“Apostled”

Jesus doesn’t do things the way we do them. His ways are different. Take the apostles for example, from our Gospel this morning. When Jesus went about all the cities and villages of Israel, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the gospel of His kingdom, healing the people, He looked on the multitudes of Israel. And what did He see? A deplorable sight!

They were weary and scattered, harassed and helpless. They were like sheep without a shepherd. A sad sight. And Jesus was moved with compassion for the multitudes of Israel, these lost lambs, clueless and careworn. So He did something about it.

This is where I see Jesus’ path diverging from the one most in the modern church would take. And this divergence makes all the difference, as Robert Frost would say. Because our age is the information age. We believe in information. We do. It has become a god for many that will save us. If only we get the right information out there, the correct knowledge, all our diseases and problems and famines, well shoot, even the hot weather itself can be fixed. With information.

I mean really, look at us! People die of heart disease. This shouldn’t be, we say! So we treat the problem with information. The American Heart Association and the American Medical Association blitz the airwaves with commercials about eating right and exercising (except when there’s lots of smoke in the air like last week, which would be bad for you). They put out fliers, pamphlets everywhere. The occasional door hangar. Articles in the newspapers and popular magazines. I even saw a commercial on ESPN with the Sports Center guys reminding us that real men get their cholesterol and blood pressure checked as avidly as they check the Lakers-Celts scores.

It’s an information extravaganza. An advertising blitz. Because in information we trust. And advertising is the means of grace to save the world from all that ails us. Sometimes the information changes, because the experts change their minds, but that doesn’t faze them. I saw a big article on vitamin D last week. After decades of telling us to lather on the sunscreen so skin cancer doesn’t kill us, turns out we’re all vitamin D deficient because that vitamin is produced by getting some sun. So get rid of the sun screen—um, well, sometimes. Or, uh, sort through all the information yourself. In the FDA and university studies we trust!

 And don’t even get me started on “global warming”—the movies, the articles, the flyers, the commercials. It’s more information overload. But don’t worry that the same people who were screaming at us from the covers of magazines in the 70’s when I was a kid that a new ice age was coming to kill us all are now screaming that we’re all going to melt from the heat. The new data has come in, see. Much more sophisticated studies have been done and the results analyzed by supercomputers. We have more information, much more than we did back then. And information will save us. And it so it goes. Our information worship spans 24 hour news, the internet, blogging, and all that. Information is king. All hail!

So this is why I say that if we were in Jesus’ shoes and saw all Israel was harassed and helpless, sheep without a shepherd, we would send information to save. We’d start with an ad campaign on the value of shepherds. Then we’d follow that up with magazine articles on how to “get rid of your inner demons and unclean spirits”. Then we’d have infomercials and Oprah would feature the author of the latest best seller “How to Be Your Own Best Shepherd—NOW!” Door hangars would be hung. Commercials would be run. Books and magazine articles would flow off the presses. And we’d all hail the information that saves. Because we trust in information. We’re the information age.

But when Jesus sees Israel harassed and helpless, weary and scattered, like sheep without a shepherd He does not send information. He does not start an ad campaign. He doesn’t write a book or go on Oprah. Nope. You know what Jesus does? He sends shepherds! Crazy huh? Yep, Jesus does not send information to save us. He does not send how-to-manuals or self-help guides. He sends shepherds. One at a time, or two by two, He sends them. To all the lost sheep of the house of Israel, He sends them.

And He doesn’t send these shepherds to talk about shepherding. He doesn’t send them teaching information or techniques or theories. He doesn’t send them counseling the sheep to solve their own problems. Nope. He sends the shepherds to shepherd. He sends them with power, His powerful Gospel of the kingdom come near in Jesus, by which Jesus Himself gathers His sheep. See, by this Gospel Word, He doesn’t inform the sheep, He saves them from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Jesus does this saving Himself, all by the Gospel His apostles preach…

Because the Gospel of Christ Jesus is not information. It is the divine means by which Jesus Himself comes to us in Person. And because Jesus does not want to inculcate information or ideas in you, but because He wants to be incarnate in you Himself, He does not send information. He sends a person. Jesus comes to His sheep in this shepherd, not by second hand reports. The Kingdom of Jesus is not an information bureaucracy. It is a flesh and blood Savior present by the flesh and blood shepherds that He “apostles”—the Greek word for “sends”. By the men Jesus sends, through their ministry of Gospel and Sacraments, Jesus Himself is present to gather and save His lost sheep, through the hands and mouth of the shepherd He sends in His stead and by His command.

Perhaps this is the biggest difference between Jesus and our information age: we are happy enough to receive shepherds, apostles in Jesus’ name. But only to have them give us information about Jesus that we can decide on for ourselves and enact in our lives and communities in the manner we deem best. We separate the minister from the ministry, in other words.

Jesus does not do this. As you cannot separate Christ from His work, Jesus from His cross, so you cannot separate Matthew and Peter from the Gospel and Sacraments they bear in Jesus’ Name. You cannot have the Gospel without the apostle Jesus sent. If Peter’s personal ministry is unimportant, if it is only information and ideas he has to share, then we can do without a Peter or Paul or Matthew. We just need to get the gist of their ideas and then we’ll be fine on our own.

But Jesus doesn’t do it this way. Because Christianity is not a set of teachings to master. It is the Teacher who masters you—saves and dwells with you Personally. Which is why Jesus is the Teacher who comes to us in person, not ideas. He sends shepherds, not information about shepherding.

He doesn’t send you theories about justification, faith, and the church. He sends you a shepherd, a pastor, who stands before you now, in His stead, by His command to proclaim to you the Gospel, to give to you the Sacraments that deliver you from, sin, death, and the devil, so that Jesus Himself will live in you, and you in Him, in the Kingdom whose joys are endless. These shepherds Jesus sends, they don’t look anything special, really. Guys like Matthew, guys like me, with plenty of faults of our own. In and of ourselves, we are nothing. It’s what Jesus does with us, by the Gospel He puts in our mouths and the Sacraments He passes through our hands, that the miracle happens…

Yes, just so, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, for you, now, and with it, the Peace that surpasses all understanding, guarding your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Rev. Kevin Martin