Two by two.  Why pairs?  I get why Jesus didn’t send them each alone.  I have many plans to serve the Lord, beloved.  Plans.  Hopes.  Dreams.  It’s good to have another disciple alongside me, to keep me accountable to these plans, these hopes, this call.  We can do much individually; we can do more together.

          Who went with Judas?  How did Judas go?  In faith, with plans, hopes, and dreams?  Yes,  of course.  Only, with what faith, and what were his plans, hopes, and dreams?  Who was at the center for Judas and who at the destination?  Jesus gave even Judas “authority over impure spirits” (6:7), but his own spirit was the one impure spirit over which Judas failed to exercise the authority Jesus gave him.

          God blesses us with power, ability, not only for the benefit, blessing, and salvation of others, beloved, but also for our own blessing, our own salvation.  That means change.  That means obedience.  That means purification.  We can’t accomplish any of that by ourselves, but we can desire it, pray for it, aim for it, and conscientiously avoid whatever would deflect us from God’s claim upon us.

          We are no longer in the apostolic age.  We neither experience nor exercise Jesus power the way the apostles did, but it isn’t as if that Jesus-authority ended with the death of Peter or Paul or John.  The name of Jesus, which we bear, the character of Jesus, which we are called to imitate, is power over impure spirits.  Are there no impure spirits left in this world, these times?  The church, together, can make a difference.  Each believer can make a difference.  Each difference made for the glory of God counts.  The size of the difference can’t be measured by human measurement or human notions of measurement.  The difference each of you makes and that we make together is measured by God according to the measure of the Spirit.  Together, in pairs, even singly, we can do small things with great love.

          Apart from Jesus, there is no authority.  Whatever is not according to the character of Jesus has no authority.  When the church strays from the Lord, the church loses authority, for the authority is not and never has been the church’s authority.  All authority is from God, through Jesus, by the Holy Spirit.  Authority is from the Word of God, through the Word of God, for the Word of God.  Whatever fails to measure up to the Word of God, outside the church or in the church, has no authority.  Scripture is not subject to the Church: the Church is subject to Scripture, the Word of God, Jesus Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father.

          Jesus sends the apostles out with his own authority over impure spirits.  Not all authority, but authority to purify.  That is no small authority.  Purify.  Back in April and May, I was speaking about purity, purifying, and purification.  This is a spiritual discipline the church no longer takes enough time and thought and zeal to consider and apply.  We live in impure times among impure people—performing lap dances on Satan, no less—I’m not sure if that made it onto MTV (is MTV still around?).  Can anything still shock us?  Impurity is in the eye of the beholder, the world will say, which is as much as to say there is no impurity, so loosen up.  Let us take to heart all the brokenness out there, for we have a Word to speak into that darkness; we have someone we can take with us into that chaos.  All outward focus, however, fails to have power when there is not first inward focus, the painful, blessed recognition that the wickedness out there is also in here, first and always in here.  No society can be pure when its members are not themselves yearning for purity and rejoicing that God is purifying them.  

          Jesus gives authority over impure spirits.  The purpose of the authority is clear: the apostles are to go and purify.  Jesus sends them out to go and purify.  What’s the filthiest thing you’ve ever had to wash, by hand?  It wasn’t fun.  It was revolting.  Grace.  Mercy.  Being sent out to share, to offer, to invite into the purity of God is holy, and we have been given the ability to do it, for the glory of God, for God to be better known in this world so ignorant of God.

          Jesus doesn’t send the pairs with much, yet he sends them with everything.  Walk with me into this thought.  Jesus says, “Take nothing” (6:8).  Nothing isn’t much.  Oh, he permits each one to take a staff, for walking, for steadiness on the journey, sometimes for reaching, sometimes for sparring, sometimes for counting and gathering, like a shepherd’s staff.  No bread, though.  No bag to keep things, and then Jesus gets specific: no money.  No extra clothing.  What a way to journey; what a way to live!

          How much food would you want to take?  How much money?  Now, we just take our plastic and stop at Buc-ee’s, but let’s say you were traveling someplace that wasn’t set up to take plastic, and there was no Buc-ee’s—who’d want to go there?!  I know!  How many changes of clothes?  When you go on vacation, do you overpack?  Just a little?  I don’t know many people who underpack, though some do travel light.  The question is always simple and direct: what do you really need for the journey, need most of all?

          Food, money, clothes—that’s a lot of baggage.  That’s a lot to carry around, worry about, attend to, think about.  What if we turned all the energy and fervor and attention of those thoughts, all that concern, elsewhere?  We take food, money, and clothing—our stuff—along with us for the journey and at some point they become the focus of the journey.

          Your bread will come to you, as you journey; you shall be provided for, on the journey.  Remember the manna?  One time the disciples are worried about food—I get it!—and Jesus tells them he has bread they don’t know about.  He’s been holding out on them!  Not very Jesus-y!  He hasn’t been, though.  He tells them they truly don’t know about this bread he has, this food that sustains him, fuels him, feeds him.  He explains: “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me” (Jn 4:34).  Go, proclaim, bless, touch, heal, purify in and by the ability God has given you.  To do so is to be fed, filled, and sustained.  God shall supply, all your need.  We call this grace.  It is God’s love in action.

          But we need our stuff!  What fun is the journey, without our stuff?  Isn’t the journey about our stuff, about stuff becoming mine, adding to me, increasing me?  What Jesus says, what he invites us to say to one another for encouragement, and also to say to many, many not here today, for their salvation, is this: Jesus gives you all you need.  What you already have with you is enough for the journey.  We don’t need more than what Jesus has given us.

          Inadequacy seems always to be staring us in the face.  Finish this sentence: I’m just too _________.  Now finish this one: I just don’t have enough __________.  Lack.  Absence.  Failure.  Anyone here feel like a failure?  What is Jesus saying?  What is he speaking into that hole, that wound?  I have already given you all you need.  With me, you already have enough and more than enough.  But we don’t see it.  We don’t feel it.  And we walk by faith, not by sight.  Go, pray, proclaim, sing, bless, heal, purify, and be purified as you do the will of our Father in heaven.

          Jesus speaks of going and also of staying.  Why does he tell the twelve to stay in the same house until they leave (6:10)?  There’s an old Popeye cartoon—I love those!  In this one, Bluto and Popeye are cooking at rival diners, across the street from each other.  They’re both looking for customers—it’s a slow day.  Along comes Wimpy: he doesn’t have a dime to his name, but he sure has an appetite!  The hijinks are in how Popeye and Bluto, one after the other, throw food at Wimpy, and how Wimpy, seeing a better deal with each new offer, goes to one diner, then the other, and back again and back and forth.  In the end, as tables, forks, hams, steaks, fried eggs, and dishes of spaghetti are flying back and forth overhead, Wimpy, in the middle, picks and chooses what he wants and stuffs himself.  It works out well, for him.

          In our consumer society, we are always on the lookout for the better offer.  That’s called being smart, savvy.  We live in a society that fights for customers by telling them just how smart and savvy they are for being here rather than there.  We fight for customers by giving them something they want, want even more.  We don’t win customers by offering what they do not want.  We start to panic, a little, if we don’t seem to have anything they want; we start to scramble and scurry, worrying about what we can offer that they will want.

          The church has been very attentive.  The church has learned.  The church is looking for customers.  Lakewood is a huge church not only because it is in Houston, and not only because Joel Osteen is the speaker, there.  What’s the Lakewood message?  Elevation Church is a huge church not only because it is in Charlotte, North Carolina, and not only because Steven Furtick is pastor there.  What’s the Elevation message?  They have learned.  They offer what the customer wants.  They do not offer what the customer does not want.  Are you customers, here?  Am I here to provide impeccable customer service, a most unobtrusive and expert valet or concierge?

          We’re told by John that a point came in Jesus’ ministry when what he was saying became too much for many to accept—it had all been great, up until that point.  If Jesus had just stopped, before he started saying everything he came to say.  If he just, you know, thought more about his customers.  Judas was sure the people would stay, then.  But Jesus wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t listen to Judas.  So Judas went and found a better offer.

          Jesus knows not everyone will listen.  We just know people won’t listen, and we let it keep us from doing anything.  What’s the point?  Jesus went and proclaimed knowing that his Father has already prepared those who would listen, who would receive, who would be blessed and healed.  Let us have the mind of Christ.

          “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” (6:11).  Welcome you or listen to you.  People can welcome you but not listen.  They can listen without welcoming you.  Jesus might be saying that either of those is enough, enough for a start, a starting point, a small space made in the soil for the seed of Jesus.  There are also those who will neither welcome nor listen—complete disinterest, total rejection.  That’s what we’re so afraid of, yet we’ll never know if we don’t go.  So, we let fear keep us back.  The disciples knew all about it, and then Jesus came to them, radiant, risen in power and authority, and after that, though the disciples still felt fear, they let faith guide them through fear, past fear.  And here we are, because of them.  Who might yet come here, because of us?

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.