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Jesus Has a Plan for Proclaimers

            All of us at Grace have a pretty good sense that we’re involved in the ministry of the gospel, and maybe that sense is stronger at Grace than it is in a lot of other places. Our pastors are constantly encouraging us to share Jesus’ love with our families and friends. They don’t shy away from talking about money because money is the tool we can use to share Jesus’ love with people who aren’t in our families or circle of friends.  People at Grace get together to talk about the future; they talk about short-range plans and long-range plans, and all the plans are geared to enable us to reach more people in our community. It’s pretty hard to walk away from Grace without having a pretty clear sense that Jesus was talking to all of us when he said, “Go and make disciples of all nations.”

            What isn’t always so clear is the role we have in gospel ministry. We get the general idea—Jesus wants us to proclaim the good news—but the specifics aren’t always so clear: Who do I talk to, when do I speak, what do I say?  Some of you might say, “You have it easy, Professor; you know exactly what you’re doing in the gospel ministry.”  Well, I certainly know I’m supposed to teach young men how to be pastors, but how do I deal with my relatives who don’t go to church or the Mormon missionaries who come to my front door or the Methodist lady who takes piano lessons from my wife? A lot of times I’m in the same boat you are. We all know that Jesus wants us to be a part of his work, but what we struggle with are the details: When, where, what, and who.

            The Gospel for today tells us about a group of men who were followers of Jesus. Pastor Huebner read their names just a few minutes ago, and you probably recognized most of them. If you didn’t recognize the names, you heard Matthew identify them as the twelve apostles. These twelve are the twelve men Jesus eventually sent out to be his first witnesses in the world. But when we meet them here, they haven’t gone any place and they haven’t said anything. These were not seminary graduates; no masters degrees here. These guys were green as grass. They were like a long line of ducklings waddling behind their mother. They were a lot like most of us: they had a general idea why they were following Jesus, they kind of knew they were supposed to be his witnesses, but they sure didn’t know the specifics.

            We’re going to watch Jesus in action this morning and we’re going to listen to what he says to these twelve men.  As we do that, we’re going to get a clearer picture of our own role in the ministry of the gospel. We may not get to all the specifics; this isn’t a gospel ministry owner’s manual.  But we will learn that, Jesus Has a Plan for Proclaimers.

He wants us to imitate his heart

            The seminary where I teach has a program called Early Field Training. The idea is that first and second year students have an opportunity to watch pastors actually do what these students are learning about in class. Every year there are a few EFT students assigned to Grace. That’s about the situation these apostles were in.  They were watching Jesus in action.  Here’s what they observed: “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” ^

            There were two things that must have made an impression on the Twelve. The first was that Jesus hardly ever stopped working. He walked from town to village and from village to town day after day.  If it was the Sabbath, he taught in the local church, if someone would listen, he preached about the kingdom, if there were sick people, he stopped and healed them.  You want to say Jesus was consumed by his work?  I suppose you could say that; some people actually said he was out of his mind, as in crazy.  Or you could say that Jesus realized he was on call 24-7.  He never said, “This is my church time and this is my work time and this is my home time. If there was an opportunity to speak, Jesus was ready to speak.

            The second thing the disciples noticed was the way Jesus felt about people. Matthew was one of the Twelve; when he wrote this story down years later he remembered the compassion Jesus had for people. Did he see the compassion in Jesus’ eyes?  Did he hear it in his voice?  He doesn’t say. But he noticed that Jesus felt for these people deep down in his heart. The people were having an awful time of it.  Their religious leaders—their spiritual shepherds—told them that the key to finding peace with God was obedience.  “Obey God’s laws and you’ll find some peace. Obey Moses’ laws and you’ll more peace. Obey our laws—and we have plenty--and you’ll find most peace.” Well, there were so many laws that the people either ran themselves into the ground or just gave up--and there was no peace in either case. It broke Jesus’ heart to see this: so many people in such a really bad way.

            You know something? Maybe the specifics aren’t all that important after all.  Maybe we should stop wondering how to be involved in the ministry of the gospel and start thinking about why to be involved.  Do you ever feel the kind of compassion for people that Jesus showed in his ministry?  Could anyone see it in your eyes or hear it in your voice?  Do you ever say to yourself: My friend Tory is miserable because she doesn’t know Jesus loves her. My classmate Dan can’t think straight because he doesn’t know Jesus can help.  My daughter Sarah is carrying a huge load of guilt because she doesn’t believe Jesus forgives her. My colleague Sam is going to hell because he doesn’t believe Jesus is the only way to heaven. Do you ever feel compassion for those people?  I don’t mean to be nasty, but sometimes we show more compassion to our pets than we show to people we know. Our families and our circle of friends are filled with hurting people, and I won’t even start talking the seven billion people we don’t know!  I’m convinced from my own experience—and I’m pretty certain your experience isn’t so different from mine—that my failure to speak up as a witness for Jesus has nothing to do with specifics: what should I say or when should I say it. We fail because we fail to face up to the hell people are in or the hell people are going to—and that’s why we fail to feel compassion.

            Isn’t this really strange?  There is no one in this church today to whom Jesus hasn’t shown his compassion. There is no one here whose sins were not forgiven when Jesus lived and died and rose again. How many of us became members of Jesus’ family because he offered us his compassion in Holy Baptism, how many have received his compassionate forgiveness in Holy Communion?  Think how often we’ve felt Jesus’ compassion after a serious sin or during a serious sickness or after the heartbreak of losing someone we love?  How strange that we who have been on the receiving end of Jesus’ compassion so often struggle to feel compassion for others. 

            Are there times when you’re unsure of your role, your place, your responsibilities in the ministry of the gospel?  Maybe it’s time to stop looking around for answers and to start looking to the beating heart of Jesus.  Jesus has plans for proclaimers: he wants us to imitate his love. But not until we realize his love for us will we be moved to imitate it to others.  When we sense that love, we will be ready for anything, 24-7—just as Jesus was.

He wants us to follow his lead

            I don’t want to leave you with the impression that the specifics aren’t important at all. Jesus was about to send the apostles on their first missionary excursion, and he had plenty of specifics. Matthew tells us: These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. ^Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons.” Jesus had a plan for these proclaimers: he wanted them to follow his lead. Where he had gone, they were to go; what he had said, they were to say; what he had done, they were to do. It was all pretty simple.

            And it’s still pretty simple. Jesus tells us where to go: “Make disciples of all nations.” Jesus tells us what to say: “Your sins are forgiven.” He tells us what to do: “Baptize them and teach them everything I have commanded.” That’s as specific as Jesus gets.  The rest he leaves to us: who goes where, who says what, who does this and who does that, when to speak and what to say when we speak. All those decisions he gives to people who have felt his compassion and been warmed by his love, every short-range plan and every long-range plan is made by people who have heard his voice: “Freely you have received, freely give.”  Every call into the public is issued and every personal witness is made by men and women and children whom Jesus has led to live and breathe the ministry of the gospel.

            There is so much work to do.  What Jesus said to the twelve is still true today: “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”  We continue to pray, as Jesus urges us today, that the Lord of the harvest would raise up men and women who are willing to take the gospel to places we can’t go.  But there is another prayer here.  We pray that the Lord of the harvest might work in all our hearts more and more so that we might follow the Savior’s plan and be workers in his harvest field, even if that harvest field is in our back yard.  Amen.

Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on July 10, 2011

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Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church | 1209 North Broadway Milwaukee, WI 53202 | (414) 271-3006

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