2 Timothy 4:9-12
Do your best to come to me soon, for Demas, in love with
this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone
to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get
Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry. I have sent Tychicus to
Ephesus. When you come, bring the
cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas...
Luke 10:10
After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead
of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, ‘The
harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few..."
Have you ever wondered why there are Four Gospels, when perhaps one account of Jesus would’ve been simpler?
A helpful book that suggests reasons for
there being four is The Four Faces of God,
by John Bickersteth and Timothy Pain (1992).
In the 1980s John and Timothy ministered
at Ashburnham Place in East Sussex, a Christian retreat house where I had some
formative experiences in my teenage years, so it’s been a book that’s
journeyed with me a long time, and one of my top favourites.
Their portrayal shows that Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John point to different aspects of Jesus, which taken together, make
up a very rich picture of the God who walked among us.
Briefly, Matthew is a regal portrayal of
Jesus. He is shown as the King of Israel, majestic and powerful. Matthew
emphasises the kingdom of heaven, leadership, authority, judgment and the
church. The symbol for kingly authority is the lion.
In Mark we find a very different
portrayal of Jesus. The symbol is a wounded ox; Mark’s themes are servanthood,
suffering, submission and secrecy. The ox is servant to all and is eventually sacrificed for all.
Luke portrays a Saviour who is for
everyone. Jesus is the perfect example of humanity. There’s a universal feeling
to the message of salvation. Luke’s particular themes are joy, meals, prayer,
money and women. The symbol for this universal healer/saviour is the perfect
man of Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous pen and ink drawing.
Finally, John’s gospel is the most
exalted vision of Jesus, the Eternal One, Son of God, present from before the
creation of the world. The themes are love, light, truth and glory, belief and
new birth.
The four faces of God idea serves as background to today, as
we celebrate St Luke.
The story of Jesus sending out the 70
(or 72) occurs only in Luke. In the other gospels it is the 12 who are sent
out. Already we can see Luke’s emphasis – the gospel is not just for the Jews,
it’s not for the in-group, it’s for everyone.
So as we look at this mission of the 70,
what do we see for our own mission here in the place where we live?
1) The Harvest is plentiful
This is Jesus’ starting point. We tend
to think there aren’t that many people out there who would be interested in our
message, but Jesus says the harvest is plentiful; it’s the workers who are few:
Someone said of their church:
“You know my
church is like going to a football match. There are 22 people running around,
exhausted and desperately in need of a rest being cheered on by a big crowd of
people who actually need some exercise!”
(from Sermon given at St Mary’s Linton,
http://www.stmaryslinton.org/node/46)
We sometimes hear similar things –
today’s passage and the Epistle both speak of ministry being widely shared
amongst the people of God, though we hear that note of sadness in Paul’s voice
as he writes, ‘Demas has deserted me…’
Ministry is meaningful and even fun when
it’s shared, and onerous when it’s not.
‘Ask the Lord of the Harvest, therefore,
to send out workers into his harvest field’.
So that’s all about the size and
manageability of the harvest (of souls, that is).
Next up, Jesus sends the disciples out
on a mission to share the Good News.
Us too. But are we to go off with no
shoes and refuse to say hello to people as we walk up the High Street?
2) We need to find culturally appropriate ways to share the Good News.
Jesus didn’t say to his disciples, go
out and invite everyone to the Synagogue…
No, he expected his followers to be out
in the community sharing the Good News with those who would listen.
Similarly our mission strategy can’t
afford to be simply to ‘invite someone to church’, though sometimes that’s
entirely appropriate.
We need to look also at how our midweek and
evening activities can also be opportunities for others to engage with the Christian
message.
Or, simply, when did you last pray for
your neighbours, or think about what the Good News would mean for them?
Jesus’ mission strategy was nothing if not
gritty. The disciples were sent out in twos, ‘like lambs amongst wolves’, and
told not to take any money or footwear, and not to greet anyone on the road.
It’s not an evangelistic strategy that I
would particularly recommend today.
But we can ponder some of the principles
behind Jesus’ instruction:
The disciples were to trust him completely for provision
They were to be single minded
They were to prepare the way for Jesus himself
They were to accept hospitality where the welcome was warm
They were to heal and proclaim (actions and words).
So if that’s what they did as they went
out into the streets, what was the content of their message? In other words:
3) What is the heart of the Good News?
That’s a hard question actually, and one
to which, if you took a straw poll of the people in this church, you might get
a dozen or so different answers.
I’m indebted to another church member
for this anecdote, which neatly sums up the confusion we sometimes have around
what actually is the message of the Good News (the answer is in verse 9).
A group of Curates was quizzed by a
bishop: ‘what is the heart of the Good News as you understand it?’
Eager to impress the great personage, a
keen young Curate popped up his hand: ‘it’s all about peace’.
‘Not so’, said the Bishop.
‘It all about love’, said another.
‘Not so’, said the Bishop, to increasing
puzzlement.
The group was getting uneasy; had all
their training been for nothing? Had they fundamentally misunderstood the
Christian message?
Finally a bright young thing raised a
cautious hand: ‘The Kingdom of God is near, he said.
‘Spot on’, replied the Bishop.
‘The kingdom of God near’ just about
sums up the message of the Good News that Jesus commissioned his followers to proclaim,
and here in here in the second decade of the 21st Century, we’re
still doing the same.
Whenever we welcome people with
hospitality, pray for them, offer acts of service in the power of the Holy
Spirit, ‘the kingdom of God is near’.
- The Harvest is plentiful
- We need to find culturally appropriate ways of sharing it
- The Good News is: ‘the kingdom of God is near’
As St Luke gave us a Jesus whose message
was for all, may we have eyes to see the harvest, imagination to share the message,
and always remember the heart of the message: ‘the kingdom of God is near’.
Amen.