If Jesus is always teaching, he is also preparing his followers.  He has something he’s asking them to do, wants them to be doing.  In much of the first part of Mark’s account, we follow Jesus as he calls followers, one and another.  After his baptism, he left the Jordan and returned from the wilderness alone; having returned to Capernaum he called, and four joined him, then there were twelve, and then many more.  Here we are, today.

“Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits” (6:7).  Jesus had authority, as we can read for ourselves and as we have heard.  He still has it.  His authority was a marvel to many, a menace to others.  Jesus has the authority.  He can give it.  His authority is for one thing, beloved: to heal.  Those who would use the authority of Jesus for the sake of condemning and punishing others discover that the authority of Jesus isn’t that sort of authority.  John and James were eager to bring fire and brimstone down on a town that hadn’t received Jesus (Lk 9:54).  The brothers seem to have believed fully that they could do that, that the authority, the power Jesus gave them, could be used for that.  Jesus rebukes them.  The authority is healing authority, teaching authority, liberating authority.  It drives the demons out, purges people of the impure spirit inhibiting them.  The authority of Jesus is light and truth, Spirit.  This power is spiritual, which is why it meets with such resistance and condemnation.  The beliefs and values people have—including us—are shaped by spirit: if not the Holy Spirit, then some other spirit—the spirit of the times, perhaps.

Jesus sends his followers out with the power of healing, the power of teaching.  “These were his instructions: ‘Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts’” (6:8).  A staff . . . was that because the way they would be walking would be upwards?  Was it to ward off robbers and dogs who got bad ideas in their boneheads?  Was the staff a symbol of authority?  A shepherd kept his staff close to hand.  The psalmist sang to the Lord, his Shepherd: “your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”  We think of comfort as what makes us feel better, and there is that, but the word’s primary meaning is that which makes stronger, com-fort- from fortify, fortifying, fortification.  Lord, Your authoritative power makes me stronger, strengthens me, and therefore I feel better, joyful, at peace.  Perhaps the staff each apostle was to take with him was for a reminder of the strengthening presence of God.  Maybe they just needed good walking sticks for the rough, hilly countryside.

“[N]o bread, no bag, no money”: how would they provide for themselves?  What would they eat?  How would they carry their rations?  Upon whom could they rely, with no money to pay for anything?  Jesus sent them out like bums, beggars!  Unless the comforting presence, and power, of the Lord were truly with them, because Jesus was still truly with them, by the Spirit, through the Spirit.  When you travel, do you like to pack every last thing you can think of, and a few you can’t?  Just in case?  Sometimes we forget something after all, and we start to panic because we just know we need it, only to find out, strangely, that we really didn’t, after all.  Our luggage is like our insurance policy.  Some take out big policies.  When Paul writes that God shall supply all our need (Phil 4:19), either he knows what he’s talking about or he doesn’t.  When we read more about all that Paul went through, the deprivations, it seems pretty clear that he does know what he’s talking about.  Take the name of Jesus with you, the old hymn sang.  Maybe there’s something to it.  Let God make provision for you.  Let faith show you the provision He has already made for you.  Oh, you won’t always have all you would want, would like; you will have what you need.  But you won’t know until you make the experiment.

Jesus tells his apostles, sent out in the strengthening, comforting power of the Word, “Wear sandals but not an extra shirt” (6:9).  They’re going to be doing some walking.  How far are we willing to journey for Jesus?  Here . . . to church . . . once in a while?  Sometimes, it seems we’re barely willing to go next door—believe me, I know.  Maybe we feel as if we have no strength for it, no inclination.  Maybe journeying for Jesus feels like a real drain on our comfort.  Paul, again—he must really have picked up on things Jesus said—writes about the best footwear, telling us to go with our feet “fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace” (Eph 6:15).  Readiness—that’s not just readiness for whatever may come to you, it’s also readiness to do, to go, to walk with and walk for the Lord.

We’re going to need sandals, but not an extra shirt.  Travel light, don’t let yourself get buried under your baggage, loaded with your luggage: who wants to lug all that around?  An extra shirt wasn’t for wearing on Sabbaths in synagogue.  An extra shirt was for warmth at night, when you slept out under the stars because no one would take you in, no one would show you even the basic hospitality common to the culture and place at the time.  In other words, Jesus may just be saying, when you go in the comforting strength of my Word, to take me to others, to share me with others, to bring healing; when you go relying entirely upon the sure provisions of the Lord, you can expect rejection and disappointment.  You will also find, gloriously, graciously, welcome.  When you seek those needing what you have to offer, be assured, God will let you find them.

“Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town” (6:10).  Hey, you were kind and all, but the people down the street can give me more!  Their dog doesn’t snore, they assure me, and they don’t have any noisy kids.  And they’re not vegetarians.  It’s unseemly to badmouth any fellow pastor, and there are pastors out there whose goal in life, after graduating from seminary, is to get themselves to Senior Pastor of First Big City Presbyterian Church as soon as their ambition and deal-making . . . uh, drive . . . can get them there.  Well, ambition and being driven are not in themselves bad things, as any entrepreneur can tell you, but it’s bad business to make ministry a business.  You and I, we don’t come here seeking promotion; we’re here to promote Christ.  That’s not a word only for pastors.  I’ve only pastored churches in small towns.  When I arrived at one, a member of the church, whose family had been associated with the church for generations, was attending another church.  He told me that his biggest customers attended that other church, so, you see, what could he do?

When you find the welcome God will provide, accept also the hospitality God will provide—learn to be content and focus on the work God gives you.  That’s not a word for pastors or missionaries and evangelists only.  Jesus knows he will not be welcome everywhere.  There will be closed hearts, closed eyes, closed minds.  Strange, how those so-open minds turn out to be the most tightly closed.  Sometimes, open-mindedness is a high-minded excuse for never deciding, never committing, not being bound; a high-minded cover for making yourself the judge of Scripture, God’s Word.

“And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them” (6:12).  No welcome.  No listening.  No, I won’t listen.  Why not?  Was the message offensive?  Yes, it was, to many, as we were reminded in what Mark told us last week.  Was the message regarded as a lie?  Yes, to many it was, because their truth was more important to them than God’s truth.  Oh, and who knows what that is really, anyway?

A young pastor was new to a church and wanted to get to know his community.  He went to the local high school, to see whether he could make some acquaintances and connections.  A teacher there told him, “I wish you’d leave.”  Why?  Why is the message unwelcome?  Why is the Bible unwelcome?  Why is Jesus unwelcome?  Well, you know, Jesus and the Bible, these aren’t necessarily unwelcome.  It just depends upon what sort of Jesus and what sort of Bible.  And yes, it’s better, after all, if both are just kept out, kept out of our life, kept out of our schools, out of our classrooms, you know, so the teachers can do their work, educate the children with no Bible in the way, you know.  And who teaches our children the Bible these days, anyway: YouTube?  TikTok?

And who welcomes God’s call to repentance?

Mark tells us the apostles, so ordered, “went out and preached that people should repent.  They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them” (6:12-13).  When we trust that Jesus has the power, when we trust that he entrusts us with a measure of that power, when we trust that Jesus trusts us to do good things with that power, why, good things start happening, miracles happen.  Who’d have thought?!  Who’d have believed it!?  To know the power and presence of the Lord, and to share this, blessedly, with others, near and not so near—this requires patience, prayer, and perseverance.  It also means we’ve got to keep practicing what Jesus teaches us, tells us, and empowers us to do.