Trinity 2, Year A
Psalm 100
OT Lesson : Exodus 19.2-8a
Gospel : Matthew 9.35 – 10.8
Text: Proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’
Our readings this morning are about the mission and destiny of God’s chosen people. When the people of Israel were rescued from slavery in Egypt, God spoke to Moses promising that if they would obey his voice and keep his covenant – then, they would be ‘his treasured people, a priestly kingdom and a holy nation out of all the peoples on earth’ (Exodus 19.5-6). Sadly, despite their very special position as a chosen people, Israel proved unable to keep their side of the covenant.
There had to be a new way forward, a new covenant with a new company of people, who would not be defined by their membership of a particular family or nation, but by their willingness to follow the new leadership which God provided for his people in the person of Jesus Christ. True God from true God, as we say in the creed, which summarises the main events of his life and death, and affirms his ongoing presence among us in the form of the Holy Spirit, before looking ahead to his return as God in Glory, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, drawing all things to a triumphant close at the end of time.
It was a bold and costly new strategy, but if the original choice of one nation to be his chosen people had not quite worked out as intended, how was a new chosen people to be established as God’s partner to carry forward his endlessly creative work of love? How was it to work with a bunch of undisciplined ordinary people like you and me, when it had failed with a people inspired to obedience by a great leader like Moses? Perhaps the challenge implicit in the establishment of a new people of God was one of the reasons why God in Jesus chose to experience in Himself for some thirty years the ups and downs of family life, as he grew up to live and work as a tradesman in an unremarkable village community like Nazareth.
Whatever may have been in the mind of God, we saw in our Gospel reading how God in the person of Jesus set about the task of launching his mission. He chose twelve disciples. He spent time with them, training them to cast out unclean spirits and to cure every disease. We know their names, and in some cases what they did for a living. They were ordinary working folk, several of them fishermen, one a tax collector. We don’t know what the others did for a living. The number twelve may well have been a deliberate reference to the twelve sons of Jacob who became the leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel, but it may also reflect an instinctive understanding of the size of group which would be small enough to coalesce as friends or colleagues, whilst being large enough to embrace a good range of useful skills and attributes. We know too that there was a parallel group of women who also followed Jesus and his male disciples. We know only a few of their names and their role will have been restricted by the customs of the era in which they lived, but they too will have been an essential part of Jesus’ life as a travelling healer and teacher.
What, if anything, has all this to do with the cross-section of Hampstead and London life that we represent as we come together this morning from our homes and families and offices? Well, quite a lot really, because the Church in all its wonderfully diverse manifestations is now the company of God’s chosen people. The promise of God’s special care and protection now rests on us, but so too does the guidance about how to conduct ourselves as his chosen people, the instruments of his policy for the good destiny of mankind. The responsibility is awesome, but we are not without guidance and support. Jesus’ instructions to the disciples are not just the brief words of introduction and practical advice which we heard in our gospel reading. They extend across the whole of Matthew chapter 10.
Jesus begins with some practical advice. First of all, don’t take a fee, don’t even take spare shoes or clothes or hiking poles. Don’t even take a purse of spare money with you (v9-10). And accept the hospitality of one worthy household, don’t shop around. The words which have come down to us, shaped in part by contemporary polemical traditions, are perhaps slightly over the top, but the underlying advice is clear. It is our responsibility to share the good news that we have received, and we should look to no reward for doing so. Just do it.
But the heart of Jesus’ advice, as we read it in Matthew’s gospel, is a firm call to have the courage of our convictions. The gospel message is a proclamation of the love of God, but that love looks for a corresponding response of willing obedience, which may well provoke sharp opposition, particularly from the powers that be – councils, rulers and governments that may feel threatened in the exercise of their authority – but equally, and sadly, from close friends and family. But the promise of the Gospel, Jesus’ promise, is that the Spirit of our Father in heaven will put into our hearts the words to speak, and the courage to stand firm. Moreover, Jesus promises that if we have acknowledge him, He will acknowledge us before our Father in Heaven. We could not hope a better Advocate. Jesus goes on to say, in this same chapter:
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. (vv29-31)
Yes, the kingdom of heaven has come near. We come to church Sunday by Sunday to remind ourselves that the ultimate power in the world does not reside with those who shout the loudest and carry the heaviest sticks, but with a god who is Love, through and through, a God whose nature we have seen and known in the person of Jesus Christ, the same God who will be Judge of all things and all people at the end of time.
We are not bludgeoned into faith. We are invited. The kingdom of heaven has come near, near enough for us to reach out and receive Him into our lives in the bread and wine of our communion. In that one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we put our trust.