Jesus went away from there and came to his hometown and his disciples followed him and on the Sabbath, he began to teach in the synagogue and many who heard him were astonished saying, where did this man get these things? What is this wisdom given to him? How were such mighty works done by his hands, is not that the carpenter, the son of Mary and of brothers, James and Joseph and Judas and Simon and are not his sisters here with us, and they took offense at him and Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown among his relatives and in his own household and he could do no mighty works there except that he laid hands on a few sick people and healed them and he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went among the villages teaching and he called the 12 and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits.
He charged them to take nothing for their journey except the staff. No bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics, and he said to them, when you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there and if that place does not receive you and they will not listen to you when you leave, shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them, so they went out and proclaim to the people that they should repent and they cast out many demons and anointed with oil. Many who were sick and healed them. This is the gospel of the Lord. You may be seated.
Dear friends in Christ. As we look at this text this morning, it amazes me how quickly that people can turn. Jesus is in his hometown, preaching in the local synagogue and their first thought is they're amazed by him and they even start commenting to one another. “Where did he get such wisdom? Oh, where did he get these teachings and the astonishing things he's done,” and then somebody pipes up over on the side and says, “Hey, wait, wait, that's Mary and Joseph's boy, that's the carpenter kid. His brothers are here. His sisters are here among us,” and then they took offense at him.
You see, Joseph and Mary were known in the town as was the little boy Jesus, and so this group of people wanted nothing to do with him. They were blinded to the reality of who he really was because of their inset prejudice against him. He had already made up in their mind who he was and what they knew of him, but they were sorely wrong. Invite you to open your bulletin to the third inside pages. We worked through our text today.
Let's be honest. The first one we can all fill in.
People are fickle.
Yeah, we know it. It wasn't just an issue for the people of Jesus' Day and boy, they ran into the fickleness of God's people all the time and that's why there were prophets. God had to send prophets to his own people over and over and over because they were so fickle. They kept changing their mind, or one day they worshiped him. They loved him, they adored him. They followed him and the next day the next thing you know, they're making golden calves and they're worshiping other gods and they fallen away, so he had to send prophets.
in our old testament texts this morning we we see Ezekiel being sent and Ezekiel was not exactly a willing servant. Ezekiel doesn't really want to go to this. People who are rebellious to God and he says he's.
He's sitting there. It's a beautiful text. He's sitting here minding his own business too. The Lord comes and talks to him and as he starts talking to him, he says, this spirit compelled me to stand up, right? He, he didn't want to stand up, but the Spirit compelled him to stand. Come on now, on your feet, you know, and up he goes. Now he's standing and he says, now I want you to go and preach to these rebellious people. He doesn't say, I want you to go preach to my beautiful beloved children. No, no. He calls them what they are is rebellious people, and then he gives him this final word and he says, I want you to go and preach to them in my name, what I tell you and whether they listen or not, they will know that a prophet has been among them.
That's what it was like for Jesus. Those were words that echoed just what Jesus would find. Father said, I'm sending you to a rebellious people and whether they believe in you or not, they will know a prophet has been among them. Isn't that what happened in the temple? I mean, they even said he has amazing teaching. He has wonderful ideas. He's done great things right. They knew a prophet was among them until all of a sudden they were swayed just a few simple words. They went from astonished at who he was too offended by who he was. That's fickle but aren't we the same way. We have sports heroes teams that we love and adore and cheer for and all the sudden they let us down. They dropped the ball and our favorite player was not that lousy bum. Right? The sports team that we hailed as the greatest team ever, they lose four in a row and we say that team can't do anything right. We're fickle people. We're so easily swayed. One way or another, you can rise and fall so quickly.
We all succumb to it. Satan knows that we are fickle people, he whispers into our ear those little lies that make us question our loyalties. Some people don't welcome our words about faith, about Christ, about his kingdom coming just like they didn't listen to Jesus. Our task is not easy. The world is full of fickle people, but our text goes on after hearing about these fickle people. Jesus leaves that town and goes somewhere else because he knew. We all know that you can't outrun your reputation.
People in town had an idea of who he was and there was nothing he was gonna do to change it.
The text has words, that might be a little confusing. It says he could not do any miracles among them. It really would probably be more properly thought of as; that Jesus chose to do no miracles among them. He was certainly able. He didn't all of a sudden lose his power and connection to his father. He didn't all of a sudden lose his divine wisdom and mercy that was his. No, but he realized that there was nothing he could do there that would make a difference. He could not outrun his reputation in that town. He said, no prophet is without honor except in his home town.
So they move on in just one simple line. The text says, and then they went on to other villages and as they're going, Jesus begins to send out the 12. His disciples, he'd been preparing them. He'd been teaching them. He'd been training them, and now he sends them out two at a time to go out into the villages and make a difference and listen to the text and he called the 12 and began to send them out two by two and he gave them authority over unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and only one to nick. And he said to them, whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from it.
He sent them out and said, don't take any extra provision. I'm your provision. I got this.
Who prepared them for this trip? Who called them and sent them? Jesus. Jesus sent them out two by two who empowered them, who gave them the task and the ability over the evil spirits? Jesus, and who instructed them, who had been training them and preparing them for the service they were going to do? Jesus – That was quite a commission.
Notice he didn't send them out alone. He sent them out, with a partner. He gave them a commission. He gave them power. Authority over evil spirits. He went with them for you see it was in his name that they could do great things with amazing grace had been given to these disciples is equal in the texts that we heard earlier is constantly called the son of man, son of man, son of man. As God speaks to him to remind him, you know you're nothing special. You're a man and I'm calling you to go, not because you have some divine covenant or but because you are a man and I am going with you, I am what makes you special! and so it was when Jesus sent out his disciples, they weren't divined superheroes. They were men, empowered and called by Jesus.
In our mission statement, it says that we believe in relationships, compassionate relationships we are drawn to relationship we're made for relationships were built for relationships from Genesis all the way through. The whole Bible is about relationships. In the very beginning, God looked at Adam and said, it's not good for you to be alone. You need someone with you, and he made a companion relationship and he made family more relationship that he made tribes and nations more relationships and then he created a church, a body of Christ, more relationships, and so as he sends us out, as he sent the disciples, he sends us out in relationship. He sent them out two by two. He sends us out in a large crowd. Yesterday was a perfect example of the body of Christ being in a relationship with each other and with our community. As we had an opportunity to talk to members of our community and share with them about new creation and what we're all about, we're called to go out together. So who sends us out?
Who sends us out? Jesus sends us out. The same person that sent the disciples is the one that sends us. He says, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, but he doesn't just send us out. He empowers us. So who is it that empowers us to go out? Oh, Gotcha. The Holy Spirit, in this case, he sends his spirit to be among us and the spirit goes with us and empowers us and emboldens us to go out in his name. And who is it that instructs us? the Holy Spirit speaks to our heart. Who reveals to us through his word.
I would imagine that many of you can relate to these moments where you've been reading through a portion of scripture or maybe you just listen to the scripture being read up front and perhaps it was one of those scriptures that you were familiar with it. It sounded familiar. You'd heard the words or the account before, but all of the sudden, as you heard it this time, something clicked and you saw something you hadn't seen before you. You heard something you hadn't heard before and all of a sudden it was like one of those lightbulb moments. You know, if you were in a cartoon and you'd just see the light bulb would come on over your head. That's the Holy Spirit. He teaches us through his word. As we read his word and listened to his word. We're given the grace to understand his word. Oh yeah. There are fickle people in the world and were sent to rebellious nations, but we are called, empowered and instructed by God. How can we fail?
We have all the grace of God given to us and even that final promise that he gives on his ascension to his disciples as he speaks to us and he says, will I leave you or forsake you? That's a promise we can bank on. That's the grace, the forgiveness power, the instruction, the love of God given to us as we go out into our world. May We be people who go out into our world as the disciples did, as the prophets of old perhaps not even wanting to necessarily, but having been called and empowered and instructed, we go. May that be our story as well. Amen. And I made a strong love and strange piece of our God, which passes all of our human understanding. Keep our hearts and our minds fixed fast on Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.
