Mark 6:6-11
Jesus went among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority to heal.
He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that all should change their ways.
This ought to be a sobering passage for the church. Our mission is not within the walls of buildings, but where the people are who might be strangers to us. The ministry we bring is to share the good news of forgiveness and hope, to heal those who are broken, to eat with strangers. The disciples are to be dependent on the generosity of others and the beauty and grace of the message they received from Jesus. Somehow, the church has turned this around so that we are the ones with power and our communities ought to be a support to us.
Let us rethink this. What if we decide that we need no buildings, but we do need centres for sharing the message of hope and forgiveness? What if the buildings we do have are centres of hospitality where everyone is welcome? What if we are intentional about making our churches accessible not just physically, but culturally? What if we accept that we are dependent on the needs and ideas of “others”?
Finally, we have been excellent at preaching change to the world, but how do we model that ourselves? How do we show our willingness to change to the homeless, to indigenous peoples, to the black community, to women in situations of domestic violence, to children, to a gender-diverse community?
To create a new mission statement, we need to decide where our priorities lie. In stone and stained glass? In property? In people? We will do only what really matters to us. Is what matters to us Jesus and his inclusive, loving mission?
“When He Came”
by Dorothee SöllH
He needs you
That’s all there is to it
Wthout you he’s left hanging
Goes up in Dachau’s smoke
Is sugar and spice in a baker’s hands
Gets revalued in the next stock market crash
He’s consumed and blown away
Used up
Without you
Help him
That’s what faith is
He can’t bring it about
His kingdom
Couldn’t then couldn’t later can’t now
Not at any rate without you
And that is his irresistible appeal.
“When He Came” appears in the collection, Revolutionary Patience, by Dorothee Sölle and Rita and Robert Kimger. © Dorothy Sölle. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003.