Practicing Discipleship Every Day
Text: Matthew 9:35-10:23
I have to admit that when I read this Gospel lesson I get a bit of an inferiority complex. I can’t heal the sick or raise the dead. I am not commissioned to cast out demons. I am certainly not going to set off on a journey without a bag full of supplies. I book hotel rooms, I don’t just hope someone has room for me in their house for however long I happen to be in town. I have to admit that I am not called to do what the apostles were called to do.
Similarly, the harassment, the persecution that the apostles experienced was so different from what we experience in our time and place. Christianity has been the dominant religion in the United States since colonizers came over and took the land from Native Americans. Rather than being persecuted, Christians were the ones who persecuted others. In the case of Spanish conquistadors, they told the Incan and Mayan peoples, “Convert or die”, using the Spanish language, which many indigenous people did not understand. We still have privilege as Christians, something the apostles certainly didn’t have as they walked without two shirts or even a walking stick into various villages in Israel, seeking a place to lay their heads, sharing healing with those they met.
Jesus sent these twelve out because he saw harassed and helpless people, people whose needs weren’t being cared for by those in charge, and he wanted to provide for them. He cared deeply for the lives of the people who had little. He asked the apostles, the ones he sent, to live among them, to be provided for as much as they provided for others. There was an expectation that they would be helped on their journey just as much as they would help. There was a vulnerability in all of this. They weren’t the conquistadors who believed they had all the answers and the best way of life, they were people who needed help with food and shelter. They were people who had to integrate into communities and build trust with local people. They were also going to their own people, not to foreigners. Jesus was clear with them in this mission: First they needed to learn how to live in vulnerability in Jewish towns and Jewish places. They needed to learn how to handle rejection and persecution from their own people. They needed to learn how to shake off the dust of the soil of Israelite towns as well as how to rely on Israelite neighbors and friends.
What Jesus was doing was establishing a pattern that was to support the mission throughout the world. It starts local, it starts with being vulnerable with neighbors. Then it spreads. This pattern continues as the apostles are sent to more places. The apostle Paul lived and worked alongside the people in all the communities he ministered in. He came into town without much of anything and relied on the kindness of others. The good news of Jesus wasn’t spread through conquest. It was spread through apostles caring for others and being cared for themselves, it was spread through mutuality.
But how does this mutuality translate into our lives? In Jesus’ day people often relied on the kindness of strangers when traveling. There might be small inns with a few rooms for rent, but most of the time people stayed in extra space in other people’s homes. Now renting space for the night is much more of the norm. We don’t bring strangers into our homes very often at all, nor would I advocate for that.
I also don’t think Jesus is calling all of us to leave our stuff behind and to travel to different parts of the state. We have to admit that these men were able to travel because women supported them. Their wives took care of their households. Women like Joanna the wife of Chuza, a steward of King Herod, helped bankroll Jesus’ ministry. There was a network of support behind them that we often forget. That network also helps explain Jesus’ warning that families would turn on each other. It’s natural for a family to feel resentful if they are supporting a family member who is wandering all over the place and not directly contributing to the needs of the household. That’s a hard position for them to be in. They either have to believe wholeheartedly in what their loved one is doing or the stress takes over. Their families sacrificed for the Gospel as much as these apostles did.
It’s also important to know that this was a select and specific calling. Jesus had many disciples, people who followed him. All of those who followed Jesus were given specific roles in the ministry. Paul describes it as being one body with many members, different people have different functions. Jesus only sent out twelve of these members to be apostles, people who were designated for this specific mission. What we encounter in our Gospel lesson today is specific instructions for a group of twelve people who had a very important function in the spreading of the gospel. Some people today are called to similar roles as the apostles. Many are called to different roles. But we are all called into caring for each other, into mutual support.
How do we support each other today? How do we care for the people around us? I think sometimes these questions may feel overwhelming. We see others doing amazing things and either try to jump into their shoes right away or see all the barriers and stop in our tracks. Yes, Jesus sent the apostles out in a very drastic way, but he had also been preparing them for this mission since he first called them to follow him. This didn’t happen overnight. They were formed and molded into their call, like a potter molding clay. It was a day by day journey as they grew in trust and commitment to God and each other.
How do we open ourselves up and allow God to form us in our unique calls?
I have recently started using an app that focuses on building an iterative mindset to create lasting change. It’s a diet and fitness app, but the techniques they use are universal. Their message is simple: start with gratitude, set an intention for the day, then evaluate how you did. In one of their videos a trainer talked about the problem with focusing too much on the goal. Trying to lose fifty pounds can feel impossible because it can’t be achieved in a short amount of time. It takes many months for most people. But trying to eat healthy meals today, trying to get to the gym twice this week, these are easier goals that support the larger vision. Working on building specific habits and routines can have a huge impact on your life. Breaking it down helps it integrate into your life.
Leaving the world of fitness, how can we break down discipleship in an iterative way? How can we work on building habits and routines that support us as we seek to help those who need compassion and grace? First we start with gratitude. What are the things we have enjoyed over the past day? Thank God for those. God delights when we delight. Then set an intention: What do you hope to accomplish today? Do you want to study? Do you want to do something to help another person? Do you need a day of rest? Let God know what you desire for the day. Then, at the end of it all, evaluate how the day went. Were you able to accomplish what you intended or not? What might help you do better tomorrow? Are there things you need to learn more about in order to help you accomplish your goals? Are there insights you need to write down to help you through difficulties in the future? This is the iterative mindset at work in discipleship.
This pattern of discipleship is also a whole lot older than the secular term “iterative mindset”. St. Ignatius of Loyola called it “The Examen”. Each day he would start his day with gratitude and in prayerful connection with God set his intention for the day. At the end of the day, he would express gratitude for what he was able to do, repent of his failings, and honestly evaluate with God how he was doing in his life of faith. This was how he and the Society of Jesus, of which he was a founding member, patterned their lives. The Society of Jesus, also called the Jesuits, still pattern their lives in this way. Breaking things down, taking them day by day, has a drastic effect on a life of faith.
The call is big and bold. It’s filled with hardship and temptation. If we focus too much on the goal of being perfectly in tune with God’s will, we’ll never get there. Focusing on trying to be perfect can lead to shame and anxiety. However, if we focus on what we need for today, our daily bread as the Lord’s Prayer calls it, suddenly those big extreme things aren’t so big or extreme. For the apostles, it was traveling to a new village, speaking in the synagogue, meeting a new friend and spending the night. If things didn’t go well, it was learning they weren’t welcome and shaking the dust off their shoes. Each day they would decide if they needed to stay there or move on. Each day new challenges would come, but they were assured that the Holy Spirit would provide them with the words to say. Jesus showed them the big picture of what would happen in their lives in our Gospel for today, but they broke it down into days that flowed into weeks that flowed into months that flowed into years. Each day they expressed gratitude to God, set their intentions for the day, and then evaluated how they did. Each day they had to check back in with God and take time to consider the best next steps. It was a slow process towards a dramatic result that is hard for us to imagine if we don’t break things down into daily living.
Friends, the Gospel call is supposed to be integrated into our lives. It’s not more activities to add to packed schedules. It’s not magically becoming someone entirely different from the person you are. It’s taken one day at a time. It’s lived from moment to moment. The apostles were built up until they were able to begin their mission with a clear goal set for them, one that required them to break it down into smaller achievable tasks over the course of months. They were able to grow into what they were called to do. We too are able to grow into our own ministries, continuing to express gratitude to God, asking God to help us set manageable intentions for the day, and then honestly evaluating with God how we did. We each have different roles in God’s great body, but all of us are caring for ourselves alongside our neighbors, all of us are called into spaces of mutuality and vulnerability.
Those spaces start at home, the most local place of all. We learn how to care for each other by being cared for. Many households fail to care for each other well, but we are all called to work on creating healthy home spaces that model the care God has for each of us. Whether the household has one person or ten people, that space should be a space of care and compassion for those within it. If it is not, there is healing that needs to happen, work that can be broken down into daily things that can help us to better care for each other. Sometimes households separate into multiple households, either to create healing or simply because a member is ready to leave. They don’t just separate through divorce, they separate out as children grow up and create their own households. Multiple households can and often do support one another, like a parent supporting their adult child, or a stranger taking in an apostle, or they can go their separate ways. No matter what, the household is supposed to be a place to support the members in mutuality and vulnerability as they grow. Just as their households supported the apostles, our households support us. One of the households that is supposed to support us is this household, the Church. Part of our intention setting and self-reflection with God should always consider the households we are a part of. How are they doing? What am I grateful for? Where is there brokenness? What is my responsibility? What requires the support of another? We come together to set goals and create a vision, and then we individually, with the help of God, break our part into daily intentions, never forgetting our gratitudes as we work towards the vision.
The Church’s ministry is not just those things that congregations collaborate on. It’s the parent showing up to their child’s events. It’s caring for older parents who need help at home. It’s caring for people who have no homes. It’s studying for exams. It’s writing exams. It's paying attention to each other and having compassion for each other, each and every day. It’s how we each individually live our lives. Our gratitudes, our intentions, and our evaluations, all help us to reach the goal of being in ministry together, each and every day, wherever we find ourselves. Imagine what everyone in this room is doing on a Tuesday afternoon at 4 o’clock. That’s the Church out being the Church. How are we doing at that? What do we want to improve? How do we break down that goal into intentions for each day?
Take time in prayer with God. Start with your gratitude, set your intentions, make time for honest reflection, begin again. Always remember that God is helping you live into your call, minute by minute, hour by hour. Even when you mess up, God is ready to help you begin again.
May we integrate our faith into our lives so much that our households and our communities reflect the mutuality of the Kingdom of God. Amen.
