The Cost of Discipleship – Matthew 10:24-39

God has always known that for the world to continue to know Him, those who are believers need to not only live their faith but share that faith with those around them by word and example.  And while it is true that God can break into the life of anyone, it is even truer that people respond better to someone they know and trust. But let us be clear. It is not you or I that convinces a person to believe. It is for us to make the introduction. That is what Andrew did when he invited his brother Simon to meet Jesus.  We speak so often in life of things or people to whom we were introduced.  As children we met our parents, but we were introduced to our grandparents and extended family. As we grew, we were introduced to other people in our neighbourhood, and we were introduced to people in our social circles.  As adults, we may have found our partners in life through introductions and so it continues throughout our lives.  Not all introductions will be good ones, but it is through being introduced, through meeting one another that we come to develop friendships, alliances, associations that will direct us through life.

Jesus invites the disciples to partner with him to introduce him to others. He seeks for them to be willing to share what they have been taught about God and so bring others to believe.  And this partnership that they are to have with Jesus is a sacred trust from God.  The passage of Scripture that we heard today is the pep talk that Jesus gave to the disciples as they prepared for their first solo mission. It was the beginning of their apprenticeship in discipleship. But Jesus is honest with them about what they can expect.  It won’t be a cake walk. They will encounter opposition. They will be vilified. They will suffer rejection and possibly suffer bodily harm, but they are not to worry for their lives are in the hands of God who even sees the sparrow when it falls.

Up to this point in the ministry of Jesus, the disciples have been watching and learning.  They have been guided and led by Jesus as he taught them new things about the God they had known their whole lives.  But now he was sending them out to do what he was doing. He was entrusting them with the mission.  He was letting them do it for themselves.

When we are experienced at a task, it can be very frustrating to watch someone struggle.  But it is important that we let them struggle and yet be supportive.  The first time we tried to cook or sew or use tools to build something, I am sure we were not as successful as we or others might have hoped we would be.  But with time and patience, we may not have become professionals, but we could master tasks that would help us to accomplish the goal of providing ourselves and others with nourishment or whatever was the end product of our efforts.  Those who taught us the skills we need to live this life trusted that with their help and guidance, we too could go and do likewise.

Discipleship was not a new concept to the people of that day. While the word may not have been used, anytime that someone placed themselves in a position of learning from a master, that was discipleship.  In every generation, God sought for individuals who would follow a prophet, a judge, a leader of the people and so be prepared to guide the nation in the path of God. These people became apprentices in discipleship.  Most of the stories recorded are accompanied by strange and wonderful signs, but there are stories where the voice of God, the presence of God comes in a quiet way.   God has always sought for partners – people who would commit their lives to passing on the message and inviting others to commit their lives to God. As much as God could have been a solo act, God has chosen to honour the relationship established by creative word and so we have been introduced to and invited to share in the good news of God.  We are a creation with a mind, a heart and a soul. We are able to think, feel and respond and so Jesus invited those first disciples to participate in spreading the good news of God’s love and forgiveness and encouraged them to find others who would take up the mantle of discipleship and so bring others to faith in God.

Our worship of God is a way for us to honour the One who set this world in motion and who has always had a vision for us.  We express our thankfulness and seek His forgiveness because it is our desire to live out that vision that God has for this world and its people.  We recognize in the message from God a path for our life that – if lived to its fullest – would certainly bring to us that eternity of life, peace and unity that we so need.  Perhaps one of the frustrations of this life is that – at times – we feel like a salmon pushing against the current. We know the trials and tribulations of this life, and we often want to give in to the current and lose hope, but we have the vision God has instilled within us and we continue to struggle knowing that the end result will bring us the life we seek.

And so, the sending out of those first disciples is God in Jesus choosing them to be partners with Him in spreading the message of healing and hope.  To that end he gave them authority to cast out demons and to heal infirmities a signs that the coming kingdom of God was real – real freedom, real mercy, real forgiveness, real hope.

But as I said earlier, the mission Jesus is sending them on will not be a cake walk.  They will encounter opposition; they will be faced with people who will seek to confuse them in their testimony and even get them to recant their beliefs.  They may even find that their message leads to them being rejected by their own family members.  They will encounter people who will not be willing to accept their message.

But the disciples are not to be discouraged or lose hope.  They will not find 100% success but then neither has God.  And while that grieves Him, it does not discourage him nor cause him to lose faith in us.  They are to seek for those who will listen to the message and spend time with them to teach them and to heal. To those who choose not to listen, they are to simply withdraw and move on.  They are not to judge or condemn for it is not for them or for us to decide the fate of a person’s life.  It is for them to share the message and let the person decide for themselves whether they will choose the path offered to them.

It is interesting that we may or may not have a problem with people rejecting God, but we have a real problem when people reject us – especially when they reject us in matters of our faith. And those first disciples were no different.  But Jesus reassures them by reminding them that as disciples they cannot expect to be received any better than how Jesus Himself had been received.  But they were to remember that they are precious to God and that they need never fear anything in life.  God has claimed them as His own and they will always be in His care.

Do you have concerns about sharing your faith in God with those around you? Do you fear being rejected or ostracized? Do you fear what others may say or do?  You are not alone. Every one of us who dares to confess our faith in the God revealed throughout time and seen in the person of Jesus Christ and experienced even today through God’s Spirit experiences the same things; but know this:  the God who walked with them walks with us; the God who taught them teaches us; and the God who preserved them will preserve us. Go in faith to love and serve God!