June 29 2008 Lectionary Reading: Matthew 10:40-42

Text: “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the One who sent me.” Matthew 10.40 (GNB)

Up on top of the castle rock there, visited by thousands upon thousands of tourists each year, the smallest, and probably the oldest building in the whole of Edinburgh Castle. St. Margaret’s chapel. To step in out of the cold, to step in and away for a moment from the throng of visitors is to find a moment of relief. Inside you find a simple place of worship, a few benches and a small communion table, some arrangements of flowers. Oh, and also a sense of peace, a sense of the way in which a thousand years of worship seem to have been drawn into the ancient stones. St. Margaret’s chapel - those strong foundations and old grey walls, sound, solid, in the afternoon sunshine.

Now, here’s a question. Isn’t that what the Church should be ? Secure, strong, set behind great protective walls, a place of refuge protected from the stormy world outside ? That seems an attractive option these days, especially as things become more difficult. So, a surprise awaits us when we read the gospels, hear what Jesus sets before us as the task, the calling, of the Church. A surprise awaits us.

Matthew 10, we read how the Lord calls the 12 disciples together, and sends them out through Israel. They are to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and drive out demons. The are to travel light...... They are not to take silver, gold, or copper coins with them, no bag or tunic. They are to go the lost sheep of Israel first, the poor, the outcast - announcing that the kingdom of heaven is near. The disciples go with an invitation for the lost sheep of Israel, the poor the outcast, the lost, the grieving, those far away, the weak and the powerless. Here is what the sheer loving grace of God is like, the living God, comes seeking us – in His own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. The Good Shepherd seeking, searching for the lost sheep, seeking, searching for us. When they arrive in a village as the twilight draws on they are to look for the house of a good person where they can stay, and bring to that house, to that person greetings of peace. And for all this, Jesus gives the disciples His authority. They will go, sent by Him, appointed by Him, under His authority, with His authority. But Matthew 10 is a passage in which there is light and dark....... on the one hand, yes, the light of the great sending out of the disciples. But there is dark. The dark reality of the world into which Jesus sends those He has chosen.

There are varying degrees of darkness, of shade, of shadow in Jesus’ warnings to His beloved disciples about the world, the circumstances, the situations into which He is sending them. They may arrive, says Jesus, in places, villages, towns where there is no welcome for them, no-one listens, they meet only with coldness - it will, says Jesus, be better for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for these towns and villages. Or the situation may be worse than that - the disciples, in days to come, may be hauled before councils and synagogues. Governors and kings will hurry to drag them into court, to try and silence the redeeming word of the gospel. Worse still, they may meet with outright hatred, and the direct threat of death.

Now, in the face of a world like this, we might well think, we might well ask - wouldn’t it be better for the Church be a place of refuge like St. Margaret’s Chapel up there, behind all those walls, gates, defences, redoubts, protected from the stormy world outside ?

Well, the message of the gospel in Matthew 10, is that though the world, may be full of menace, threat, and darkness this is the world into which Jesus sends us His disciples ! He does not bid us retreat, make ourselves secure, instead He calls us to follow Him into this often indifferent, sometimes menacing world............

In the face of the dark threats of the world, the Lord declares a greater reality, that before the rulers of the earth, we His disciples have been given the power of the Spirit, who will give us the words to speak when the time comes; If we face hatred, we know with certainty that the Son of Man will come, and if we look death in the face, ah then, we know how the Father’s love surrounds us, bears us up, so that not even a sparrow falls to the ground, but our Father in heaven knows.

And, underlying all of this, in fact, is the message of the Cross........

The great ringing declaration in the letter to the Hebrews 12.2 puts it so clearly:

Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus..... on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. He did not give up because of the Cross ! On the contrary, because of the joy that was waiting for Him, He set aside the disgrace of dying on the Cross, and He is now seated at the right-hand side of God’s throne............ think of the opposition He endured from sinful men... so that you will not grow weary and lose heart

But to draw to a close:

Professor William Barclay points out how important the words of verse 40 in Matthew 10 are. How wonderful these words of Jesus are: Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the One who sent me.

For here, Jesus focuses our attention on those who welcome the gospel

The closing words of Jesus to the disciples, are not on the threat of the world, the darkness of the world, but on those who wait to hear the gospel............

So the force of Jesus’ words is this: that through all the troubles, threats, dangers the disciples face... the through all the different levels of indifference, hatred, violence - there are those, waiting, who will receive the good news of Jesus. Beyond all the troubles the disciples may encounter, there is a man, a woman waiting, who will, with all their heart, be filled with the joy at the good news, and receiving the message, they will receive Jesus Himself, and receiving Jesus - the Father above and the pardon and holiness He gives ........... So, the Word here is the same as that in the story of the lost sheep. The Good Shepherd braves the wind, rain, crags, torrents, gladly even. Why ? Seeking the lost sheep, looking for it - and finding it !

Down at Musselburgh, the river Esk flows under the bridge there that brings buses, cars, pedestrians into the town, the river flows on gently another quarter of a mile, and then enters the sea. Sometimes, however, in a spring tide the tide is so high, the sea pushes the waters of the Esk back, waves coming in from the sea can be seen, pushing the river back, salt water, brackish water surrounding, flooding round the little islands.

In many ways that seems to be our situation in the Church, the tide has turned, fewer, it seems to us, wish to know, or to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

So then - the Church, the Church in Scotland, the Church of Scotland - do we become a Church set apart, protected from the stormy world. That will be our great temptation. But the word of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel is No ! The world beyond our doors may be indifferent, refuse to hear, like the villages the Lord speaks of. The world may be threatening in many ways and there may be all kinds of reasons why we shouldn’t venture out as Christian people.

But the focus of the word of Jesus in Matthew 10, as the Lord sends out the disciples into the same world as the one we live in is not on the threat that the world poses to the Church. The Word of the Lord Jesus concerns this: the joyful, certain knowledge that there are those who will receive the gospel, who will welcome the good news. And this is why Paul in turn, asks this question about the world, in Romans 10 -

And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard ? And how can they hear without someone telling them ?

AMEN