St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday Sermon – Sixth Sunday after Pentecost – July 4, 2010
“Commissioned! Bigger Than Yourself!”
Text: Luke 10:1-3,20

For Christians to be tense, under a lot of strain, tighter than a
drum, worried sick, not getting enough sleep is not a good thing.
But for Christians to be intense; for Christians to be strong,
focused, earnest, having a firm purpose, giving what you got & a
little more to be part of something bigger than yourself that’s is a
good thing.
So . . someone by the name of Henry Martyn has written, The Spirit
of Jesus Christ is the spirit of missions, and the nearer we get to
Jesus the more intensely missionary we must become. (NBCQ, p.165)
Now there’s an interesting phrase, More intensely missionary! That
says to me: Mission minded! Mission motivated! Mission clearly
defined! Mission moving forward! Mission impossible! Mission
accomplished! Mission ongoing! Mission is out there. The mission
is to be strong, focused, earnest, zealous in proclaiming and
demonstrating the reign of God. “The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom
of God is at hand!”
Intensely missionary! In a book of daily devotional readings by
Dietrich Bonhoeffer titled, “I Want To Live These Days With You”,
Bonhoeffer begins the month of July with the observation, “Christians
have their field of activity in the world. There they are to get
involved, go to work, co-create, and do the will of God.” (p.191)
A week ago, after attending a Saturday morning funeral at Zion
Lutheran Church, Wanda Township, as I was pulling out of the grass
parking lot south of the church, I saw a sign that I’d seen before
nailed to a tree next to the road that said, “You are now entering
the mission field.”
“Mission is who & what Jesus the Christ is all about and it is who
and what Jesus wants all who follow Him to be about.”
All of this is before us in the Gospel reading from Luke 10 for
this 6th Sunday after Pentecost, this 4th of July Sunday, which is also
the Sunday that precedes the gathering of hundreds of synodical
dele-gates from the 35 Districts of our Lutheran Church Missouri
Synod meeting in Convention in Houston, Tx. for a week of important
deliberations & decision-making that begins Saturday, July 11.
Hopefully at the heart of all the joyful worship, gifted speakers,
challenging resolutions, heated debate & hard decisions will be
a “getting nearer to Jesus that our LCMS will not only remain
a boldly confessional church body but we will be a more intensely
missionary church body.”
In Ephesians 4, the apostle Paul reminds us the mission of Christ’s
church on earth is all those, “apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors,
teachers, administrators, lay people, ordinary people, young people, old
people, multi-cultural people, Spirit-gifted people, commissioned by Christ,
making the most of the opportunities the world gives them & us for
witnessing to the nearness & richness & newness of the Kingdom of God.
Again I say, all of this is before us in the Gospel reading from
Luke 10 for this Sunday where Luke tells us, “the Lord Jesus appoint-
ed 72 others and sent them on ahead of him, 2 by 2, into every town
where he himself was about to go. And Jesus said to them, ‘The harvest
is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”
In this Gospel reading there is a definite progression, a
meaningful & purposeful progression that goes like this. Those whom
Jesus loves, Jesus calls; those whom Jesus calls, Jesus sends; those
whom Jesus sends, Jesus empowers; those whom Jesus empowers, Jesus
welcomes back with joy and urges them to rejoice, not that the spirits
are subject to them, but that their names are written in heaven.
Those whom Jesus loves, Jesus calls. Call is not first, love is
first. “In this is love,” writes John, “not that we have loved God
but that he (first)loved us and sent his Son to be the sacrifice for
our sins.” Call is not first, love is first. “God shows his love for
us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”(Rom.5:8)
“Jesus, Thou art all compassion,” says an old, familiar hymn,
“Pure, unbounded love Thou art; Visit us with Thy salvation, Enter
every trembling heart.” (LSB, 700, Love Divine, v. 1)
No one ever comes to God or come to Christ on their own, but those
whom Jesus loves, those whom Jesus has redeemed, those in whose hearts
Jesus dwells & abides by faith -- average, ordinary, unworthy, every-
day busy people, people like us, we are all the ones Jesus calls.
And those whom Jesus calls, Jesus commissions, Jesus sends. As
I spend a bit of my early morning time in meditation & prayer this
year, reading excerpts from the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a
sentence that recently jumped out at me was where Bonhoeffer writes,
What the church of Jesus Christ on earth is all about is not religion
but the form of Christ and the cross of Christ taking shape among
a group of ordinary, believing, redeemed human beings. That to me
sounds like the nearer we get to Jesus the more intensely missionary
we become.
This 4th of July weekend, I am reminded of how some WWII veterans
sometimes talk about their years of service to God and country. The
story is told of an older man, a WWII veteran, who was a member of
what has been called the “Greatest Generation.” The man served in the
US army, was part of the invasion of Normandy and fought hard until D
Day. One time, talking with his pastor over a cup of coffee, the old
veteran recalled the suffering, the long days, sleepless nights, the
deprivation, devastation and other horrors of war. But then he said,
“Still, I look back on those four years as the very best years of
my life. For once in my life I really had the feeling that I was
part of something bigger than myself. I was on the move. We had a
mission. Maybe it IS sad to say, but I look back on those years as
the best years of my life.”
Isn’t that what it means to be “intensely patriotic”, to act, to
fight not for the glory of self, but for the glory of serving God
& country? And isn’t it sad that Christians must wait for a war
or a disaster down in Haiti or serious flooding in the Midwest or
homeless, jobless people living in over-crowded shelters to be more
intensely missionary; more intensely a part of something bigger than
ourselves.
Today’s Gospel, where Jesus called & commissioned, sent out &
empowered 72 others to do as He had been doing was that kind of mission;
it was something definitely bigger than themselves, so much bigger
themselves that it includes even us today.
Isn’t a large part of why we gather here on Sundays because we
believe that while all is not right with us and all is not right with
our world, still Christ has called us to himself? We believe that
Christ has done things for us we could not do for ourselves; that he
has saved us and made us part of His rule; His Kingdom. When through
faith in Christ’s Word & Promises we are in Christ and Christ is in
us, then the sense of who we are as individuals begins to give way to
something bigger than ourselves; something called the Kingdom of God;
walking together, encountering the world’s indifference & resistance
together, being empowered by Christ together, working together,
and rejoicing together at seeing amazing results as we by God’s
grace in Christ are given to do the will of God in Christ together.
I’m not making this up. Over the years I have see many of
you & your families be visible evidence, living proof of Jesus’
calling, commissioning, sending & empowering, ordinary folk to do
extraordinary work.
Hundreds of quilts, cut & sewed & tied & boxed.
Hundreds of layettes for babies; that take busy hands & lots of
donated & purchased baby items assembled for needy new mothers.
Over 9500 meals bagged by kids & adults for Kids Against Hunger
Over $2000 raised this past June through a Kids On A Mission
VBS Rummage Sale & daily VBS offerings for Tents & Tarps in Haiti.
Always much food & helping hands for large & small funerals!
$25,000 St. Paul Mission Budget - $20,000 St. Paul pledge for
Ablaze Fan Into Flame Missions.
Brentsplace – Relay for Life – National Kidney Foundation – Rotary
Projects – Optimist Program
Jesus has not only saved us, called us, but He has commissioned
us to go, to show, to proclaim, to demonstrate the Kingdom of God is
near. More intensely missionary.
There are Sundays when we gather and the sermon is about some
strange passage of scripture that is difficult to understand, maybe
even difficult to believe.
But this Sunday is different. This Sunday I’ve got undeniable,
living proof that “The Spirit of Jesus Christ is the spirit of missions,
and the nearer we get to Jesus the more intensely missionary we must become.
The proof is you. And there’s more to do. For Christians it’s
good to be intensely missionary, and may we put more trust in God, in
Jesus, too.