Send Forth

This Sunday’s worship continues both our Healing Hands series exploring miraculous healing stories of Jesus, as well as our Summer Schedule, one combined service at 10am through July and August.

With an understanding that we are made whole in Jesus’ unending love, how are we to respond? Immediately after an experience of rejection, Jesus then sends the disciples into surrounding communities. He empowers them to engage in some of the same healing work he has done, and reminds them that they don’t have to experience rejection. But also notice that he does not send them out alone.

Mark 6:6b-13 (CEB)
^6bThen Jesus traveled through the surrounding villages teaching.

⁷He called for the Twelve and sent them out in pairs. He gave them authority over unclean spirits. ⁸He instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a walking stick—no bread, no bags, and no money in their belts. ⁹He told them to wear sandals but not to put on two shirts. ¹⁰He said, “Whatever house you enter, remain there until you leave that place. ¹¹If a place doesn’t welcome you or listen to you, as you leave, shake the dust off your feet as a witness against them.” ¹²So they went out and proclaimed that people should change their hearts and lives. ¹³They cast out many demons, and they anointed many sick people with olive oil and healed them.

Consider these questions:

1. When is a time you have joined someone else in going somewhere or doing something? How might that be different than doing so alone?
2. Have you ever felt like you were being “sent out” to do something? Perhaps it was an authority figure, or perhaps it was a more divine experience. Have you ever experienced being “sent out” having a greater purpose than the specific thing you’re sent to do?

Post-Sermon Update on 7/11

Audio from the sermon can be heard below, and video can be found at this link (will open in a new tab).

Sunday’s message was one that was emotional. I was struck after the service at the number of people offering words of compassion.

Part of what I noted during the message was the difficulty in being singled out, and one member suggested that I might now understand what it feels like to be gay in the U.S. I humbly disagree. While it is sure that I am not used to being singled out in ways like this, I don’t believe that I can have any reasonable understanding of what it’s like to be singled out with regularity as is endured by our LGBTQ siblings. I cannot understand what it’s like to be singled out for being a woman, for being a person of color, for being a person with physical disability, for a person enduring mental illness.

Friends, the need for healing is clearly present. And so we are sent. We are sent understanding that we have all the tools that we need to be the Body of Christ. We are sent into the world with the reminder that we are not alone. We are called forth into communities that may or may not receive us with grace, and yet we are called just the same.

Consider these questions:

1. Where have you experienced being singled out, or where have you observed others being singled out? What did that experience feel like for you? Was there any kind of resolution?
2. How has God prepared you to be sent into the world as a presence of healing? What gifts/tools have you been given? How can you use these?
3. What needs to you see in your community? Consider the community in Pacific Beach, and if you live in another neighborhood consider that as well. Will you respond?