change God nor does it change his promises. Despite our faithlessness, God’s promises are still true. The promise that Jesus has set us free from sin is still true. The promise that we have eternal life waiting for us is still true. The promise that our Savior loves us is still true!
As you find yourself refreshed and renewed in your trust of those truths here this morning, find yourself in the disciples’ shoes as well. Jesus has called you to tell what you trust. You might not have the power over evil spirits, but you should expect the same care, the same providence, and the same reception that the disciples and even Jesus himself received. Some will listen and rejoice with you; some will reject and even cause problems for you. But in the end, your trust is anchored to the God who does not change and who rules all things for the good of his people, the good of his church.
So, turn your trust into telling. And where you sense your trust faltering, seek God’s power in the Word and sacraments, where he bolsters and strengthens that trust. Rejoice in the work God has given you to do, even if it’s not always exciting or outwardly successful. God’s kingdom comes through our sharing of this message as individuals and as a congregation. May God continue to bless that work to the glory of his name! Amen.
