Sermon Text: Mark 6:7–13
Date: July 14, 2024
Event: Proper 10, 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.
God Gives Us His Authority
Have you ever been in a position to speak for someone else, someone whose authority level outranked your own? It’s a little surreal. If your boss gives directions for your team but sends you to share the directions, suddenly, you, who are on equal footing in the company with your peers, speak with the boss’s authority. An ambassador is not the leader of a nation. Still, if he interacts with another country, he does so with his homeland's authority and direct commission. The mail carrier doesn’t have the authority to take money from you, but she sure can drop those bills off in your mailbox, can’t she?
Jesus’ authority was something that regularly surprised the crowds. Whereas most religious teaching of the time would have been done through questioning, Jesus made declarative, authoritative statements. His frequent refrain of “Amen, amen!” or “I tell you the truth!” or “Very truly I say to you!” (depending on which English translation you are reading) would have been shocking for many people. Who is this who speaks with such authority?
And it wasn’t just the teaching that had authority. Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen Jesus’ words have power over nature as he scolded the sea and the storm to be quiet. His words even had power over death as he encouraged a dead, twelve-year-old girl to get up, and her life returned to her as easily as if he had just gotten her up from a nap. Jesus shows his authority over illnesses as he heals people and even over the spiritual realm as he casts unclean spirits out of possessed people.
This morning, we see a slight change in Jesus’ approach. Despite being God, in his state of humiliation, Jesus was only ever in one place at one time. So, logically, sending out several groups of people to teach and preach would reach many more ears much faster, so Jesus called the Twelve and began to send them out two by two. The disciples would go out and do a practice run in pairs to share the good news with the world. This is how it will work after Jesus has completed his work and ascended into heaven, so while Jesus is still with them, he gives them a taste of that work and practice being his messengers. They didn’t just go because they wanted to; Jesus sent them out.
And that is key. Jesus himself, as God, had authority innate to his being. The disciples did not have that. So, Jesus handed it over to them: He gave them authority over the unclean spirits. When the disciples spoke, it would be like Jesus speaking, up to and including giving orders to the demons. Jesus gave his authority to these six pairs of men as they went out.
How people received the disciples in these pairs would directly reflect how they received Jesus. He would make this more explicit when he sent out a broader group of disciples to share his message a little bit later. Then he told his messengers, “Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me” (Luke 10:16). The disciples were not just messengers, but they were Jesus’ chosen representatives and ambassadors, entrusted with the crucial task of spreading his message. Listening to them meant listening to him; rejecting them meant rejecting him.
It was indeed an amazing and humbling position for the disciples. Who were they to speak for God? On their own, they were nothing. But because Jesus gave them this authority, they had everything. They were not God, but God sent them out with a very specific purpose, and they humbly accepted this responsibility. They knew they were not speaking with their own authority but Jesus’ authority.
This was not new when Jesus sent out his disciples. This is how God had been working from the beginning. In the history of the world, precious few people have ever heard God speak directly to them or have had a back-and-forth conversation with God. But God has sent messengers, prophets, apostles, evangelists, teachers, and pastors to be his mouthpieces to spread his Word.
Consider our First Reading this morning. The prophet Amos was sent to the Northern Kingdom of Israel with proclamations of judgment—Assyria was coming, and that would be the end. Unsurprisingly, his message was unpopular, especially with Jeroboam, the king, and Amaziah, the false prophet. What was Amos’ response? He didn’t come by his own authority. He was a farmer, tending to the flocks and fig trees when God sent him. Their rejection of the message wasn’t rejecting Amos but God.
In our Second Reading, the apostle Paul gives Pastor Titus qualifications for the elders (a position most like our modern-day pastor). But those qualifications didn’t grant someone authority—these are higher levels of expectations to whom God had given his authoritative message. There, too, they were not reliant on their own abilities, actions, or life status, but as Paul said, God’s representative must cling to the trustworthy message as it has been taught (Titus 1:9).
This remains true in our day. You hear the refrain almost every Sunday morning. A fumbling jar of clay stands in front of you all. We all, together, confess our sins. And then what do I have the audacity to say? “I forgive you all of your sins…” Who am I to forgive the sins you’ve committed against other people and especially against God? The reminder is there in the words just before that declaration: “As a called servant of Christ, and by his authority.” It’s not my or any other human being’s authority that does these things, even as it’s not your own authority that forgives sins with people in your lives. It is Jesus’ authority that he grants to us; it is Jesus’ power that he has put on us; and it is Jesus’ forgiveness that he won for us.
This is what it means to be people called, sent out, and entrusted with the gospel of God’s forgiveness in Jesus. It means that when we speak to others and even as we live our lives, we have a duty, responsibility, and tremendous privilege to be messengers of God’s love for all people. Our lives—what we do, say, and even our attitude and tone—should reflect that we are the children of God, bought with Jesus’s own blood.
And what will be the result of that? Will everyone we share God’s Word with believe it? Will everyone who hears that Jesus loves them and died to forgive them instantly cling to Jesus as their Savior? Well, no, but that also has little to do with you and me and more to do with the sinful world’s response to God’s truth. Jesus did not promise total success to the disciple duos, and as we saw clearly last week in Nazareth, even Jesus himself did not have a flawless track record of people believing the message he taught—far from it, in fact.
So, Jesus gives the disciples (and us) some guidelines on what to do when this all-important message is rejected, “Any 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.” This was not a direction for the disciples to be petty and whiny, throwing a fit as they left a town. This was done in love for the people who rejected them and the message Jesus sent them to share. This was meant as a sign that what the people were doing was dangerous and had real consequences and that they really should reconsider their approach to this message.
You and I know all too well, not just as messengers but as ones being spoken to, how this goes. Have you always been excited to be corrected by God’s representatives? Have you always rejoiced in everything God has ever said in his Word? I know for myself I absolutely have not. I can struggle with this message as my sinful flesh chafes at God’s truth. And so sometimes I need gentle encouragement to realign my thinking; sometimes I need a spiritual 2x4 to smack me across the face to get me to see the error of my ways.
And sometimes, that whole process takes time. I might wrestle with something for hours or days or struggle for years or decades. We are all works in progress and will come to terms with what God has said, done, and expects at our own times and in our own ways. As those hearing the message, we do well to listen even when it feels like grit in our gears; as messengers, we share God’s truths in love, knowing that the message of Jesus crucified and risen is the only thing that can save people from an eternity of suffering in hell and assure them of an eternity of perfection with our Savior God.
You may not be the person God uses to bring that other one to faith. You may be a link in a chain that eventually leads to God creating faith in that person’s heart. Your shaking the dust off your feet may awaken that person to the realization of just how important this all is—not just for now but forever.
And so when you hear God's message, respect it as being sent from God through someone he has given his authority to share with you what you need. And when you are serving in that messenger role, go with the confidence that God has given you his authority by what he’s made known to you in his Word, and patiently, lovingly, gently share the good news about our Savior who has conquered our sin and freely gives the gift of eternal life through faith.
Dear Lord, bless the message of forgiveness wherever it is shared. Open our hearts to be willing to listen to your Word and embolden us to go with your truth—your authority—to share your love with a world that so desperately needs to hear it. Amen.
